by M K Gandhi
The words pierced her like an arrow.
She shouted back: ‘Keep your house to yourself and let me go.’ I forgot myself, and the spring of compassion dried up in me.M7 I caught her by the hand, dragged the helpless woman to the gate, which was just opposite the ladder, and proceeded to open it with the intention of pushing her out.113 The tears were running down her cheeks in torrents,M8 and she cried: ‘Have you no sense of shame? Must you so far forget yourself?M9 Where am I to go? I have no parents or relatives here to harbour me. Being your wife, you think I must put up with your cuffs and kicks? For Heaven’s sake behave yourself,M10 and shut the gate. Let us not be found making scenes like this!’M11
I put on a brave face, but was really ashamed and shut the gate. If my wife could not leave me, neither could I leave her. We have had numerous bickerings, but the end has always been peace between us. The wife, with her matchless powers of endurance, has always been the victor.
Today I am in a position to narrate the incident with some detachment, as it belongs to a period out of which I have fortunately emerged. I am no longer a blind, infatuated husband, I am no more my wife’s teacher. Kasturba114 can, if she will, be as unpleasant to me today, as I used to be to her before.M12 We are tried friends, the one no longer regarding the other as the object of lust. She has been a faithful nurse throughout my illnesses, serving without any thought of reward.
The incident in question occurred in 1898, when I had no conception of115 brahmacharya. It was a time when I thought that the wife was the object of her husband’s lust, born to do her husband’s behest, rather than a helpmate, a comrade and a partner in the husband’s joys and sorrows.
It was in the year 1900 thatM13 these ideas underwent a radical transformation, and in 1906 they took concrete shape. But of this I propose to speak in its proper place. Suffice it to say that with the gradual disappearance in me of the carnal appetite, my domestic life became and is becoming more and more peaceful, sweet and happy.
Let no one conclude from this narrative of a sacred recollection that we are by any means an ideal couple,116 or that there is a complete identity of ideals between us. Kasturba117 herself does not perhaps know whether she has any ideals independently of me. It is likely that many of my doings have not her approval even today. We never discuss them, I see no good in discussing them. For she was educated neither by her parents nor by me at the time when I ought to have done it. But she is blessed withM14 one great quality to a very considerable degree, a quality which most Hindu wives possess in some measure. And it is this: willingly or unwillingly, consciously or unconsciously, she has considered herself blessedM15 in following in my footsteps, and has never stood in the way of my endeavour to lead a life of restraint. Though, therefore, there is a wide difference between us intellectually, I have always had the feeling that ours is a life of contentment, happiness and118 progress.
XI
INTIMATE EUROPEAN CONTACTS
This chapter has brought me to a stage where it becomes necessary for me to explain to the reader how this story119 is written from week to week.
When I began writing it, I had no definite plan before me. I have no120 diary or documents on which to base the story of my experiments. I write just as the SpiritM1 moves me at the time of writing. I do not claim to know definitely that all conscious thought and action on my part is directed by the Spirit.M2 But on an examination of the greatest steps that I have taken in my life, as also of those that may be regarded as the least, I think it will not be improper to say that all of them were directed by the Spirit.M3
I have not seen Him, neither have I known Him. I have made the world’s faith in God my own, and as my faith is ineffaceable, I regard that faith as amounting to experience. However, as it may be said that to describe faith as experience is to tamper with truth, it may perhaps be more correct to say that I have no word for characterizing my belief in God.M4
It is perhaps now somewhat easy to understand why121 I believe that I am writing this story as the Spirit prompts me.M5 When I began the last chapter I gave it the heading I have given to this, but as I was writing it, I realized that before I narrated my experiences with Europeans, I must write something by way of a preface.M6 This I did and altered the heading.
Now again, as I start on this chapter, I find myself confronted with a fresh problem. What things to mention and what to omit regarding the English friends of whom I am about to write is a serious problem. If things that are relevant are omitted, truth will be dimmed. And it is difficult to decide straightaway what is relevant, when I am not even sure about the relevancy of writing this story.
