I have no idea when the phrase ‘passive resistance* was first used in English and by whom. But among the English people, whenever a small minority did not ap¬ prove of some obnoxious piece of legislation, instead of rising in rebellion they took the passive or milder step of not submitting to the law and inviting the penalties of /l3uch non-submission upon their heads. When the British Parliament passed the Education Act some years ago, the Non-conformists offered passive resistance under the leader¬ ship of Dr Clifford. The great movement of the English women for the vote was~alsoJmown as passive resistance. ^It wasTn^vievToT these two cases that Mr Hosken described passive resistance as a weapon of the weak or the voteless. Dr Clifford and his friends had the vote, but as they were in a minority in the Parliament, they could not prevent the passage of the Education Act. That is to say, they were weak in numbers. Not that they were averse to the use of arms for the attainment of their aims, but they had no hope of succeeding by force of arms. And in a well-regula¬ ted state, recourse to arms every now and then in order to secure popular rights would defeat its own purpose. Again some of the Non-conformists would generally object to taking up arms even if it was a* practical proposition. The suffragists had no franchise rights. They were weak in numbers as well as in physical force. Thus their case lent colour to Mr Hosken’s observations. The suffragist movement did not eschew the use of physical force. Some suffragists fired buildings and even assaulted men. I do not think they ever intended to kill any one. But they did intend to thrash people when an opportunity occurred, and even thus to make things hot for them.
But brute force had absolutely no place in the Indian movement in any circumstance, and the reader will see, as we proceed, that no matter how badly they suffered, the Satyagrahis never used physical force, and that too although there were occasions when they were in a posi¬ tion to use it effectively. Again, although the Indians had no franchise and were weak, these considerations had nothing to do with the organization of Satyagraha. This is not to say, that the Indians would have taken to Satyagraha SATYAGRAHA V. PASSIVE RESISTANCE even if they had possessed arms or the franchise. Probably there would not have been any scope for Satya- graha if they had the franchise. If they had arms, the opposite party would have thought twice before anta¬ gonizing them. One can therefore understand, that people who possess arms would have fewer occasions for offering Satyagraha. My point is that I can definitely assert that in planning the Indian movement there never was the slightest thought given to the possibility or otherwise of offering armed resistance. Satyagraha is sou? force pure and simple, and whenever and to whatever extent there is room for the use of arms or physical force or brute force, there and to that extent is there so much less possibility for soul force. These are purely antagonistic forces in my view, and I had full realization of this antagonism even at the time of the advent of Satyagraha.
We will not stop here to consider whether these views are right or wrong. We are only concerned to note the distinction between passive resistance and Satyagraha, and we have seen that there is a great and fundamental difference between the two. If without understanding this, those who call themselves either passive resisters or Satya- grahis believe both to be one and the same thing, there would be injustice to both leading to untoward consequ¬ ences. The result of our using the phrase ‘passive resistance5 in South Africa was, not that people admired us by ascrib¬ ing to us the bravery and the self-sacrifice of the suffragists but we were mistaken to be a danger to person and property which the suffragists were, and even a generous friend like Mr Hosken imagined us to be weak. The power of suggestion is such, that a man at last becomes what he believes himself to be. If we continue to believe ourselves and let others believe, that we are weak and helpless and therefore offer passive resistance, our resistance would never make us strong, and at the earliest opportunity we would give up passive resistance as a weapon of the weak. On the other hand if we are Satyagrahis and offer Satya¬ graha believing ourselves to be strong, two clear consequ¬ ences result from it. Fostering the idea of strength, we grow stronger and stronger every day. With the increase in our SATYAGRAHA IN SOUTH AFRICA strength, our Satyagraha too becomes more effective and we would never be casting about for an opportunity to give it up. Again, while there is no scope for love in passive resistance, on the other hand not only has hatred no place in Satyagraha but is a positive breach of its ruling prin¬ ciple. While in passive resistance there is a scope for the use of arms when a suitable occasion arrives, in Satyagraha physical force is forbidden even in the most favourable circumstances. Passive resistance is often looked upon as a preparation for the use of force while Satyagraha can never be utilized as such. Passive resistance may be offered side by side with the use of arms. Satyagraha and brute force, being each a negation of the other, can never go together. Satyagraha may be offered to one’s nearest and dearest; passive resistance can never be offered to them unless of course they have ceased to be dear and become an object of hatred to us. In passive resistance there is / always present an idea of harassing the other party and there is a simultaneous readiness to undergo any hardships entailed upon us by such activity; while in Satyagraha there is not the remotest idea of injuring the opponent. Satyagraha postulates the conquest of the adver¬ sary by suffering in one’s own person.
