Reading these reports in Pretoria, General Smuts was provoked to deny them. In a speech on the 26th, he said the £3 tax was part of the contract signed by labourers in India before coming out to Natal. The Government had not promised Gokhale that the tax would be repealed; merely that they would consider the question afresh. Smuts wired the mineowners’ association that to repeal the tax now, under the pressure of Gandhi and company, ‘would be [a] public disaster’. He claimed that ‘with Gandhi repeal of tax is an afterthought, and is intended to influence Natal Indians to whom the real grounds on which he has started passive resistance and which never included this tax, do not appeal.’29
The evidence on this question supports Gandhi rather than Smuts. Gokhale was clearly given the impression the tax would be repealed; for that is what he told the Governor-General on 15 November 1912, immediately after he had met the Prime Minister, Louis Botha. In March 1913, when the South African Immigration Bill came up for debate, Gokhale again told a senior official of the Government of India that ‘Ministers have promised him, and quite publicly, that the Natal £3 licence tax will be revoked.’30
The repeal of the tax was manifestly one of the ‘real grounds’ on which the current satyagraha was begun. Truth was on Gandhi’s side, and so, as it happens, were the workers. A news report dated Wednesday, 29 October, tells this part of the story: ‘The [coal-mine] managers assembled the Indians on the mines this morning, but the Indians declined to listen, insulting the managers, and intimating that they were only prepared to receive instructions and advice from Mr Gandhi.’
Back in July 1913, the Durban journalist P. S. Aiyar had written off passive resistance as a method of assering one’s rights. Two months later the first batch of satyagrahis, led by Kasturba Gandhi, courted arrest. Hundreds more followed them into jail. The Indian workers in the coal mines and sugar plantations downed tools. The editor of the African Chronicle was now obliged to do his professional duty, which was to report the news. The bravery of Kasturba’s pioneering band of resisters was praised. Two pages of the journal were devoted to the ‘Progress of Passive Resistance’, reporting arrests, speeches and strikes in different parts of Natal. But the editor could not suppress his prejudices entirely, calling upon the Indians to ‘keep in view the cause, not the man’ (namely, Gandhi).
In challenging Gandhi’s claims to lead the Indians, P. S. Aiyar was always fighting an uphill battle. The surge of support for the satyagraha now made his a pretty hopeless task. A report in his own newspaper conveyed the comprehensiveness of his defeat. In November 1913 the Chronicle was compelled to reduce its pages from sixteen to eight, noting that ‘the compositors, employed in our office, having joined the ranks of the strikers, we regret, we are unable to publish our paper in its usual form.’ 31
The Indians on strike moved out of the collieries and plantations to the towns of Dundee and Newcastle, so that they could not be coerced back to work. When agents of the owners reached these towns nevertheless, it was decided to shift the striking workers to Charlestown, thirty-five miles away, closer to the border with the Transvaal. ‘To provide railway fare for thousands was out of the question’, so they walked, with Gandhi leading the first batch. The workers shouted ‘Vande Matram!’ and ‘Ramchandra ki jai!’, the first slogan a salute to the motherland, the second a homage to the mythical just and good king, Ram. They carried their own rice and dal. The marchers slept the first night in the open, reaching Charlestown the next day. But keeping so many people close together was deemed a risk – what if plague broke out?32
Gandhi liked walking. In the 1880s, he walked the streets of London in the company of his vegetarian comrade Josiah Oldfield. In the 1890s, he walked to the Bombay High Court from his home in Santa Cruz. In the 1900s, he walked a lot with Kallenbach in Johannesburg. He liked walking so much that when Henry Polak wrote a profile of his friend, he placed him not in the law court or his office, not in the Phoenix or Tolstoy settlements, not even in a vegetarian restaurant, but on the road. ‘Here he is,’ wrote Polak of Gandhi,
a slim-built man of middle height, the tanned cheeks a little sunken, bare-headed, somewhat close-cropped and grizzled, with a small moustache. You see him walking along the road in profound meditation or animatedly conversing with a companion, the shoulders bent, the head thrown slightly forward, his arms behind his back, the left wrist grasped in the right hand, the sandaled feet outspread – a not too gainly walk, rather rapid, for he is an accomplished pedestrian from long practice, preference, and force of circumstance.33
Gandhi liked walking, but this was a very long march, even by his standards. For the satyagrahis under his command had now decided to walk on to the Transvaal. If not detained at the border, they would proceed onwards, all the way to Johannesburg, several hundred miles into the interior. A rich Hindu offered a 600-acre farm to host them; to this was added the 1,100 acres of Tolstoy Farm. Kallenbach was excited by the prospect. ‘We will have “common” tables and ordinary family life will not exist for the time being,’ the architect told a reporter. ‘This system was properly tested during the last campaign, and it can be carried on indefinitely … Passive Resistance does not mean idleness. There will be no lack of funds. Merchants everywhere are giving freely, and Professor Gokhale is with us heart and soul.’