I understand more clearly today what I read long ago about the inadequacy122 of all autobiography as history. I know that I do not set down in this storyM7 all that I remember. Who can say how much I must give and how much omit in the interests of truth? And what would be the value in a court of law of the inadequate ex parte evidence being tendered by me of certain events in my life?123 If some busybody were to cross-examine me on the chapters already written, he could probably shed much more light on them, and if it were a hostile124 critic’s cross-examination, he might even flatter himself for having shown up ‘the hollowness of many of my pretensions’.
I, therefore, wonder for a moment whether it might not be proper to stop writing these chapters. But so long as there is no prohibition from the voiceM8 within, I must continue the writing. I must follow the sage maxim that nothing once begun should be abandoned unless it is proved to be morally wrong.
I am not writing the autobiography to please critics. Writing it is itself one of the experiments with truth. One of its objects is certainly to provide some comfort and food for reflection125 for my co-workers. Indeed I started writing it in compliance with their wishes. It might not have been written, if Jairamdas and Swami Anand126 had not persisted in their suggestion. If, therefore, I am wrong in writing the autobiography, they must share the blame.
But to take up the subject indicated in the heading. Just as I had Indians living with me as members of my family, so had IM9 English friends living with me in Durban.127 Not that all who lived with me liked it. But I persisted in having them. Nor was I wise in every case. I had some bitter experiences, but these included both Indians and Europeans. And I do not regret the experiences. In spite of them, and in spite of the inconvenience and worry that I have often caused to friends, I have not altered my conduct and friends have kindly borne with me. Whenever my contacts with strangers have been painful to friends, I have not hesitated to blame them. I hold that believers who have to see the same God in others that they see in themselves, must be able to live amongst all with sufficient detachment. And the ability to live thus can be cultivated, not by fighting shy of unsought opportunities for such contacts, but by hailing them in a spirit of service and withal keeping oneself unaffected by them.
Though, therefore, my house was full when the Boer War broke out, I received two Englishmen who had come from Johannesburg. Both were theosophists, one of them being Mr. Kitchin,128 of whom we shall have occasion to know more later. These129 friends often cost my wife bitter tears. Unfortunately she has had many such trials on my account. This was the first time that I had English friends to live with me as intimately as members of my family. I had stayed in English houses during my days in England, but there I conformed to their ways of living, and it was more or less like living in a boarding house. Here it was quite the contrary. The English friends became members of the family. They adopted the Indian style in many matters. Though the appointments in the house were in the Western fashion, the internal lifeM10 was mostly Indian. I do remember having had some difficulty in keeping them as members of the family, but I can certainly say that they had no difficulty in making themselves perfectly at home under my roof. In Johannesburg these contacts developed further than in Durban.
XII
EUROPEAN CONTACTS (CONTD.)130
In Johannesburg I had at one time as many as four131 Indian clerks, w
ho were perhaps more like my sons than clerks.M1 But even these were not enough for my work. It was impossible to do without typewriting,132 which, among us, if at all, only I knew. I taught it to two of the clerks, but they never came up to the mark because of their poor English. And then one of these I wanted to train as an accountant. I could not get out anyone from Natal, for nobodyM2 could enter the Transvaal without a permit, and for my own personal convenience I was not prepared to ask a favour of the Permit Officer.
I was at my wit’s end. Arrears were fast mounting up, so much so that it seemed impossible for me, however much I might try, to cope with professional and public work. I was quite willing to engage a European clerk, but I was not sure to get a white man or woman to serve a coloured man like myself.133 However I decided to try. I approached a typewriter’s agent whom I knew, and asked him to get me a stenographer. There were girls available, and heM3 promised to try to secure the services of one. He came across a Scotch girl called Miss Dick, who had just come fresh from Scotland. She had no objection to earning an honest livelihood, wherever available, and she was in need. So the agent sent her on to me. She immediately prepossessed me.