These are the distinctions between the two forces. But I do not wish to suggest that the merits, or if you like, the defects of passive resistance thus enumerated are to be seen in every movement which passes by that name. But it can be shown that these defects have been noticed in many cases of passive resistance. Jesus Christ indeed has been acclaimed as the prince of passive resisters but I submit in that case passive resistance must mean Satya¬ graha and Satyagraha alone. There are not many cases in history of passive resistance in that sense. One of these is that of the Doukhobors of Russia cited by Tolstoy. The phrase passive resistance was not employed to denote the patient suffering of oppression by thousands of devout Christians in the early days of Christianity. I would there¬ fore class them as Satyagrahis. And if their conduct be described as passive resistance, passive resistance becomes synonymous with Satyagraha. It has been my object in the SATYAGRAHA V. PASSIVE RESISTANCE present chapter to show that Satyagraha is essentially different from what people generally mean in English by the phrase ‘passive resistance.5 While enumerating the characteristics of passive resistance, I had to sound a note of warning in order to avoid injustice being done to those who had recourse to it. It is also necessary to point out that I do not claim for people calling themselves Satyagrahis all the merits which I have described as being characteristic of Satyagraha. I am not unaware of the fact that many a Satyagrahi so call¬ ed is an utter stranger to them. Many suppose Satyagraha to be a weapon of the weak. Others have said that it is a preparation for armed resistance. But I must repeat once more that it has not been my object to describe Satya¬ grahis as they are but to set forth the implications of Satya¬ graha and the characteristics of Satyagrahis as they ought to be.
In a word, we had to invent a new term clearly to denote the movement of the Indians in the Transvaal and to prevent its being confused with passive resistance gener¬ ally so called. I have tried to show in the present chapter the various principles which were then held to be a part and parcel of the connotation of that term.
CHAPTER XIV CHAPTER XIV DEPUTATION TO ENGLAND In the Transvaal itself we took all necessary measures for resisting the Black Act such as approaching the Local Government with memorials, etc. The Legislative Council deleted the clause affecting women but the rest of the Ordinance was passed practically in the shape in which it was first drafted. The spirit of the community was then high and having closed its ranks it was unanimous in oppo¬ sition to the Ordinance. No one therefore was despondent. We however still adhered to the resolution to exhaust all appropriate constitutional remedies in the first instance. The Transvaal was yet a Grown Colony, so that the Imper¬ ial Government was responsible for its legislation as well as its administration. Therefore the royal assent to mea¬ sures passed by its legislature was not a mere formality, but very often it might so happen that the King, as advised by his ministers, might withhold his assent to such mea¬ sures if they were found to be in conflict with the spirit of the British constitution. On the other hand, in the case of a Colony enjoying responsible government the royal assent to measures passed by its legislature is more often than not a matter of course.