Proof of the last statement was provided in an accompanying report, which quoted Gokhale in Bombay as saying that the Indian public would send £2,000 a month for the next six months to sustain the passive resisters.34
On 29 October, a large public meeting was held at Johannesburg’s West End Bioscope Hall, to coincide with the Hindu festival of Dasehra. The Indians turned out in force, as did their European sympathizers, W. Hosken, L. W. Ritch, Sonja Schlesin, et al. The Gujarati S. K. Patel, in the chair, said this Dasehra day, which should be ‘one of rejoicing and festivity’, had instead been turned by the Government into one ‘of sadness and mourning’. He was followed by L. W. Ritch, whose message was more hopeful. The resisters, said Ritch, should be congratulated for ‘using the weapons of the soul and not the weapons of the mob’ (these being the ‘bludgeon and the bomb’).
The audience was then asked to stand as a mark of respect for the women resisters. A photograph of the Johannesburg ladies in jail (Mrs Thambi Naidoo and company) was flashed on the screen. Collections were then called for,
and a scene of great enthusiasm followed. Rings, pocket-knives, caps, watches, etc., were offered up by their owners, and were put up for auction, fetching extraordinary prices. An umbrella was sold for five guineas, a ring for seventeen guineas, pocket knives for 10s. 6d., a bottle of sweets for £1 10s. A large amount was contributed both in cash and provisions. On the termination of the proceedings, those present formed in procession and quietly marched along Fox and Commissioner Streets, then up Rissik Street and through Pritchard Street to the house of the Chairman [of the British Indian Association] in Diagonal Street. The procession was preceded by two men carrying black flags and all wore rosettes to mark the present sufferings of the community.35
The same day, Gandhi set out for the Transvaal border with some 200 men, women and children.36 Other batches followed. ‘We may any hour get the news of G[andhi]’s arrest’, wired Polak to Gokhale on the 30th.37
By 3 November, 1,500 passive resisters had reached Charlestown. ‘All were in sole charge of Mr Gandhi,’ reported the Natal Mercury. The marchers were fed in the grounds of the local mosque, with the food provided, for free, by local merchants. Also in attendance was Sonja Schlesin, who had come down especially from Johannesburg to look after the women in the gathering.38
A journalist from the Natal Advertiser, visiting Charlestown on 5 November, reported that ‘the whole appearance of the town resembled nothing but an Indian bazaar.’ He found Gandhi ‘at the back of an Indian store, in the yard, serving out curry and rice to his followers, who marched up, and each man received his quota. One baker sold 500 loaves to the Indians in one day.’39
On the morning of the 6th,
the resisters left Charlestown, walking towards Volksrust, the town just the other side of the border. They halted there for refreshments, and then proceeded deeper into the Transvaal. Till they reached the border, Gandhi was at the rear, but once they entered Volksrust he led from the front. He told a reporter that they would march to their final destination, Tolstoy Farm, in eight stages, covering twenty-four miles every day.40
On Monday the 3rd, while the marchers were camped in Charlestown, the Governor-General summoned General Smuts for a meeting. Smuts said he intended, for the moment, to adopt a policy of laissez-faire. He thought ‘Mr Gandhi appeared to be in a position of much difficulty. Like Frankenstein, he found his monster an uncomfortable creation, and he would be glad to be relieved of further responsibility for its support.’ If the Government arrested Gandhi, argued Smuts, then ‘he would be able to disclaim responsibility for the maintenance of his array of strikers.’ The longer the march continued, the more difficult it would be to feed them, at which point the strikers would themselves ‘ask to be sent back to their work in Natal’.41