‘Don’t you mind serving under an Indian?’ I asked her.
‘Not at all,’ was her firm reply.
‘What salary do you expect?’
‘Would £17/10 be too much?’
‘Not too much if you will give me the work I want from you. When can you join?’
‘This moment, if you wish.’
I was very pleased and straightaway started dictating letters to her.
Before very long she became more a daughter or a sister to me than a mere stenotypist.134 I had scarcely any reason to find fault with her work. She was oftenM4 entrusted with the management of funds amounting to thousands of pounds, and she was in charge of account books. She won my complete confidence, but what was perhaps more, she confided to me her innermost thoughts and feelings. She sought my advice in the final choice of her husband, and I had the privilege to give her away in marriage. As soon as Miss Dick became Mrs. Macdonald, she had to leave me, but even after her marriage she did not fail to respond, whenever under pressure I made a call upon her.
But a permanent stenotypist was now needed in her place, and I was fortunate in getting another girl. She was Miss Schlesin,135 introduced to me by Mr. Kallenbach,136 whom the reader will know in due course. She is at present a teacher in one of the High Schools in the Transvaal.137 She was about seventeen when she came to me. Some of her idiosyncrasies were at times too much for Mr. Kallenbach and me. She had come less to work as a stenotypist than to gain experience. Colour prejudice was foreign to her temperament. She seemed to mind neither age nor experience.M5 She would not hesitate even to the point of insulting a man and telling him to his face what she thought of him. Her impetuosity often landed me in difficulties, but her open and guileless temperament removed them as soon as they were created. I have often signed without revision letters typed by her, as I considered her English to be better than mine, and had the fullest confidence in her loyalty.
Her sacrifice was great. For a considerable period she did not draw more than £6, and refused ever to receive more than £10 a month. When I urged her to take more, she would give me a scolding and say, ‘I am not here to draw a salary from you. I am here because I like to work with you and I like your ideals.’
She had once an occasion to take £40 from me, but she insisted on having it as a loan, and repaid the full amount last year.138 Her courage was equal to her sacrifice. She is one of the few women I have been privileged to come across, with a character as clear as crystal and courage that would shame a warrior. She is a grown-up139 woman now. I do not know her mind quite as well as when she was with me,M6 but my contact with this young lady will ever be for me a sacred recollection. I would therefore be false to truth if I kept back what I know about her.
She knew neither night nor day in toiling for the cause. She ventured out on errands in the darkness of the night all by herself, and angrily scouted any suggestion of an escort. Thousands of stalwart140 Indians looked up to her for guidance. When during the satyagraha days almost every one of the leaders was in jail,M7 she led the movement single-handed. She had the management of thousands,M8 a tremendous amount of correspondence and Indian Opinion in her hands, but she never wearied.
I could go on without end writing thus141 about Miss Schlesin, but I shall conclude this chapter with citing Gokhale’s estimate of her. Gokhale knew every one of my co-workers. He was pleased with many of them, and would often give his opinion of them.M9 He gave the first place to Miss Schlesin amongst all the Indian and European co-workers. ‘I have rarely met with the sacrifice, the purity and the fearlessness142 I have seen in Miss Schlesin,’ said he. ‘Amongst your co-workers, she takes the first place in my estimation.’
XIII
‘INDIAN OPINION’143
Before I proceed with the other intimate European contacts, I must note two or three items of importance. One of the contacts, however, should be mentioned at once. The appointment of Miss Dick was not enough for my purpose. I needed more assistance. I have in the earlier chapters referred to Mr. Ritch. I knew him well. He was manager in a commercial firm. He approved my suggestion of leaving the firm and getting articled under me, and he considerably lightened my burden.
