An Autobiography or the Story of My Experiments with Truth
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128 Herbert Kitchin.
129 ‘Living with’ to add before ‘These’.
130 ‘(Contd.)’ added in the English translation.
131 See Chapter XV for the names of the three clerks who have been identified.
132 ‘type’, ‘typewriting’ and ‘shorthand’, all English words in the original.
133 ‘like myself’ added in the English translation.
134 ‘I never had to speak to her in a raised voice.’ To add.
135 Sonja Schlesin (1888–1956); for her biography, see George Paxton, Sonja Schlesin: Gandhi’s South African Secretary (Scotland: Pax Books, 2006).
136 Hermann Kallenbach (1871–1945), introduced to MKG by barrister Rahim Karim Khan. For the correspondence between Kallenbach and MKG, see CWMG, vol. 96. For Kallenbach’s biographies, see Isa Sarid and Christian Bartolf, Hermann Kallenbach: Mahatma Gandhi’s Friend in South Africa (Berlin: Gandhi Information Centre, 1997) and Shimon Lev, Soul Mates: The Story of Mahatma Gandhi and Hermann Kallenbach (New Delhi: Orient Blackswan, 2012). Kallenbach and Sonja’s uncle Victor Rosenburg came from the same Lithuanian town of Neustadt, hence were acquainted. This acquaintance led to Kallenbach recommending Sonja to MKG.
137 In Navajivan of 7 August 1927 and Young India of 11 August 1927 this sentence read: ‘She is at present at the head of a girls’ school in the Transvaal.’ The correction was made at the instance of Sonja Schlesin. On 2 June 1928 she wrote, ‘Dear Mr. Gandhi, Time for just a line by this mail to ask you on no account to publish the allusions to myself in your wretched autobiography in a book-form until I send you a revised copy which I shall do by next mail. You say that I am at the head of a girls’ school. I have never had anything to do with a girls’ school and it would take many more years of experience than I possess to attain to the principalship at a high school, even if I desired such a position, which I don’t.’ She wrote further, ‘The whole thing is simply a fabrication of your own fancy. Your brain is so tired that you have just the haziest recollection of things, you jumble up facts and you unconsciously invent. I therefore seriously think you should cease writing until you are in a normal state again . . . In fact so far as your allusions to myself are concerned, at any rate, the autobiography should indeed be entitled not “The Story of My Experiments with Truth” but Illustrations of My Experiments with Untruth.”’ SN 15040. Emphasis in the original.
In a letter to Manilal and Sushila Gandhi, MKG remarked, ‘I follow what you say about Miss Schlesin. But, then, isn’t she half crazy? She has written a sort of wild letter even to me.’ CWMG, vol. 37, p. 66.
MKG issued a correction in Young India of 28 June 1928: ‘Miss Schlesin of whom mention has been made in the Autobiography chapters tells me that she is not, as I have stated, principal of a girls’ school but that she is a teacher at a High School. The error has given her pain for which I am sorry. I may at once say that she is in no way responsible for the error.’ CWMG, vol. 36, p. 468.
138 Sonja Schlesin in her letter stated that she had demanded as a matter of right and obtained a loan of £150. ‘Thus you speak of my educational loan which I had begged you to treat as a personal matter. I have the copy of a letter strongly reproving you for disclosing the matter of loan even to Rustomjee. Please omit all reference to this when the autobiography appears in a book-form. You do not even know the amount of loan—it was £150 and not £40, and I have all your acknowledgements for £110 sent to you, £40 were sent to Rustomjee.’ SN 15040. Emphasis in the original.
139 ‘unmarried’ to add.
140 In the original ‘bearded’.
141 ‘I could go on thus indefinitely writing’ in the first edition.
142 ‘and the ability’ to add.
143 For the history of Indian Opinion and its print culture, see Surendra Bhana and James D. Hunt (eds), Gandhi’s Editor: Letters of M.H. Nazar (1902–1903) (New Delhi: Promila and Co., 1898) and Isabel Hofmeyr, Gandhi’s Printing Press: Experiments in Slow Reading (Harvard University Press, 2013); for satyagraha poems published in Indian Opinion, see The Fire that Blazed in the Ocean: Gandhi and the Poems of Satyagraha in South Africa, 1909–1911, introduced and translated by Surendra Bhana and Neelima Shukla-Bhatt (New Delhi: Promila and Co., 2011).
144 Madanjit Vyavaharik, a former Bombay schoolteacher, established the International Printing Press with MKG’s help and guidance.
