SATYAGRAHA IN SOUTH AFRICA
FATIMA MEER
SATYAGRAHA,
a philosophy of non-violent opposition to injustice, comes to us in an age which has seen the worst forms of human violence. As a philosophy of social change, it advances the theory that social reform is dependant wholly on the method used to bring about reform. It thus denies the possibility of instituting good through methods of evil, of realizing peace through techniques of violence, of achieving democratic rights by forms of action hostile to the spirit of democracy.
The constant use of the name of Mahatma Gandhi, of the word Satyagraha, and of such terms as civil disobedience,
"hartal" and non-violence in the non-European struggle against racial injustice in South Africa seems to suggest that the Gandhian concept has had a lasting impact on our people and is in the process of emerging as a salient factor in the struggle for democracy in the Union.
Literally translated, the word "Satyagraha" means the demonstration of a heart firm in the concepts of love and truth.
To Gandhi himself, the author of the word and the philosophy it expressed, it was the belief that social change, where necessary, can be effected by the impact of soul force upon the hearts of those in power.
It is doubtful whether this concept, deeply inspired by religious beliefs of a universal trend and significantly influenced by the writings of the Russian philosopher Tolstoy, was adhered to in its purity by many people other than Gandhi himself and a handful of his close disciples like Vinoba Bhave. To Nehru, Gandhi's personally chosen successor, and to the masses of India, it remained a political tactic to be utilized for the obtain- ing of greater political power by a voiceless people. The Indians of South Africa saw Satyagraha in this light when, under the leadership of Gandhi, they became the first people to use the weapon and develop its technique.
Numerically, the Indians constitute the smallest group in
the multi-racial society of South Africa, representing only
2.9 per cent, of her total population. For the most part,
they share with the rest of the non-European peoples in the
country an inescapable existence of slums, endless overcrowded
dwellings and a low resistance to death and disease. Three-
quarters of the Indian breadwinners earn less than £100 a.
year with an average family of five dependants to support.
While European politicians utilize the high Indian birth rate to fan fears of insecurity in the minds of the vote-exercising public, some 6^ Indian babies in every 1,000 never survive their first year.
The Indian, alone of the South African peoples, remains vote- less. While some Africans have the ineffective ' 'Native representa- t i o n " and the Coloured is to be placed on a communal roll, even the Opposition United Party which in 1946 had prescribed a form of dummy representation for Asiatics, has in a recent statement expressed its complete aversion to the granting of any political rights to the Indian people. And yet, of all the non-White peoples in South Africa, it is the Indian community which has within its ranks the most articulate and powerful economic group—merchants and professionals who constitute that middle-class so vital to any suppressed people in its struggle for political rights.
It is through the unique presence of this class within the ranks of the non-European people that South African Indians have endured their peculiar oppression and earned their peculiar history in the development of the country. For basic to the emergence of the ''Indian problem'' is the question of European monopolization of South Africa's wealth. As early as 1880, the Indian middle-class revealed signs of entrenching itself as a non-European group of economic strength, and from that date onward, European politics commenced its bitter history of Indian antagonism.
The Indians migrated to Natal in i860 essentially under the indenture system and on the clear understanding that complete and full participation in the citizenship rights of the country would be their ultimate reward when freed of their contracts.
It was this aspect of the British contract of indenture which
allowed some compensation for the harsh and slave-like condi-
tions of labour embodied in the agreement. At the time, the
Indians held a crucial potential for increasing the numbers of
a White minority which lived in perpetual fear of an African
avalanche. The presence of a Black people, however, in the
urban life of the colony, sharing privileges equally with the
Whites, was a contradiction in a society conceived for the
exclusive benefit of a White pigmentocracy. The theoretical
acceptance of Indian citizenship rights was bound to lead to a
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practical rejection as soon as Indians in sufficient numbers gathered sufficient sophistication to threaten the economic monopoly of the dominant group.
The breach in the agreement which followed was inevitable, and the Indian problem emerged as the problem of a White government seeking constitutional means to whittle away Indian rights and reduce their status to that of the other non-White peoples.
From 1883 onwards the Indians in Natal and in all the pro- vinces to which they travelled became subjected to discrimina- tory legislation. The Transvaal treated them as pariahs who, on grounds of hygiene, were to be separated from the European community. The Orange Free State banned them completely from its territory, while in Natal, restrictions on licence applications and severe taxes crippled their freedom. The poll tax intro- duced in Natal to resolve the conflict between industry which depended on Indian labour and commerce which believed itself outdone by Indian competition, was exorbitantly high. Equivalent to six months' salary under indenture, it applied to all indentured Indian males over the age of 16 and all females over the age of 13, who failed to return to India or to re-indenture themselves.
