In England itself Gokhale had a foretaste of what South Africa was like. The Secretary of State for India had informed the Union Government of Gokhale’s high rank, his position in the empire etc. But who would think of booking his passage or reserving a good cabin for him? Gokhale had such delicate health that he needed a com¬ fortable cabin where he could enjoy some privacy. The authorities of the Steamship Company roundly stated that there was no such cabin. I do not quite remember whether it was Gokhale or some friend of his who informed the India Office about this. A letter was addressed from the India Office to the directors of the Company and the best cabin was placed at Gokhale’s disposal while none was available before. Good came out of this initial evil. The captain of the steamer received instructions to treat Gokhale well, and consequently he had a happy and peace¬ ful voyage to South Africa. Gokhale was as jolly and humo¬ rous as he was serious. He participated in the various games and amusements on the steamer, and thus became very popular among his fellow passengers. The Union Government offered Gokhale their hospitality during his stay at Pretoria and placed the State railway saloon at his disposal. He consulted me on the point and then accept¬ ed the offer.
Gokhale landed at Gape Town on October 22, 1912. His health was very much more delicate than I had expect¬ ed. He restricted himself to a particular diet, and he could not endure much fatigue. The programme I had framed gokhale’s tour was much too heavy for him, and I therefore cut it down as far as possible. Gokhale was ready to go through the whole programme as it originally stood if no modification was possible. I deeply repented of my folly in drawing up an onerous programme without consulting him. Some changes were made, but much had to be left as it was. I had not grasped the necessity of securing absolute privacy for Gokhale, and I had the greatest difficulty in securing it. Still I must in all humility state in the interests of truth that as I was fond of and proficient in waiting upon the sick and the elderly, as soon as I had realized my folly I revised all the arrangements so as to be able to give Gokhale great privacy and peace. I acted as his secretary throughout the tour. The volunteers, one of whom was Mr Kallenbach, were wide awake, and I do not think Gokhale underwent any discomfort or hardship for want of help. It was clear that we should have a great meet¬ ing in Gape Town. I have already written about the Schreiners. I requested Senator W. P. Schreiner, the head of that illustrious family, to take the chair on the occasion and he was good enough to consent. There was a big meet¬ ing attended by a large number of Indians and Europeans.
Mr Schreiner welcomed Gokhale in well chosen words and expressed his sympathy with the Indians of South Africa. Gokhale made a speech, concise, full of sound judg¬ ment, firm but courteous, which pleased the Indians and fascinated the Europeans. In fact Gokhale won the hearts of the variegated people of South Africa on the very day that he set foot on South African soil.
From Cape Town Gokhale was to go to Johannesburg by a railway journey of two days. The Transvaal was the the field of battle. As we went from Cape Town, the first large frontier station of the Transvaal was Klerksdorp. As each of these places had a considerable population of Indians, Gokhale had to stop and attend a meeting at Klerksdorp, as well as at the intermediate stations of Potchefstroom and Krugersdorp, between Klerksdorp and Johannesburg. He therefore left Klerksdorp by a special train. The Mayors of these places presided at the meetings, and at none of the stations did the train halt longer than SATYAGRAHA IN SOUTH AFRICA one or two hours. The train reached Johannesburg pun¬ ctually to the miniute. On the platform there was a dais specially erected for the occasion and covered with rich carpets. Along with other Europeans there was present Mr Ellis the Mayor of Johannesburg who placed his car at Gokhale’s disposal during his stay in the Golden City. An address was presented to Gokhale on the station itself. Addresses had of course been presented to him everywhere. The Johannesburg address was engraved on a solid heart- shaped plate of gold from the Rand mounted jon Rho¬ desian teak. On the plateTwas a map oT India ^and^*Geylon ahdTU^was flanked on either side by two gold tablets, one bearing an illustration of the Taj Mahal and the other a characteristic Indian scene. Indian scenes were also beauti¬ fully carved on the woodwork. Introducing all present to Gokhale, reading the address, the reply, and receiving other addresses which were taken as read, — all this did not take more than twenty minutes. The address was short enough to be read in five minutes. Gokhale’s reply did not occupy more than another five minutes. The volun¬ teers maintained such excellent order, that there were no more persons on the platform than it was expected easily to accommodate. There was no noise. There was a huge crowd outside; yet no one was at all hampered in com¬ ing and going.