145 ‘and help’ to add.
146 The first issue of Indian Opinion was published on 4 June 1903; MKG took over the management of the weekly in October 1904 when Madanjit Vyavaharik returned to India; the press was shifted to Phoenix in December 1904.
147 Mansukhlal Hiralal Nazaar (1862–1906), born in Surat, studied at Elphinstone College, Bombay, had unfinished education in medicine from Grant Medical College, Bombay; first immigrated to England and then to South Africa in 1896, worked in the Indian Ambulance Corps and also served as a joint secretary of the Natal Indian Congress with Rahim Karim Khan.
148 ‘It has always been my lot to run papers from a distance.’ To add.
149 ‘and thus obtained some relief’ to add.
150 ‘nominally’ in the first edition.
151 ‘to the community’ to add.
152 ‘upon it as their own and looked’ to add.
153 ‘like good and evil generally’ added in the English translation.
154 ‘Coolie Locations’ in English in the original.
155 ‘which render us the greatest social service, but’ not in the original Navajivan of 21 August 1927. This was added in the English translation. Curiously, the Gujarati equivalent of this portion was incorporated into the first Gujarati edition as also in the Akshar Deha. It is the first instance in the Autobiography wherein a portion added in the English translation was incorporated in the Gujarati.
156 ‘quarters’ translates dhedvado. Thus the original reads, ‘and the dhedvado assigned to them had the offensive name of “ghettoes”.’
157 ‘ghetto’ English word in the original.
158 Charles Freer Andrews, ‘Deenbandhu’ (1871–1940), came to India as a member of the Cambridge Brotherhood, left the order in 1913, lifelong friend of Tagore and MKG. ‘CFA’ and his colleague, Willie Pearson, (1881–1923) went to South Africa at the instance of Gokhale to study the South African Indian question. For biographical studies of CFA, see Banarasidas Chaturvedi and Marjorie Sykes, Charles Freer Andrews: A Narrative (London: George, Allen and Unwin, 1949), Hugh Tinker, The Ordeal of Love: C.F. Andrews and India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1980), and Daniel O’Conner, A Clear Star: C.F. Andrews and India 1904–1914 (New Delhi: Chronicle Books, 2005).
159 Rt. Hon’ble Srinivas Sastri was appointed the agent-general of Government of India to South Africa in 1927.
160 ‘ancient’ added in the English translation.
161 ‘like the Hindus’ to add.
162 ‘with the result that their descendants’ added in the English translation.
163 ‘of this sin’ to add.
164 ‘and other Colonies’ to add.
165 ‘Coolie Locations’ in the original.
166 ‘carrier’ in the first edition.
167 The Indian Location, New Town, bounded by Carr Street (north), Malherbe Street (west), Goch Street (east) and Pim Street (south). New Town’s ‘Coolie Location’ was established in 1887 as Johannesburg’s first Indian settlement. When it was evacuated in 1904 its population comprised 1642 Indians, 1420 Africans and 146 ‘Cape Coloured’. Itzkin, Gandhi’s Johannesburg, p. 50.
168 ‘but unlike the other places where there were locations and where’ in the first edition.
169 ‘lever’ in the first edition.
170 This was being done under the ‘Unsanitary Area Commissioner’s Report’. See CWMG, vol. 3, p. 414. The move to confine Asiatics within specified locations was based on Government Notice No. 356 of 1903, the so-called ‘Bazar Notice’. This notice drawing on the provisions of Law No. 3 of 1885 resolved ‘that the Government take
s immediate steps to have Bazars in every town set apart in which alone Asiatics may reside and trade; the Colonial Secretary shall be charged with the duty of defining such Asiatic Bazars in consultation with the Resident Magistrate, or where such exists in Town Council or Health Board’. See CWMG, vol. 3, pp. 352–53. Accordingly, provisions were made for fifty-four such locations across the Transvaal.
171 ‘the Tamil and Telugu regions of’ to add.
172 Transvaal Indian Association.
173 ‘of’ in the first edition.
174 Jairamsingh arrived in Natal as an indentured labourer, moved to Johannesburg after completing his indenture, was president of the Transvaal Indian Association. His son Bhawani Dayal and daughter-in-law Jagrani were for some time residents of Phoenix, both were active in the Satyagraha Movement, Bhawani Dayal was the editor of the Hindi section of Indian Opinion from 28 June 1914, and president of Natal Indian Congress, 1938.