I submitted to the community that if a deputation was to go to England, it was as well that they realized their responsibility in the matter still more fully, and with this end in view I placed three suggestions before our Association. First, although we had taken pledges at the meeting in the Empire Theatre, we should once again obtain individual pledges from leading Indians, so that if they had given way to doubt or weakness, they would be found out. One of the reasons advanced by me in sup¬ port of this suggestion was, that if the deputation was backed up by Satyagraha, they would then have no fears and could boldly inform the Secretary of State for India DEPUTATION TO ENGLAND and the Secretary of State for the Colonies about the resolution of the community. Secondly, arrangements for meeting the expenses of the deputation must be made in advance. And thirdly, the maximum number of members should be fixed. I made this last suggestion in order to correct the current misapprehension that a large number of members would be able to put in more work, and to bring this idea into relief that the members should join the deputation not because it was an honour to them but with a single-minded devotion to the cause. The three suggestions were accepted. Signatures were taken. Many signed the pledge, but still I saw even among those who had orally pledged themselves at the meeting, there were some who hesitated to sign it. When once a man has pled¬ ged himself he need not hesitate to pledge himself a hundred times. But yet it is no uncommon experience to find men weakening in regard to pledges deliberately taken and getting perplexed when asked to put down a verbal pledge in black and white. The necessary funds, too, were found. The greatest difficulty however was encountered in selecting the personnel of the deputation. I was to go, but who would go with me? The Committee took much time in arriving at a decision. Many a night passed, and we had a full experience of the bad habits which are generally prevalent in associations. Some proposed to cut the Gordian knot by asking me to go alone, but I flatly declined. There was for all practical purposes no Hindu-Muslim problem in South Africa. But it could not be claimed that there were no differences between the two sections and if these differences never assumed an acute form, that may have been to some extent due to the peculiar conditions in South Africa, but was largely and definitely due to the leaders having worked with devotion and frankness and thus given a fine lead to the community. My advice was that there must be a Musalman gentleman going with me, and that the personnel should be limited to two. But the Hindus at once said that as I represented the Indian community as a whole, there should be a representative of Hindu interests. Some even said that there should be one Konkani Musal¬ man, one Meman, one Patidar, one Anavala and so on.
SATYAGRAHA IN SOUTH AFRICA At last, all understood the real position, and only two of us, Mr H.O. Ali and myself were duly elected.
H. O. Ali could be considered a semi-Malay. His father was an Indian Musalman and his mother a Malay. His mother tongue, we might say, was Dutch. But he had been so well educated in English that he could speak Dutch and English equally well. He had also cultivated the art of writing to the newspapers. He was a member of the Transvaal British Indian Association and he had long been taking part in public affairs. He spoke Hindu¬ stani, too, freely.
We set to work as soon as we reached England. We got printed the memorial to be submitted to the Secretary of State which we had drafted in the steamer on our way to England. Lord Elgin was Secretary of State for the Colonies and Lord (then Mr) Morley Secretary of State for India. We met Dadabhai and through him the British Committee of the Indian National Congress. We placed our case before it and signified our intention to seek the co¬ operation of all the parties, as advised by Dadabhai. The Committee approved of our policy. Similarly we met Sir Muncherji Bhownuggree, who also was of much help. He as well as Dadabhai advised us to secure the Co-oper¬ ation of some impartial and well-known Anglo-Indian who should introduce our deputation to Lord Elgin. Sir Munch¬ erji suggested some names, too, one of which was that of Sir Lepel Griffin. Sir W. W. Hunter was now no longer alive; or else on account of his deep knowledge of the condition of Indians in South Africa he would have led the deputation himself or induced some influential member of the House of Lords to do so.
We met Sir Lepel Griffin. He was opposed to current political movements in India, but he was much interested in this question and agreed to lead the deputation not for the sake of courtesy but for the justice and righteous¬ ness of our cause. He read all the papers and became familiar with the problem. We likewise interviewed other Anglo-Indians, Members of Parliament, and as many others of any importance as were within our reach. The deputation waited upon Lord Elgin who heard everything DEPUTATION TO ENGLAND with attention, expressed his sympathy, referred to his own difficulties and yet promised to do for us all he could. The same deputation met Mr Morley who also declared his sympathy and whose observations in replying to the deputation I have already summarized. Sir William Wedderburn was instrumental in calling a meeting of the Committee of the House of Commons for Indian Affairs in the drawing-room of the House and we placed our case before them too as best we could. We met Mr Redmond, the then leader of the Irish Party. In short, we met as many members of Parliament as we could, irrespective of the party to which they belonged. The British Committee of the Indian National Congress was of course very help¬ ful. But according to English customs men belonging to a certain party and holding certain views only would join it, while there were many others who had nothing to do with the Committee but yet rendered us all possible assis¬ tance. We determined to organize a standing committee upon which all these could come together and thus be even more useful in watching over our interests and men of all parties liked our idea.
The burden of carrying on the work of an institution chiefly falls upon its secretary. The secretary should be such, that not only does he have full faith in the aims and the objects of the institution, but he should be able to devote nearly all his time to the achievement of these aims and has great capacity for work. Mr L. W. Ritch, who belonged to South Africa, was formerly articled to me and was now a student for the bar in London, satisfied all the requirements. He was there in England and was also desirous of taking up the work. We therefore ventured to form the South Africa British Indian Committee.