About this time Sjt. Madanjit144 approached me with a proposal to start Indian Opinion and sought my advice.145 He had already been conducting a press, and I approved of his proposal. The journal was launched in 1904146 and Sjt. Mansukhlal Naazar147 became the first editor. But I had to bear the brunt of the work, having for most of the time to be practically in charge of the journal.148 Not that Sjt. Mansukhlal could not carry it on. He had been doing a fair amount of journalism whilst in India, but he would never venture to write on intricate South African problems so long as I was there. He had the greatest confidence in my discernment, and therefore threw on me the responsibility of attending to the editorial columns. The journal has been until this day a weekly. In the beginning, it used to be issued in Gujarati, Hindi, Tamil and English. I saw, however, that the Tamil and Hindi sections were a make-believe. They did not serve the purpose for which they were intended,M1 so I discontinued them as I even felt that there would be a certain amount of deception involved in their continuance.149
I had no notion that I should have to invest any money in this journal, but I soon discovered that it could not go on without my financial help. The Indians and the Europeans both knew that, though I was not avowedly150 the editor of Indian Opinion, I was virtually responsible for its conduct.M2 It would not have mattered if the journal had never been started, but to stop it after it had once been launched would have been both a loss and a disgrace.151 So I kept on pouring out my money, until ultimately I was practically sinking all my savings in it. I remember a time when I had to remit £75 each month.
But after all these years I feel that the journal has served the community well. It was never intended to be a commercial concern. So long as it was under my control, the changes in the journal were indicative of changes in my life. Indian Opinion in those days, like Young India and Navajivan today, was a mirror of part of my life. Week after week I poured out my soul in its columns, and expounded the principles and practice of satyagraha as I understood it. During ten years, that is, until 1914, excepting the intervals of my enforced restM3 in prison, there was hardly an issue of Indian Opinion without an article from me. I cannot recall a word in those articles set down without thought or deliberation, or a word of conscious exaggeration, or anything merely to please. Indeed the journal became for me a training in self-restraint, and for friends a medium through which to keep in touch with my thoughts. The critic found very little to which he could object. In fact the tone of Indian Opinion compelled the critic to put a curb on his own pen. Satyagraha would probably have been impossible without Indian Opinion. The readers looked152 forward to it for a trust-worthy account of the satyag
raha campaign as also of the real condition of Indians in South Africa. For me it became a means for the study of human nature in all its casts and shades, as I always aimed at establishing an intimate and clean bond between the editor and the readers, I was inundated with letters containing the outpourings of my correspondents’ hearts. They were friendly, critical or bitter, according to the temper of the writer. It was a fine education for me to study, digest and answer all this correspondence. It was as though the community thought audibly through this correspondence with me. It made me thoroughly understand the responsibility of a journalist, and the hold I secured in this way over the community made the future campaign workable, dignified and irresistible.
In the very first month of Indian Opinion, I realized that the sole aim of journalism should be service. The newspaper Press is a great power, but just as an unchained torrent of water submerges whole countrysides and devastates crops, even so an uncontrolled pen serves but to destroy. If the control is from without, it proves more poisonous than want of control. It can be profitable only when exercised from within. If this line of reasoning is correct, how many of the journals in the world would stand the test? But who would stop those that are useless? And who should be the judge? The useful and the useless must, like good and evil generally,153 go on together, and man must make his choice.
XIV
COOLIE LOCATIONS154 OR GHETTOES?M1
Some of the classes which render us the greatest social service, but155 which we Hindus have chosen to regard as ‘untouchables’, are relegated to remote quarters of a town or a village, called in Gujarati dhedvado, and the name has acquired a bad odour. Even so in Christian Europe the Jews were once ‘untouchables’, and the quarters156 that were assigned to them had the offensive name of ‘ghettoes’.157 In a similar way today we have become the untouchables of South Africa. It remains to be seen how far the sacrifice of Andrews158 and the magic wand of Shastri159 succeed in rehabilitating us.