It set up such barriers to enterprise that some 32,000 Indians, representing 2$ per cent, of the population, repatriated them- selves during the years of its operation.
The situation called for counter-action, but the Indians were divided among themselves economically and ethnically, with religious and linguistic barriers preventing the organization of a common front. Whilst the business class made legal representations of a personal type or organized petitions of a small group nature, the large majority of the indentured labourers remained inarticulate and inhibited in their social and economic depression. Generally, the Indians possessed little apprecia- tion of the efficacy of the vote, and even when entitled to it, used it to little purpose.
The dramatic awakening of Indian political conscience may
be traced to 1890, when Gandhi came to Natal. A highly
educated and principled young man, he was appalled by the
degradations imposed on British Indian subjects. On a journey
from Durban to Pretoria, he was thrown out of the coach at
Pietermaritzburg for daring to travel first class with Europeans,
soundly boxed about the ears at Charlestown for exerting his
rights as a passenger, and rudely pushed off the sidewalks in
Johannesburg. He felt keenly the need for enlightened guid- ance in the Indian community and accurately diagnosed its immediate weakness as its complete inarticulateness in the language of the government.
Founding the Natal Indian Congress in 1894, he accepted the challenge of his environment, and with the theme of Satyagraha, succeeded in identifying the political purpose of the Hindu with the Muslim, the freed with the indentured, the South Indian with the North Indian.
His first reaction to the Indian problem in Natal was to inform the British government and public of the atrocities committed under their names. He was convinced of their ignorance in the matter and believed the solution to the question to lie in British enlightenment. Satyagraha itself, expressing active opposition to inflexible authority, developed as a final appeal to the British conscience when all other constitutional methods of approach had failed.
Despite the magnificence of his contribution in arousing the political consciousness of the Indian people and giving to the world a new approach to political struggle, his philosophy has not remained unchallenged, even by his followers. No great figure of theory remains without criticism, and Gandhi himself admits to having committed Himalayan blunders, which have had the effect of placing brakes upon the militancy of the people. There is little doubt that in South Africa, as later in India, his preoccupation with the impact of soul force reacted against the interest of the people's immediate and material benefits, and tended to validate the accusation that the allegiance of Satyagraha ultimately and objectively served the interests of those in power.
The practical applications of his philosophy in the South African passive resistance campaigns of 1908 and 191 3 resulted in meagre gains and frustration for the Indian people. As forces of political education, their impact was unquestionable.
But as techniques of liberation, they were ineffective. While both campaigns unified and strengthened the Indians in their struggle, they also halted progress during moments of supreme strategic importance, because Gandhi placed greater value on the achievement of spiritual victory over the hearts of those in power than on the acquisition of material benefits for the Satyagrahis.
In 1907 he called off the Transvaal campaign, after a 100 per
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cent, boycott of t h e Indian pass-imposing Act had been achieved and a popular resistance m o v e m e n t launched, on t h e misguided assumption that governmental o v e r t u r e s to c o m p r o m i s e w e r e caused by a conversion of h e a r t . In 191 3, at a t i m e w h e n it appeared obvious t o all t h a t t h e g o v e r n m e n t had been b r o u g h t to bay, h e chose to d e m o n s t r a t e Indian magnanimity of h e a r t , rather than exploit t h e situation for t h e i m m e d i a t e rectification of Indian rights. Never before and n e v e r since have t h e Indians in South Africa held such a position of crucial e c o n o m i c i m p o r t a n c e . T h e m a m m o t h Indian s t r i k e , in svmpathv with the heroic march of t h e N e w c a s t l e m i n e w o r k e r s w h o , with women and c h i l d r e n , had set o u t to cross the Transvaal b o r d e r on foot in violation of unjust anti-Indian laws, had disastrous effects for industry in Natal. T h e European mine w o r k e r s1
strike on the Rand coinciding with this d e m o n s t r a t i o n , placed the g o v e r n m e n t in a particularly p r e c a r i o u s position. Gandhi, however, i n t e n t on his spiritual victory, called off t h e Indian campaign, thus leaving the g o v e r n m e n t u n h a m p e r e d to deal all the m o r e effectively w i t h t h e European s t r i k e r s .
Gandhian c o n c e p t s never q u i t e convinced the Indians in South Africa o r in India. T h e t e c h n i q u e of passive resistance was invariably used with a difference in i n t e r p r e t a t i o n b e t w e e n Gandhi and his followers. Gandhi himself had visualized such a misunderstanding and, in o r d e r to obviate it, had in t h e first instance suggested t h e r e s t r i c t i o n of its use to highly trained personnel, Ele conceived passive resistance as a specialized weapon which only t h e spiritually p u r e could utilize.