The police, however, were pressing Smuts to arrest Gandhi. They were worried about the adverse publicity, and perhaps also that the marchers might turn violent. On the evening of the 6th, when the march had reached the town of Palmford, Gandhi was taken into custody. The next morning, he appeared in court in Volksrust and was charged with breaching the law regarding the movement of people across provinces. Gandhi appealed for bail, which ‘was strongly opposed by the Public Prosecutor’. The judge, however, granted the application, asking for a deposit of £50, a sum ‘promptly found by the local Indian merchants’.42
Kallenbach had attended the court proceedings at Volksrust. No sooner was Gandhi granted bail than the two of them jumped into a car to rejoin the marchers. A reporter climbed in too, and they drove ‘through beautiful grassy country’. They caught up with their fellows some thirty miles from Volksrust. ‘All along the road,’ noted the accompanying journalist, ‘the car passed stragglers, who lined up and saluted Mr Gandhi, calling him “Bapoo”, or father.’43
On 7 November, with their leader back to lead them, the strikers continued on their journey. That night they camped at Krorndraai, by the river. The next morning they carried on towards Vaal. At Standerton they were stopped, and Gandhi was detained once more. He was taken to court, where he was released on bail and returned to the march.44 His antagonist Montford Chamney then came down from Johannesburg to stop Gandhi, accompanied by a posse of police. For General Smuts had finally come round to the view that the Indians who had illegally entered the Transvaal must be sent back across the border.
Chamney and his companions met the Indians west of Standerton. Years later, he recalled his first sight of the march and the marchers, the memory made more colourful by the passage of time:
Three determined men marching abreast with single purpose at steady, rhythmic pace, Ghandi, Polak, and another, followed closely by a great company that stretched far back like a moving ribbon until lost beyond the next rise of the ground. Many of these wore the gay colours of the East, a few were clad in cheap European garb while others had little beyond the Oriental loin-cloth and mantle. Ready-made boots had been supplied to the poorer classes, but this unfamiliar form of Western footgear only proved an impediment that was soon removed, the owners carrying the boots strung by the laces from their necks. But every class of marcher seemed to carry something – a babe, a basket or perhaps a few household chattels.45
The police halted the column, and a warrant for Gandhi’s arrest was executed. He was taken to the town of Dundee, where he was charged with inducing the strike and inciting the strikers. This time his request for bail was rejected and he was sent off to prison. From there he wrote a remarkable letter to the magistrate, which, among other things, gives the lie to Smuts’ charge that Gandhi was keen to wash his hands of the strikers:
Sir,
I have the honour to request you to lay before the Government by telegram the following facts:
Whilst I was marching from Charlestown with nearly 2,000 men women and children to Tolstoy Farm Lawley, nearly 150 men women and children were footsore and otherwise disabled had to be left at Paarsdekop at the store of Mr M. C. Desai. These people have to be attended to and I suggest that the Government take charge of them.
Yesterday at Val there were eight or nine men footsore and otherwise ill. One or two men were even seriously ill. I had hoped to be able to make complete arrangements about them today. They were left in charge of Mr Patel an Indian storekeeper at Val. These men should in my humble opinion receive medical attention without delay.
Probably 150 Indians entered the Transvaal without a leader on Thursday last. They were last heard of at Standerton and rations were supplied to them. I could have, during my march, traced them and fed them. These men should be traced and fed.
Eight men who were not seriously ill but were too fatigued to walk entrained at Val for Balfour where they were to join the main body. These too should be traced and provisioned.