Gokhale was put up in a fine house belonging to Mr Kallenbach perched on a hill top five miles from Johan¬ nesburg. Gokhale liked the place immensely as the scenery there was pleasant, the atmosphere soothing, and the house though simple was full of art. A special office was hired in the city for Gokhale to receive all visitors, where there were three rooms, a private chamber for Gokhale, a drawing room, and a waiting room for visitors. Gokhale was taken to make private calls upon some distinguished men in the city. A private meeting of leading Europeans was organized so as to give Gokhale a thorough under¬ standing of their standpoint. Besides this a banquet was held in Gokhale’s honour to which were invited 400 persons including about 150 Europeans. Indians were admitted by tickets, costing a guinea each, an arrangement which gokhale’s tour gokhale’s tour enabled us to meet the expenses of the banquet. The menu was purely vegetarian and there were no wines. The cooking was attended to by volunteers. It is difficult to give an adequate idea of this here. Hindus and Musal- mans in South Africa do not observe restrictions as to inter¬ dining. But the vegetarians do not take meat. Some of the Indians were Christians, with whom I was as intimate as with the rest. These Christians are mostly the descendants of indentured labourers and many of them make their living by serving in hotels as waiters. It was with the assis¬ tance of these latter that culinary arrangements could be made on such a large scale with about 15 items on the bill of fare. It was a novel and wonderful experience for the Europeans of South Africa to sit at dinner with so many Indians on the same table, to have a purely vegetarian menu and to do without wines altogether. For many of them all the three features were new while two features were new for all.
To this gathering Gokhale addressed his longest and most important speech in South Africa. In preparing this speech he subjected us to a very full examination. He declared that it had been his lifelong practice not to dis¬ regard the standpoint of local men and even to try to meet it as far as it was in his power, and therefore he asked me what I would like him to say from my own point of view. I was to put this on paper and undertake not to be offended even if he did not utilize a single word or idea from my draft, which should be neither too short nor too long, and yet which should not omit a single point of any consequ¬ ence. I may say at once that Gokhale did not make any use of my language at all. Indeed I would never expect such a master of the English language as Gokhale was to take up my phraseology. I cannot even say that Gokhale adopted my ideas. But as he acknowledged the importance of my views, I took it for granted that he must have somehow incorporated my ideas into his utterances. Indeed Gokhale’s train of thought was such, that one could never tell whether or not any room had there been allowed to one’s own ideas. I listened to every speech made by Gokhale, but I do not remember a single occasion when I could have SATYAGRAHA IN SOUTH AFRICA wished that he had not expressed a certain idea or had omitted a certain adjective. The clearness, firmness and urbanity of Gokhale’s utterances flowed from his indefat¬ igable labour and unswerving devotion to truth.
In Johannesburg we also had to hold a mass meeting of Indians only. I have always insisted on speaking either in the mother tongue or else in Hindustani, the lingua franca of India, and thanks to this insistence I have had much facility in establishing close relations with the Indi¬ ans in South Africa. I was therefore anxious that Gokhale too should speak to the Indians in Hindustani. I was aware of Gokhale’s views on the subject. Broken Hindi would not do for him, and therefore he would speak either in Mara¬ thi or in English. It seemed artificial to him to speak in Marathi in South Africa and even if he did speak in Marathi, his speech would have to be translated into Hindu¬ stani for the benefit of Gujarati and North Indian members of the audience. And that being so, where was the harm if he spoke in English? Fortunately for me, I had one argu¬ ment which Gokhale would accept as conclusive in favour of his making a Marathi speech. There were many Kon- kani Musalmans as well as a few Maharashtra Hindus in Johannesburg, all of whom were eager to hear Gokhale speak in Marathi, and who had asked me to request Gokha¬ le to speak in their mother tongue. I told Gokhale that these friends would be highly pleased if he spoke in Marathi and I would translate his Marathi into Hindu¬ stani. Gokhale burst into laughter and said, T have quite fathomed your knowledge of Hindustani, and accomp¬ lishment upon which you cannot exactly be congratulated. But now you propose to translate Marathi into Hindu¬ stani. May I know where you acquired such profound knowledge of Marathi?’ I replied, ‘What is true of my Hindustani is equally true of my Marathi. I cannot speak a single word of Marathi, but I am confident of gathering the purport of your Marathi speech on a subject with which I am familiar. In any case you will see that I do not misin¬ terpret you to the people. There are others well versed in Marathi, who could act as your interpreters. But you will not perhaps approve of such arrangement. So please bear gokhale’s tour with me and do speak in Marathi. I too am desirous of hearing your Marathi speech in common with the Kon- kani friends.5 cYou will always have your own way,5 said Gokhale. ‘And there is no help for me as I am here at your mercy.5 So saying Gokhale fell in with my suggestion, and from this point onwards right up to Zanzibar he always spoke in Marathi at similar meetings and I served as trans¬ lator by special appointment to him. I do not know if I was able to bring Gokhale round to the view, that rather than speak in perfect idiomatic English it was more desirable to speak as far as may be in the mother tongue and even in broken ungrammatical Hindi. But I do know that if only to please me he spoke in Marathi in South Africa. After he had made some speeches, I could see that he too was gratified by the results of the experiment. Gokhale by his conduct on many occasions in South Africa showed that there was merit in pleasing one’s followers in cases not involving a question of principle.