175 ‘It may be of some interest to know how the Indians used to name me.’ Added in the English translation.
176 ‘copied’ in the first edition.
177 ‘sweeter’ in the first edition.
178 ‘especially’ to add.
179 The illness acquired the name Black Death in the Middle Ages because the patients were covered with black boils that oozed blood and pus. In the original, the word ‘black’ is not used.
180 ‘dispossessing’ in the first edition.
181 ‘with this difference that their condition became worse than before’ added in the English translation.
182 MKG had repeatedly warned Dr. C. Porter, medical officer of health, Johannesburg, about the squalor and insanitary conditions of the Indian Location. On 11 February 1904 MKG wrote to Dr. Porter: ‘From what I hear, I believe the Mortality in the location has increased considerably and it seems to me that, if the present state of things is continued, the outbreak of some epidemic disease is merely a question of time.’ CWMG, vol. 4, p. 129. At MKG’s instance Dr. Porter visited the location on Saturday, 13 February 1904 and suggested that neither overcrowding nor insanitation could be helped. MKG contended and warned: ‘I feel convinced that every minute wasted over the matter merely hastens a calamity for Johannesburg and that through absolutely no fault of the British Indians.’ CWMG, vol. 4, p. 130.
183 ‘many’ to add.
184 ‘going about canvassing’ in the first edition.
185 This was on the evening of 18 March 1904.
186 The Emergency Hospital, as it came to be called, was in a house marked as ‘Stand 36’. Itzkin, Gandhi’s Johannesburg, p. 51.
187 MKG also informed Dr. Porter the same evening and requested for an appropriate place to set up a temporary hospital, urged the Town Council to do its duty and assured him that the Indian community would provide both the men and money required to assist in the effort.
188 Dr. William Godfrey, son of Subhan Godfrey, acquired a medical degree in Calcutta and later studied at Glasgow.
189 The original does not have the name of Gunvantrai Desai. It states ‘and two others’.
190 On 9 March 1905 at a farewell meeting for England-bound Ritch MKG recalled, ‘He insisted upon tending the Indian plague-patients, regardless of the possible consequence to himself.’ CWMG, vol. 4, p. 370.
191 ‘four’ to add.
192 ‘oh for the spirit’ in the first edition.
193 ‘The night passed somehow.’ To add at the beginning of this paragraph.
194 This nurse was Emily Blake (1877–1904), daughter of James and Sarah of Richmond, having worked in Western Fever Hospital, London, came to South Africa in 1901. According to the Rand Plague Report of 1905, she was the only nurse to have succumbed to plague while serving patients. She died on 31 March 1904. See Tim Capon, ‘Plague, Gandhi and the Parliamentary Clerk’s Daughter’, www.theheritageportal.co.za. Published on 9 November 2005, accessed on 3 April 2016.
195 ‘nurse’ and ‘brandy’ English words in the original.
196 The first case of plague death was on 19 March and the last on 9 July. On 16 July 1904 the epidemic was announced to be over. There were 113 identified cases of which sixty-seven (sixty-five fatal) were of pneumonic plague, thirty-eight (nine fatal) of bubonic plague, six (all fatal) of mixed variety and two (both fatal) of septicemia.
197 ‘lazaretto’ English word in the original. It also provides an explanation, which translates as ‘a hospice for patients of contagious diseases’.
198 ‘three’ in the original.
199 ‘diffidence in’ in the first edition.
200 ‘diffidence’ in the first edition.
201 ‘I cannot efface’ in the first edition.
202 ‘take note of’ in the first edition.
203 Letter of 5 April 1904. See CWMG, vol. 4, pp. 159–60.
204 Henry Solomon Leon Polak came to South Africa in 1903 and was assistant editor of the Transvaal Critic when he met MKG at Ada Bissick’s vegetarian restaurant. MKG stood witness to Henry Polak and Millie Graham Downs’s marriage in 1905 and the couple lived with the Gandhis in their home at Albermarle Street and later in a four-roomed house in Bellevue East. Polak at the instance of MKG qualified himself as an attorney and helped in his work, visited India and England to propagate the case of South African Indians and wrote The Indians of South Africa: Helots within the Empire and how They are Treated (Madras: G.A. Natesan & Co., 1909). He succeeded Herbert Kitchin as the editor of Indian Opinion and was imprisoned during the satyagraha in South Africa. He also wrote, along with H.N. Brailsford and Lord Pethick-Lawrence, a biographical work, Mahatma Gandhi (London: Odham Press, 1949).