His c o n c e p t , logically followed, p r e c l u d e d mass utilization of the t e c h n i q u e , and his first appeal was thus m a d e to the m i d d l e - class trading e l e m e n t , w h o h e felt w o u l d be sufficiently en- lightened to appreciate and follow it. It was t h e unsophisticated w o r k e r , h o w e v e r , w h o gave passive resistance its strength and developed its potential as a force of mass c o e r c i o n . In
1913, he followed Gandhi w i t h unflinching faith. In 1946, he responded to t h e call of Satyagraha w i t h matching valour, and, in m o r e r e c e n t years, the n o n - E u r o p e a n w o r k e r s have responded to t h e call of n o n - v i o l e n c e w i t h admirable discipline.
It is undoubtedly t h e aspect of Passive Resistance which gives forth h o p e for t h e effecting of social change w i t h o u t r e s o u r c e to violence which has upheld it in the hearts of t h e Indian p e o p l e . It is also this aspect of the philosophy which has attracted to its o r b i t t h e c o - o p e r a t i o n of large groups of p e o p l e
professing allegiance to different ideological creeds.
Satyagraha as a w e a p o n of multi-racial usage, h o w e v e r , did n o t o c c u r until almost half a c e n t u r y after its origin o n South African soil. For many years after t h e d e p a r t u r e of Mahatma Ghandi from t h e c o u n t r y , t h e creed of Satyagraha lost its con- tinuity in t h e life of formal Indian political expression. T h e period following his d e p a r t u r e , h o w e v e r , a p e r i o d offset bv t w o W o r l d W a r s and t h e t r e m e n d o u s impact of industrialization, laid the basis for a vitally changed South African society, in w h i c h circumstantial forces paved t h e way for a future state of n o n - E u r o p e a n c o - o p e r a t i o n .
E c o n o m i c factors, especially in Natal, acted as great levellers of African and Indian interests. T h e "civilized labour p o l i c y "
had r e t r i e v e d and isolated t h e European w o r k e r from t h e morass of labour c o m p e t i t i o n and passed e c o n o m i c legislation w h i c h affected all non-European w o r k e r s equally.
Indians, though organized i n t o a strong t r a d e union m o v e - m e n t , realized t h e futility of their labour s t r e n g t h in t h e absence of an equally strong African labour m o v e m e n t . Tragicallv they watched t h e i r strike actions increase t h e i r o w n u n e m p l o y - m e n t as unsophisticated African w o r k e r s replaced t h e i r labour.
T h e Gandhian m o v e m e n t had based itself o n the t h e o r y oi Indian exclusiveness, and had believed in t h e political distinctive- ness of the Indian p r o b l e m . T o t h e average Indian w h o g r o p e d in t h e maze of industrial c o m p e t i t i o n and w h o b e c a m e quickly identified w i t h t h e social and e c o n o m i c depletions of t h e non- European p e o p l e , this was a myth which exploded all t o o dramatically.
Unfortunatelv, formal Indian political organization did not reflect t h e vitally changed situation in w h i c h Indians w e r e finding themselves. T h e post-Gandhian era saw a leadership w h i c h remained pathetically aloof from t h e p r o b l e m s of its following.
Inheriting n e i t h e r t h e philosophy of Satyagraha n o r formulating any political principles of its o w n , it p r e f e r r e d a state of p r e - carious suspension b e t w e e n t h e t w o major race g r o u p s , in t h e false belief that acceleration of t h e i r acceptance w i t h i n the ranks of t h e d o m i n a n t class d e p e n d e d o n Indian isolation from t h e general p r o b l e m s of racial discrimination in South Africa.
Indian political leadership approved t h e diplomatic i n t e r - ference of t h e British Indian g o v e r n m e n t and t h e conclusion of t h e Cape T o w n A g r e e m e n t in 1927—-an A g r e e m e n t which a c c e p t e d the p r i n c i p l e of repatriation for South African Indians
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at a t i m e w h e n every Indian had b e c o m e a Union national.
Instead of a p r i n c i p l e d and logical opposition to all facets of racial discrimination, it e n d u r e d in 1944 t h e conclusion of t h e Pretoria A g r e e m e n t , w h i c h a c c e p t e d t h e policy of segregation for the Indian p e o p l e in r e t u r n for certain e c o n o m i c concessions of a t e m p o r a r y n a t u r e safeguarding t h e vested i n t e r e s t of a small section of t h e c o m m u n i t y .
