The History of a Persecution – Mahatma Gandhi

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Senior Gandhian Scholar, Professor, Editor and Linguist

Gandhi International Study and Research Institute, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

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The History of a Persecution – Mahatma Gandhi

 

For several years and long before the war, the British Indians have been in occupation of a Location established for them by the late Government at Barberton. Emboldened by the Bazaar Notice, the Health Board of that place decided to remove the inhabitants of the Location to a place further away from the town on various excuses. The Health Board had necessarily to obtain the sanction of the Government, which was at once given on condition that the buildings on the present Location should be removed to the new one at the expense of the Health Board, or that due compensation in respect of the buildings only should be paid to the owners. Notices were therefore given to the occupants, who, grasping the situation set about working in right earnest and approached the Government, protesting against the contemplated removal.

They sent several petitions, and an enquiry was made. The grounds taken up by the petitioners were: 1st that they had been established for a long time in the Location where they were at present and had formed good-wills in connection with their trade; 2nd. that to such people it would mean a very serious loss to have to remove to the new Location; 3rd. that it was not such as would enable them to do any trade at all; that it was much further away from town than the present location, and that it was not a healthy site. They had a special report prepared in connection with the matter and Mr. Bertier, a well-known surveyor of the town, reported that the new site was one mile 930 yards from the Market Square by the shortest route, that the soil of the new site is of the same granitic nature as that of the adjacent Hospital kopje, a portion of the site being actually on the slope of the kopje. In view of this, the ravages caused by white ants to the hospital buildings on the said kopje are worthy of serious consideration. Mr. Bertier also goes exhaustively into the question whether the removal of the present Location is at all called for, and shews clearly that it is not, and says as follows: While the present position of the Indian Location, close to the Main Road from Barberton to the Kaap Valley, allows trade to a certain extent at the Location, and while its distance from the town proper does not preclude business transactions in town, the new site would only in one corner abut on the Main Road, and the increase of distance from the town would entail increased difficulties in the transaction of business, the more so as public passenger transport is unprovided for in the township and suburbs.

Whatever road east of the Hospital kopje is made to penetrate in the proposed Location will pass within one hundred yards of the Health Board site, where mules are stabled, night soil and rubbish waggons out-spanned, and buckets tarred and stacked. The Government, however, has returned a reply saying that it does not consider the site to be unhealthy. It ignores the fact that the removal is totally unnecessary, but says that, as the Local Board is not prepared to pay compensation or bear the cost of removal, the present occupants will be left undisturbed. Were it not for the most exasperating conditions now imposed on them, the above might have been considered a fair compromise as thing go with the British Indians in the Transvaal, but the terms under which the occupants are to be allowed to remain undisturbed are such as to render the compromise utterly useless.

What has been given with one hand has been taken away with the other, for we read in a notice sent to these poor people as follows: Only existing licensees, their wives and children will have the option of remaining in the present Location. That in default of payment of the rent due on the prescribed date, the tenancy will be determined. That no licensee shall sub-let or permit others to occupy his Stand on pain of eviction. That no new licences will be issued in respect of the present Location or any right to transfer licences granted. Now these terms appear to us to be most exasperating. We have the misfortune of being tenants, but we must confess that our landlord has not imposed any such conditions whatsoever, nor are we aware of any lease containing such novel conditions. It would have been far more decent of the Board if they had said: ‘We do not want to pay you any compensation and you shall have to remove to the new Location,’ but to drive the people away from their position by underhand indirect policy hardly reflects any credit on its authors.

In Barberton, the Health Board evidently wishes to override the Law of the Colony, such as it is, affecting British Indians. Either the site at present occupied by the British Indians is a Location in terms of Law 3 of 1885, or it is not. If it is, then unless we have misread the law, any Indian has not only the right to live there but to have sub-tenants and certainly to have guests, also to trade in any part of the Location he likes on payment of the licence fee. But as will have been seen according to the new conditions, the Board would prevent the residents from having any guests “on pain of eviction”. We understand that the matter has been placed before the Government. We shall await its decision with anxiety. We wonder what His Excellency Lord Milner would have to say in defence of what the Health Board of Barberton proposes to do.  

 

Reference:

 

Indian Opinion, 19-11-1903