205 Rev. Joseph Doke (1861–1913), Baptist missionary, married to Agnes Biggs with whom he had four children: Willey, Clement, Comber and Olive. MKG recuperated at the Doke household after an assault by Mir Alam and others on 10 February 1908. Doke also wrote two romances, The Secret City: The Romance of Karoo (1913) and The Queen of the Secret City (1916).
206 Albert West along with his wife, mother and sister Ada (Devi) West joined the Phoenix Settlement and was arrested during the Satyagraha Movement.
207 ‘plague’ to add.
208 ‘so as to keep them as far away from danger as possible’ to add.
209 ‘one early morning’ in the first edition.
210 ‘might’ in the first edition.
211 ‘if you can come out.’ To add.
212 ‘regarding plague measures’ added in the English translation.
213 All inhabitants of the Indian location were removed to the tent camp on 30 March 1904.
214 ‘bank’ in the original.
215 ‘My bank manager I knew very well.’ In the first edition.
216 ‘have to deposit with him these moneys’ in the first edition.
217 According to Eric Itzkin the origins of Soweto go back to the evacuation camp at Klipspruit. Gandhi’s Johannesburg, p. 50.
218 The Transvaal Critic, established by Herbert Hess.
219 ‘and we’ in the first edition.
220 ‘must have’ to add.
221 ‘not made himself sure’ in the first edition.
222 Between 8 and 25 June 1904 MKG made two visits to Durban; this incident is from that period.
223 ‘station’ in the original. This was the Old Park Station in Eloff Street.
224 ‘I should be sure’ in the first edition.
225 John Ruskin, Unto This Last, first published in December 1860 in the monthly journal Cornhill Magazine in four essays. The title comes from the ‘Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard’: ‘I will give unto this last, even as unto thee.’
226 ‘little time left me for reading’ in the first edition.
227 ‘or unattempted’ to add.
228 This is a paraphrase and not a complete translation. It was published in Indian Opinion in instalments during May–July 1908. See CWMG, vol. 8.
229 ‘(the welfare all)’, as explanation of the term Sarvodaya, added in the English translation.
230 ‘great book’ translates granth ratna, literally, ‘gem of a book’.
231 Hereafter the title Sarvodaya is used in Gujarati.
232 ‘and the handicraftsman’ added in the English translation.
233 Chhaganlal Khushalchand Gandhi, son of MKG’s cousin, went to South Africa in 1902 and became a founder member and joint manager of the Phoenix and editor of the Gujarati Indian Opinion in 1908. MKG sent him to England to study law in 1911, which he could not complete. He was among the sixteen pioneering satyagrahis who left Phoenix on 15 September 1913 and crossed the Transvaal border, and was sentenced to three months with hard labour. After return to India he joined the Satyagraha Ashram and worked as its manager for a time.
234 ‘machineer’ in the original.
235 Uma Dhupelia-Mesthrie lists twelve such persons, who were day workers. Anandlal Gandhi, Virji Damodardas Mehta, Mr. Mannering, Mr. Orchard, Hemchand, Kababhai, Ramnath, Behary, Muthu, Rajcoomar, Harilal Thakkar and Brian Gabriel. Gandhi’s Prisoner? The Life of Gandhi’s Son Manilal (New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2004), p. 69.
236 ‘After some days,’ to add.
237 ‘The late’ added. The original has Sheth Parsi Rustomji.
238 ‘godown’ English word in the original.
239 Isabel Hofmeyr has described Phoenix as part of an experiment in segregated self-sufficiency. ‘While some accounts portray Phoenix as a remote and isolated outpost, it formed part of a crowded ideological hinterland where African American inspired Zulu nationalists, Protestant evangelists, Arya Samajists, and Bombay Muslims intersected. The International Printing Press comprised but one element in this mosaic of projects in which ideas of self-help, improvement, and uplift from both black Atlantic and Indian Ocean encountered each other.’ Gandhi’s Printing Press, p. 55. The other neighbouring institute was at Ohlange, established in June 1901 by John Langalibalele Dube; it also comprised a printing press from which his newspaper Ilanga Lase Natal: Ipe pa la Bantu (Sun of Natal: The Black People’s Paper) was published. Hofmeyr concludes, ‘The hinterland around Phoenix constituted a brave new world of evangelical experiment comprising proselytizing Trappists, mid-Western Protestants, Zulu internationalists, Bombay Muslim holy men and Punjabi Aryasamajists.’ P. 59.