FOR WHAT PURPOSE THE SATYA GRAHA WAS USED BY THE PERSON NAMED BY YOU IN SOUTH AFRICA?
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A century ago, on 10 January 1908, M. K. Gandhi, an attorney with a lucrative practice in Johannesburg, appeared before the magistrate’s court for defying an anti-Asiatic law and disobeying an order to leave the Transvaal within 48 hours. He asked for the heaviest penalty – six months’ imprisonment with hard labour – for organising defiance of this “Black Act” by the Indian community. The magistrate,however, sentenced him to two months simple imprisonment.
Gandhi gladly went to prison to enjoy “free hospitality” at “His Majesty’s hotel”, as did 150 other resisters.
That was the first of many imprisonments of Gandhi and the first non-violentchallenge to racist rule in South Africa.
Discovery of Satyagraha
Gandhi had arrived in South Africa in May 1893. A 23-year-old barrister with an unsuccessful career in India, he had accepted aone-year assignment, with a modest salary, to assist the lawyer of an Indian merchant in Natal, hoping to find better prospects in the new land.
Travelling to Pretoria soon after his arrival in Durban, he was thrown off a train, assaulted by a coachman and denied a hotel room in Johannesburg - all because of his colour. These assaults on his dignity, and the knowledge of the humiliations faced by Indians, did not dishearten him but brought out the best in his personality – a strong sense of duty and an urge to serve humanity. He decided to dedicate himself to public service and settled in South Africa.
That time, there were a little over 50,000 Indians in Natal. Of these, one-third were “indentured labourers” in plantations, mines and railways who had been brought on five-year contracts with the promise of land and rights at the end of indenture. About 30,000 were “free Indians” those who had completed indenture and their children and 5,000 belonged to the trading community.
The Indians contributed greatly to the development of Natal. But around the time of Gandhi’s arrival, the white authorities began to impose measures to deprive Indians of elementary rights. They felt that the existence of “free Indians” would undermine white hegemony. They removed the voting rights of a few Indians who had qualified.
They began to refuse trading licenses to Indians. They imposed a three-pound tax on all “free Indians” to force them to re-indenture or return to India. The position of the 12,000 Indians in the Transvaal was even worse.
Gandhi helped establish the Natal Indian Congress and the Transvaal British Indian Association to make representations to the authorities. He encouraged the youth to participate in public work and provided free legal services to indentured labourers.
He prepared many petitions and memoranda to the local authorities and to the British Government, and wrote numerous letters to the press in defence of Indian rights. On visits to India, he met many public leaders and editors and secured their support. He maintained frequent correspondence with Dadabhai Naoroji and Sir Muncherji Merwanjee Bhownaggree, Indian members of British Parliament, to enable them to intervene with the government and influence British public opinion.
He spent much of his income for public service. He launched a weekly newspaper, Indian Opinion, not only for the Indian community, but to inform the whites in South Africa, as well as people in India and Britain, of the plight of Indians and secure their understanding and support. He set up a settlement at Phoenix, a place for simple communal living, and developed his philosophy based on truth, love and non-violence.
He led an ambulance corps of more than a thousand Natal Indians in 1899-1900, at the beginning of the Anglo-Boer War to show that the Indians were prepared to fulfil the responsibilities of citizenship. In 1906, during the Zulu rebellion in Natal, he organised a stretcher-bearer corps, though his sympathies were with the Zulus. The Zulus had rebelled against a poll tax. When some violence occurred, the whites launched a manhunt, rounded up “suspects” and brutally flogged them. Fortunately, the corps was requested to treat the Zulus. Gandhi said later: “I shall never forget the lacerated backs of Zulus who had received stripes and were brought to us for nursing because no white nurse was prepared to look after them”. This experience reinforced Gandhi’s faith in non-violent resistance.
Soon after the corps disbanded, the Transvaal authorities gazetted an Ordinance requiring all Indians to register with ten finger prints, and to show the registration certificates whenever demanded by the police. Gandhi saw the ordinance as full of hatred against the Indian community and an affront to the honour of India. He decided to defy the law.