It was inevitable that a leadership at such variance w i t h its following w o u l d soon lose its a u t h o r i t y . In 1946, it was finally ousted by those w h o joined t o g e t h e r w o r k i n g class interests w i t h t h e intellectual guidance of Gandhian principles and Socialism. It had w a t c h e d in a w e s o m e anticipation t h e forces of Satyagraha u n d e r t h e e m o t i o n a l i m p a c t of Mahatma Gandhi and t h e practical guidance of N e h r u cleave t h e path to Indian liberation.
In 1946, this n e w leadership restaged Passive Resistance in South Africa and led some 2,000 enthusiasts to prison in opposi- tion to an Act w h i c h sought t h e i r isolation from t h e r e s t of South African society. T h e i r campaign, though in obviou form similar to t h e original Gandhian campaign, was appreciably different in its u l t i m a t e d i r e c t i o n and political aspirations.
It was launched in a m o o d w h i c h u n d e r s t o o d b o t h t h e ex- pediency and ethics of joint political action, a mood w h i c h sought n o n - E u r o p e a n r a t h e r than Indian liberation.
For South Africa, this revised i n t e r p r e t a t i o n of t h e Passiv Resistance w e a p o n h e l d crucial significance. It accelerated t h e g r o w t h of u n i t e d militancy a m o n g t h e n o n - W h i t e peoples and heralded a n e w era in t h e d e v e l o p m e n t of a non-racial united democratic front in t h e c o u n t r y . T h e r e is little d o u b t that, despite its 'Indian' character, the campaign stressed and eloquently exhibited faith in a united struggle, ultimately directed towards t h e achievement of ends w h i c h would benefit equally all South Africans, n o t Indians alone.
Fundamental to n o n - E u r o p e a n political m a t u r i t y in South Africa has been the alliance of t h e African and Indian Congresses.
Whilst 1946 saw t h e organization of an Indian political front which had rid itself of g r o u p restrictive s e n t i m e n t s , it was n o t until 1950 that a similar change expressed itself o n t h e African f r o n t i e r ; a year after t h e tragic racial disturbances in Durban b e t w e e n the Indian and African p e o p l e s . T h e riots came as a serious warning to the Leadership, who realized that if the e c o n o m i c identification of the t w o peoples did n o t e
receive progressive political guidance, the situation could be horribly misused by t h e g o v e r n m e n t to c r e a t e racial strife within t h e ranks of t h e n o n - W h i t e race. It e x p e d i t e d u n i t e d action o n t h e part of t h e t w o Congresses w h o , despite t h e Dadoo-Xuma Pact of 1946, had r e m a i n e d aloof from each o t h e r , In 1 9 ^ 0 , Africans and Indians jointly and equally participated in t h e National Day of P r o t e s t against racial discrimination, and in 1952, t h e t w o Congresses t o g e t h e r launched t h e Defiance of Unjust Laws Campaign, p a t t e r n e d o n t h e lines of t h e 1946 Passive Resistance m o v e m e n t . T h e success of t h e i r unity- served as a f o r e r u n n e r to t h e formation of t h e C o l o u r e d and European Congresses and to t h e setting u p of an effective united b a r r i e r against a n t i - d e m o c r a t i c forces.
Though many factors have c o m b i n e d to effect this d e m o c r a t i c unit in South Africa, central to its t h e m e of action has been its adherance to t h e form of Satyagraha. T h e r e is little d o u b t that, b u t for t h e profound humanitarianism and t h e g e n e r o u s t o l e r a n c e of all creeds intrinsic in its philosophy, it could n o t have d r a w n t o g e t h e r such diverse e l e m e n t s of political struggle.
It also seems fairly clear t h a t w i t h o u t its d i r e c t i o n in t h e n o n - European m o v e m e n t itself, t h e n o n - W h i t e struggle for self- expression w o u l d n o t have d r a w n t o itself t h e magnificent w o r l d s u p p o r t w h i c h it has d o n e .
T h e racial situation in South Africa beckons a major upheaval.
T h e Indians are aware of this and see t h e solution in t h e alliance of t h e i r political sympathy w i t h those w h o wish t o b r o a d e n t h e frontiers of d e m o c r a c y and w h o readily a c c e p t that t h e lead in this respect lies in united t h o u g h t and a c t i o n .
Satyagraha, n o n - v i o l e n c e , passive resistance, civil disobedience
— o n e may choose any of these t e r m s and accept e i t h e r t h e Gandhian philosophy o r t h e tactics of t h e struggle. T h e fact is that t h e Indian p e o p l e are m a r c h i n g forward as a vital section of t h e d e m o c r a t i c force of South Africa, and t h e i r philosophy of Satyagraha continues to play an invaluable role in t h e i r progress to freedom.
