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  • Gandhi's success in South Africa
  • Radha Rajan
  • Even as the British government in India was removing Tilak and Aurobindo from the INC and from the political arena in 1909, the Imperial Government in London was shaping Gandhi’s political career in such a way that would make him the unchallenged leader of the INC in India in the not-too-distant future; crafting him to occupy the political space created by them with foresight and flawless planning.
  • Very little is known about this Satyagraha, also known as the Natal Indian Strike or Miners’ Strike, Gandhi’s last campaign before finally departing from South Africa in July 1914 [1].  By this time the opposition to Gandhi was growing among the Indian community; one section began to get both disillusioned and dissatisfied with his Satyagraha and his refusal to even consider more effective methods of resistance and protest; this resulted in a split in the Natal Indian Congress. The timing of the last South African Satyagraha is significant. 
  • Gandhi had to repair the image of his infallibility among the community for the sake of his political career in the immediate future in India; the British Empire had a stake in that mission because if Gandhi had to take over the leadership of the Congress and steer it away from armed resistance and political independence, towards passive acceptance of self-rule within the Empire, then Gandhi had to return to India with the image of being not only infallible but also morally superior to others in the INC. The British Empire could not afford to have Gandhi’s authority eroded nor have Indians perceive him as impotent.
  • - The South African government, for no tangible political reason and knowing that it would cause grave unrest within the Indian community, almost as if eager to present Gandhi with an explosive issue guaranteed to inflame passions and enable him to bring people to the streets, decided to de-recognize all marriages not conducted according to Christian rites and/or not registered with the Registrar of Marriages. In one stroke, it rendered illegal the unions of Indian Muslims and Hindus married according to their respective religious customs.
  • The satyagraha coincided with a general and paralyzing railway strike, and Gandhi was in a position to push the government into a corner, demanding immediate repeal of discriminatory laws in return for ending the non-cooperation movement. 
  • In this instance, Gandhi called off the strike at a time when it had gained optimum momentum and reached its peak, because he allegedly did not want to add to the troubles of the South African government which had already been brought to its knees by the general railway strike. So as a loyal citizen of the Empire, having demonstrated his ability to inflame passions and get people killed by repressive State power, he withdrew the strike and rendered the sacrifice of ordinary Indians completely futile.

  • The timing of his departure is significant. Though tensions had been building up in Europe, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Crown Prince of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, by a Serbian nationalist in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914 proved to be the spark that finally triggered off World War I. G.K. Gokhale was already dying and Britain would have worried about Tilak and the other nationalists.

    
    Excerpted from

    
    Eclipse of the Hindu Nation: Gandhi and his freedom struggle
    Radha Rajan
    New Age Publishers (P) Ltd., Delhi, 2009
    Price: Rs 495/-
    ISBN 81- 7819 - 068- 0
    The book may be ordered from the publishers at ncbadel@ncbapvtltd.com or at 011-2649 3326/ 27/ 28

    The author is editor, www.vigilonline.com