CHAPTER XXXVII After Johannesburg Gokhale visited Natal and then proceeded to Pretoria, where he was put up by the Union Government at the Transvaal hotel. Here he was to meet the ministers of the Government, including General Botha and General Smuts. It was my usual practice to inform Gokhale of all engagements fixed for the day, early in the morning or on the previous evening if he so desired. The coming interview with the Union ministers was a most important affair. We came to the conclusion, that I should not go with Gokhale, nor indeed even offer to go. My pre¬ sence would raise a sort of barrier between Gokhale and the ministers, who would be handicapped in speaking out without any reserve about what they considered to be the mistakes of the local Indians including my own. Then again they could not with an easy mind make any statement of future policy if they wished to make it. As for all these reasons Gokhale must go alone, it added SATYAGRAHA IN SOUTH AFRICA largely to his burden of responsibility. What was to be done if Gokhale inadvertently committed some mistake of fact, or if he had nothing to say as regards some fact which had not been first brought to his notice, but which was first put to him by the ministers, or if he was called upon to accept some arrangement on behalf of the Indians in the absence of any one of their responsible leaders? But Gokhale resolved this difficulty at once. He asked me to prepare a summary historical statement of the condition of the Indians up to date, and also to put down in writing how far they were prepared to go. And Gokhale said that he would admit his ignorance if anything outside this ‘brief’ cropped up at the interview, and ceased to worry. It now only remained for me to prepare the statement and for him to read it. However it was impossible for me to narrate the vicissitudes of the Indians’ history in four colonies ranging over a period of 18 years except by writ¬ ing ten or twenty pages at the least, and there was hardly left any time for Gokhale to look over it. Again there would be many questions he would like to put us after reading the paper. But Gokhale had an infinite capacity for taking pains as he had an exceptionally sharp memory.
He kept himself and others awake the whole night, posted himself fully on every point, and went over the whole ground again in order to make sure that he had rightly understood everything. He was at last satisfied. As for me ± never had any fears.
Gokhale’s interview with the ministers lasted for about two hours, and when he returned, he said, ‘You must return to India in a year. Everything has been settled. The Black Act will be repealed. The racial bar will be removed from the emigration law. The £ 3 tax will be abolished.’ ‘I doubt it very much,’ I replied. ‘You do not know the ministers as I do. Being an optimist myself, I love your optimism, but having suffered frequent disap¬ pointments, I am not as hopeful in the matter as you are. But I have no fears either. It is enough for me that you have obtained this undertaking from the ministers. It is my duty to fight it out only where it is necessary and to demonstrate that ours is a righteous struggle. The gokhale’s tour promise given to you will serve as a proof of the justice of our demands and will redouble our fighting spirit if it comes to fighting after all. But I do not think I can return to India in a year and before many more Indians have gone to jail.5 Gokhale said: ‘What I have told you is bound to come to pass. General Botha promised me that the Black Act would be repealed and the £ 3 tax abolished. You must return to India within twelve months, and I will not have any of your excuses.’
During his visit to Natal Gokhale came in contact with many Europeans in Durban, Maritzburg and other places. Ele also saw the diamond mines in Kimberley, where as well as at Durban public dinners were arranged by the reception committees, and attended by many Euro¬ peans. Thus having achieved a conquest of Indian as well as European hearts, Gokhale left South Africa on Novem¬ ber 17, 1912. At his wish Mr Kallenbach and I accomp¬ anied him as far as Zanzibar. On the steamer we had arrang¬ ed to have suitable food for him. On his way back to India he was given an ovation at Delagoa Bay, Inhambane, Zanzibar and other ports.