In England and other Western countries there is one, in my view, barbarous custom of inaugurating movements at dinners. The British Premier delivers in the Mansion House on the ninth of November an important speech in which he adumbrates his programme for the year and publishes his own forecast of the future, and which there¬ fore attracts universal notice. Cabinet ministers among others are invited to dinner by the Lord Mayor of London, SATYAGRAHA IN SOUTH AFRICA and when the dinner is over, bottles of wine are uncorked, all present drink to the health of the host and the guest, and speeches too are made while this merry business is in progress. The toast for the British Cabinet is proposed, and the Premier makes the important speech referred to in reply to it. And as in public, so in private, the person with whom some important conversations are to be held is, as a matter of custom, invited to dinner, and the topic of the day is broached either at or after dinner. We too had! to observe this custom not once but quite a number of times, although of course we never touched meat or liquor. We thus invited our principal supporters to lunch. About a hundred covers were laid. The idea was to tender our thanks to our friends, to bid them good-bye and at the same time to constitute the Standing Committee. Here too, speeches were made, as usual, after dinner, and the Committee was also organized. We thus obtained greater publicity for our movement.
After a stay in England of about six weeks we returned to South Africa. When we reached Madeira, we received a cablegram from Mr Ritch to the effect that Lord Elgin had declared that he was unable without further considera¬ tion to advice His Majesty the King that the Transvaal Asiatic Ordinance should be brought into operation. Our joy knew no bounds. The steamer took about a fortnight to reach Cape Town from Madeira and we had quite a good time of it during these days and built many castles in the air about the coming redress of many more grievances. But the ways of Providence are inscrutable. We shall see in the next chapter how the castles we had laboriously built toppled down and passed into nothingness.
But I must place one or two sacred reminiscences on record before closing this chapter. We had utilized every single minute of our time in England. The sending of a large number of circulars etc., could not be done single- handed, and we were sorely in need of outside help. Money indeed does bring us this kind of help, but my experi¬ ence ranging over forty years has taught me that assistance thus purchased can never compare with purely voluntary service. Fortunately for us we had many volunteer helpers.
DEPUTATION TO ENGLAND Many an Indian youth who was in England for study surrounded us and some of them helped us day and night without any hope of reward or fame. I do not remember that any of them ever refused to do anything as being beneath his dignity, be it the writing of addresses or the fixing of stamps or the posting of letters. But there was an English friend named Symonds who cast all these into the shade. Whom the Gods love die young and so did this benevolent Englishman. I first met him in South Africa. He had been in India. When he was in Bombay in 1897, he moved fearlessly among the Indians affected by the plague and nursed them. It had become a second nature with him not to be daunted by death when ministering to sufferers from infectious diseases. He was perfectly free from any race or colour prejudice. He was independent in temperament. He believed that truth is always with the minority. It was this belief of his which first drew him to me in Johannesburg, and he often humorously assured me that he would withdraw his support of me if he ever found me in a majority, as he was of opinion that truth itself is corrupted in the hands of a majority. He had read very widely. He was private secretary to Sir George Farrar, one of the millionaires of Johannesburg. He was an expert stenographer. He happened to be in England when we were there. I did not know where he was, but the noble Englishman found us out as our public work had secured for us newspaper advertisement. He expressed his willingness to do for us anything he could. £I will work as a servant if you like,5 he said, £and if you need a stenographer, you know you can scarcely come across the like of me.’ We were in need of both these kinds of help, and I am not exaggerating when I say that this Englishman toiled for us day and night without any payment. He was always on the typewriter till twelve or one o’clock at night. Symonds would carry messages and post letters, always with a smile curling round his lips. His monthly income was about forty-five pounds, but he spent it all in helping his friends and others. He was about thirty years of age. He was un¬ married and wanted to remain so all his life. I pressed him hard to accept some payment, but he flatly refused SATYAGRAHA IN SOUTH AFRICA and said, T would be failing in my duty if I accepted any remuneration for this service.’ I remember that on the last night he was awake till three o’clock while we were wind¬ ing up our business and packing our things. He parted with us the next day after seeing us off on the steamer, and a sad parting it was. I have often experienced that benevolence is by no means peculiar to the brown skin.