If my information is correct I understand that the Government intend to put back the main body of the Indians who marched with me on the Natal Border in a helpless condition. In that event the men will attempt, I feel, to reenter. I venture to suggest that they should be dealt with under the Indentured Indians Immigration Law of Natal or otherwise taken charge of and fed.
I have the
Honour to be
Sir
Your obedient servant
M. K. Gandhi.46
After their leader was taken away, the marchers were escorted by the police to the town of Balfour, from where they were sent back to Natal in three trains. ‘The men appear in no way dispirited after their fruitless tramp,’ reported one observer, ‘and expressed their intention to further the passive resistance movement again when Mr Gandhi is at liberty.’47
On 11 November Gandhi was tried at Dundee, charged with inducing indentured labour to leave Natal. His lawyer said ‘he was under an obligation to the defendant not to plead in mitigation in any way whatsoever’. In his statement, Gandhi referred to himself as an old resident of Natal and a member of its Bar, who ‘was in honour bound, in view of the position of things between Mr Smuts and Professor Gokhale, to produce a striking demonstration’. He pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to nine months in prison with hard labour.48
Three days later Gandhi was tried at Volksrust, charged this time with bringing prohibited immigrants into Transvaal. He pleaded guilty once more, noting however that ‘throughout the march into the Transvaal, I endeavoured to keep the men under control and to prevent them from dispersing, and I claim that not a single Indian left the column if it may be so called.’ In his defence, he called upon a miner named Poldat. Asked why he had entered the Transvaal, Poldat answered that he had done so in protest against the £3 tax. Asked if he would have gone back to work if the tax had been repealed, Poldat said yes, he would have.
The point made, Gandhi added that he was aware that
the steps he had taken were fraught with the greatest risks and intense personal suffering by those who had accepted his advice, but after very mature consideration, based on twenty years experience in South Africa, he had come to the conclusion that nothing short of such suffering would move the conscience of the Government, as also of the [white] inhabitants of the Union, of which, in spite of the so-called breach of the statutory laws, he claimed to be a sane and law-abiding citizen.
He was sentenced to an additional three months in prison.49
As the march swelled and its leader was arrested, released, arrested again, released again, Polak and Kallenbach supervised it in the periodic, enforced absences of Gandhi. The architect was accustomed to simple living, but the journalist – husband of the aesthete Millie, and a man who stayed away from the Tolstoy and Phoenix settlements himself – had to strive strenuously to put cause before body. Later, he wrote with some feeling about trying to get to sleep under the sky and the s
tars:
I shall not easily forget that night! Our small campfires gradually flickered out as we lay down to rest and sleep after a very frugal meal that had been cooked in the early morning. The clouds rolled up heavily and a thunderstorm played in the distance. A light rain fell at intervals during the night and a cool wind blew in gusts, increasing the general discomfort. I had not slept in the open for years, and the blanket that I carried with me was little protection against the roughness and inequalities of the ground upon which we lay. On either side of me was a poor wretched striker in the early stages, apparently, of consumption, and they coughed continually throughout the night. It was, therefore, with considerable relief that I rose with the dawn, and we struck camp after a hurried wash and without eating for we were due at the township of Balfour, where we understood arrangements had been made for the next meal.
Characteristically, after laying bare his own squeamishness, Polak then praised the resolution of his Indian comrades. The morning’s march, he wrote, ‘was one that would have done credit to a well-drilled army since we did the distance to Balfour at the rate of three and a half miles an hour. These mine coolies were splendid fellows, full of courage and strong of purpose.’50
Polak and Kallenbach were themselves arrested on 10 November, and took their punishment gladly. Polak wrote to Lord Ampthill that ‘in view of the fact that I, as an outsider, had so often counselled Indian passive resisters to challenge arrest, I felt that it would be highly dishonourable for me – an Englishman – to draw back before a risk, and I did not hesitate to join [the Indians].’51 Kallenbach explained – or justified – his jail-going in a long letter to his sister, where he detailed the discriminations against the Indians and argued that satyagraha – ‘the teaching not to meet force and violence in a likewise manner, but to meet them with passive suffering’ – was consistent with the teachings of ‘almost all religions’, Judaism among them.52