On the steamer our talks were confined to India or to the duty we owed to the motherland. Every word of Gokhale glowed with his tender feeling, truthfulness and patriotism. I observed that even in the games which he played on board the steamer Gokhale had a patriotic mo¬ tive rather than the mere desire to amuse himself, and excellence was his aim there too.
On the steamer we had ample time to talk to our heart’s content. In these conversations Gokhale prepared me for India. He analysed for me the characters of all the leaders in India and his analysis was so accurate, that I have hardly perceived any difference between Gokhale’s estimate and my own personal experience of them.
There are many sacred reminiscences of mine relating to Gokhale’s tour in South Africa which could be set down here. But I must reluctantly check my pen as they are not relevant to a history of Satyagraha. The parting at Zanzibar SATYAGRAHA IN SOUTH AFRICA was deeply painful to Kallenbach and me, but remember¬ ing that the most intimate relations of mortal men must come to an end at last, we somehow reconciled ourselves, and hoped that Gokhale’s prophecy would come true and both of us would be able to go to India in a year’s time. But that was not to be.
However Gokhale’s visit to South Africa stiffened our resolution, and the implications and the importance of his tour were better understood when the struggle was renewed in an active form. If Gokhale had not come over to South Africa, if he had not seen the Union ministers, the aboli¬ tion of the £ 3 tax could not have been made a plank in our platform.
If the Satyagraha struggle had closed with the repeal of the Black Act, a fresh fight would have been necessary against the jC 3 tax, and not only would the Indians have come in for endless trouble, but it was doubtful whether they would have been ready so soon for a new and arduous campaign. It was incumbent upon the free Indians to have the tax abolished. All constitutional remedies to that end had been applied but in vain. The tax was being paid ever since 1895. But when a wrong, no matter how fla¬ grant, has continued for a long period of time, people get habituated to it, and it becomes difficult to rouse them to a sense of their duty to resist it, and no less difficult to convince the world that it is a wrong at all. The under¬ taking given to Gokhale cleared the way for the Satya- grahis. The Government must repeal the tax in terms of their promise, and if they did not, their breach of pledge would be a most cogent reason for continuing the strug¬ gle. And this was exactly what happened. Not only did the Government not abolish the tax within a year, but they declared in so many words that it could not be removed at all.
Gokhale’s tour thus not only helped us to make the ■£ 3 tax one of the targets of our Satyagraha, but it led to his being recognized as a special authority on the South African question. His views on South Africa now carried greater weight, thanks to his personal knowledge of the Indians in South Africa, and he understood himself and BREACH OF PLEDGE could explain to India what steps the mother country ought to adopt. When the struggle was resumed, India rendered munificent help to the Satyagraha funds and Lord Hardinge heartened the Satyagrahis by expressing his ‘deep and burning’ sympathy for them (December 1913). Messrs Andrews and Pearson came to South Africa from India. All this would have been impossible without Gokhale’s mission.
The breach of the ministers’ pledge and its consequen¬ ces will be the subject of the next chapter.
CHAPTER XXXVIII BREACH OF PLEDGE In prosecuting the Satyagraha struggle the Indians were very careful not to take a single step not warranted by their principles, and they always remembered that they should not take any illegitimate advantage over the Govern¬ ment. For instance, as the Black Act was restricted in its application to Indians in the Transvaal, only the Transvaal Indians were admitted as recruits in the struggle.
Not only was there no attempt made to obtain recruits from Natal, the Cape Colony etc., but offers from outside the Transvaal were politely refused. The struggle also was limited to a repeal of the Act in question. This limitation was understood neither by the Europeans nor by Indians.