For the benefit of young aspirants after public work, I note down the fact that we were so punctilious in keep¬ ing the accounts of the deputation that we preserved even such trifling vouchers as the receipts for the money spent in the steamers upon, say, soda water. Similarly we pre¬ served the receipts for telegrams. I do not remember to have entered a single item under sundries when writing the detailed accounts. As a rule, sundries did not figure in our accounts at all, and if they did they were intended to cover a few pennies or shillings the manner of whose spending we could not recall at the time of writing the accounts at the end of the day.
I have clearly observed in this life the fact that we become trustees or responsible agents from the time that we reach years of discretion. So long as we are with our parents, we must account to them for moneys or business they entrust to us. They may be sure of our rectitude and may not ask us for accounts, but that does not affect our responsibility. When we become independent house¬ holders, there arises the responsibility to our family. We are not the sole proprietors of our acquisitions; our family is a co-sharer of them along with ourselves. WeTnust account for every single pie for their sake. If such is our responsi¬ bility in private life, in public life it is all the greater. I have observed that voluntary workers are apt to behave as if they were not bound to render a detailed account of the business or moneys with which they are entrusted be¬ cause like Caesar’s wife they are above suspicion. This is sheer nonsense, as the keeping of accounts has nothing whatever to do with trustworthiness or the reverse. Keep¬ ing accounts is an independent duty, the performance of which is essential to clean work, and if the leading workers of the institution which we voluntarily serve do not ask us CROOKED POLICY CROOKED POLICY for accounts out of a sense of false courtesy or fear, they too are equally to blame. If a paid servant is bound to account for work done and money spent by him, the volunteer is doubly bound to do so, for his very work is as a reward to him. This is a very important matter, and as I know that this is generally not sufficiently attended to in many institutions, I have ventured to take up so much space here in adverting to the subject.
chapter xv CROOKED POLICY As soon as we landed at Cape Town, and more so when we reached Johannesburg, we saw that we had over¬ rated the Madeira cablegram* Mr Ritch who sent it was not responsible for this. He cabled only what he had heard about the measure being disallowed. As we have already observed, the Transvaal was then, that is to say in 1906, a Crown Colony. Crown Colonies are represented in Eng¬ land by agents one of whose duties it is to instruct the Secretary of State for the Colonies in all matters affecting Colonial interests. The Transvaal was then represented by Sir Richard Solomon, the noted lawyer of South Africa. Lord Elgin had disallowed the Black Act in consultation with him. Responsible government was to be conferred on the Transvaal on January 1, 1907. Lord Elgin there¬ fore assured Sir Richard that if an identical measure was passed by the Transvaal legislature constituted after the grant of responsible government, it would not be refused the royal assent. But so long as the Transvaal was a Crown Colony, the Imperial Government would be held directly responsible for such class legislation, and as racial discrimination was a departure from the fundamental principles of the British Empire, he could not but advise His Majesty to disallow the measure in question.
If the measure was to be thus disallowed only in name and if the Transvaal Europeans could at the same time have their own way, Sir Richard Solomon had no SATYAGRAHA IN SOUTH AFRICA reason to object to such an excellent arrangement. I have characterized this as crooked policy, but I believe it could be given a still harsher name with perfect justice. The Imperial Government is directly responsible for the legis¬ lation of Grown Colonies, and there is no place in its con¬ stitution for discrimination on the ground of race or colour. So far so good. One can also understand that the Imperial Government could not all at once disallow measures passed by the legislatures of Colonies enjoying responsible govern¬ ment. But to hold private conferences with Colonial agents and in advance to promise the royal assent to legislation which is in open violation of the Imperial Constitution, — what is this if it is not a breach of faith and an injustice to those whose rights are thus pilfered? Really speaking Lord Elgin by his assurance encouraged the Transvaal Europeans in their anti-Indian activities. If he wanted to do this, he ought to have told the Indian deputation so in plain terms. As a matter of fact the Empire cannot escape responsibility even for the legislation of Colonies enjoying responsible government. Even such Colonies are bound to accept the fundamental principles of the British Constitution. As for example no such Colony can