In the early stages the Indians were every now and then asking for other grievances besides the Black Act to be covered by the struggle. I patiently explained to them that such extension would be a violation of the truth, which could not be so much as thought of in a movement profess¬ ing to abide by truth and truth alone. In a pure fight the fighters would never go beyond the objective fixed when the fight began even if they received an accession to their strength in course of the fighting, and on the other hand they could not, give up their objective if theyTound their ( strength dwindling away. This twofold principle was fully observed in South Africa. The strength of the community^J upon which we counted in determining our goal at the SATYAGRAHA IN SOUTH AFRICA commencement of the struggle, did not answer our expecta¬ tions as we have already seen, and yet the handful of Satya- grahis who remained stuck to their posts. Fighting thus single-handed in the face of odds was comparatively easy, but it was more difficult, and called for the exercise of greater self-restraint, not to enlarge one’s objective when one had received large reinforcements. Such temptations often faced us in South Africa, but I can emphatically declare that we did not succumb to them in any single case. And therefore I have often said that a Satyagrahi has a single objective from which he cannot recede and beyond which he cannot advance, which can in fact be neither augmented nor abridged. The world learns to apply to a man the standards which he applies to himself. When the Government saw, that the Satyagrahis claimed to follow these fine principles, they began to judge the con¬ duct of the Satyagrahis in the light of those principles, al¬ though they themselves were apparently not bound by any principle whatever, and several times charged the Satyagrahis with a violation of their principles. Even a child can see that if fresh anti-Indian legislation was ena¬ cted after the Black Act, it must be included in the Satyagraha programme. And yet when fresh restrictions were imposed on Indian immigration and necessitated an exten¬ sion of our programme, the Government levelled against us the totally undeserved charge of raising fresh issues. If new restraints were placed on Indian newcomers, we must have the right to recruit them for the movement, and hence Sorabji and others entered the Transvaal, as we have al¬ ready seen. Government could not tolerate this at all, but I had no difficulty in persuading impartial people about the propriety of the step. Another such occasion arose after Gokhale’s departure. Gokhale supposed that the £ 3 tax would be taken off in a year and the necessary legislation would be introduced in the next ensuing session of the Union Parliament. Instead of this, General Smuts from his seat in the House of Assembly said that as the Euro¬ peans in Natal objected to the repeal of the tax, the Union Government were unable to pass legislation directing its removal, which however was not the case. The members BREACH OF PLEDGE from Natal by themselves could do nothing in a body upon which the four Colonies were represented. Again General Smuts ought to have brought forward the necessary Bill in the Assembly on behalf of the Cabinet and then left the measure to its fate. But he did nothing of the kind, and provided us with the welcome opportunity of including the despicable impost as a cause of ‘war.5 There were two reasons for this. First, if in course of the struggle the Govern¬ ment made a promise and then went back upon it, the pro¬ gramme would naturally be extended so as to embrace such repudiation as well, and secondly, the breach of a promise, made to such a representative of India as Gokhale was, was not only a personal insult to him but also to the whole of India, and as such could not be taken lying down. If there had been only one reason, namely the first by it¬ self, the Satyagrahis, in case they felt themselves unequal to the task, could have been excused if they did not offer Satyagraha against the -£ 3 tax. But it was impossible to pocket an insult offered to the mother country, and there¬ fore we felt the Satyagrahis were bound to include the £ 3 tax in their programme, and when this tax thus fell within the scope of the struggle, the indentured Indians had an opportunity of participating in it. The reader must note that thus far this class had been kept out of the fray. This new orientation of our policy increased our burden of res¬ ponsibility on the one hand, and on the other opened up a fresh field of recruitment for our ‘army.5 Thus far Satyagraha had not been so much as men¬ tioned among the indentured labourers; still less had they been educated to take part in it. Being illiterate, they could not read Indian Opinion or other newspapers. Yet I found that these poor folk were keen observers of the struggle and understood the movement, while some of them regret¬ ted their inability to join it. But when the Union ministers broke their pledged word, and repeal of the £ 3 tax was also included in our programme, I was not at all aware as to which of them would participate in the struggle.
I wrote to Gokhale about the breach of pledge, and he was deeply pained to hear of it. I asked him not to SATYAGRAHA IN SOUTH AFRICA be anxious and assured him that we would fight unto death and wring a repeal of the tax out of the unwilling hands of the Transvaal Government. The idea, however, of my return¬ ing to India in a year had to be abandoned, and it was impossible to say when I would be able to go. Gokhale was nothing if not a man of figures. He asked me to let him know the maximum and the minimum strength of our army of peace, along with the names of the fighters. As far as I can now remember, I sent 65 or 66 names as the highest and 16 as the lowest number, and also informed Gokhale that I would not expect monetary assistance from India for such small numbers. I besought him to have no fears and not to put an undue strain upon his physical re¬ sources. I had learnt from newspapers and otherwise that after Gokhale returned to Bombay from South Africa, charges of weakness etc. had been laid at his door. I there¬ fore wished that Gokhale should not try to raise any funds for us in India. But this was his stern answer: ‘We in India have some idea of our duty even as- you understand your obligations in South Africa. We will not permit you to tell us what is or is not proper for us to do. I only desired to know the position in South Africa, but did not