Portuguese Territories and 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

Contact No. – 09404955338, 09415777229

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Portuguese Territories and Mahatma Gandhi 

South Africa is a continent by itself and is divided into many States of which the Colonies of Natal and the Cape of Good Hope, Zululand, a Crown Colony, the South African Republic of the Transvaal, Orange Free State and the Chartered Territories are inhabited, more or less, by the Indians together with the Europeans and the natives of those countries. The Portuguese territories, viz., Delagoa Bay, Beira and Mozambique, have a large Indian population, but there the Indians have no grievances, apart from the general population. 1 South Africa, for our purposes, consists of the two British Colonies of the Cape of Good Hope and Natal, the two Republics, viz., the South African Republic or the Transvaal and the Orange Free State, the Crown Colony of Zululand, the Chartered Territories and the Portuguese territories comprising Delagoa Bay or Lorenzo Marques and Beira. 2

South Africa, for our present purposes, is divided into the following States: the British Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, the British Colony of Natal, the British Colony of Zululand, the Transvaal or the South African Republic, the Orange Free State, the Chartered Territories or Rhodesia, and the Portuguese Territories of Delagoa Bay and Beira. In South Africa, apart from the Portuguese Territories, there are nearly 100,000 Indians, of whom the greater part belongs to the labouring class, drawn from the labouring population of Madras and Bengal, speaking the Tamil or Telugu and the Hindi languages respectively. A small number belongs to the trading class, chiefly drawn from the Bombay Presidency. A general feeling throughout South Africa is that of hatred towards Indian, encouraged by the newspapers and connived at, even countenanced by, the legislators. Every Indian, without exception, is a coolie in the estimation of the general body of the Europeans. Storekeepers are “coolie storekeepers”. Indian clerks and schoolmasters are “coolie clerks” and “coolie schoolmasters”. Naturally, neither the traders nor the English-educated Indians are treated with any degree of respect. Wealth and abilities in an Indian count for naught in that country except to serve the interests of the European Colonists. We are the “Asian dirt to be heartily cursed”.

We are “squalid coolies with truth less tongues”. We are “the real canker that is eating into the very vitals of the community”. We are “parasites, semi-barbarous Asiatics”. We live upon rice and we are chock-full of vice. Statute books describe the Indians as belonging to the “aboriginal or semi barbarous races of Asia”, while, as a matter of fact, there is hardly one Indian in South Africa belonging to the aboriginal stock. The Santhals of Assam will be as useless in South Africa as the natives of that country. The Pretoria Chamber of Commerce thinks that our religion teaches us to “consider all women as soulless and Christians a natural prey”. According to the same authority, “the whole community in South Africa is exposed to the dangers engendered by the filthy habits and immoral practices of these people.” Yet, as a matter of fact, there has happened not a single case of leprosy amongst the Indians in South Africa. And Dr. Veale of Pretoria thinks that “the lowest class Indians live better and in better habitations and with more regard to sanitation than the lowest class Whites”, and he, furthermore, puts on record that “while every nationality had one or more of its members at some time in the lazaretto, there was not a single Indian attacked.” 

Such is the general feeling against the Indian in South Africa, except the Portuguese Territories, where he is respected and has no grievance apart from the general population. You can easily imagine how difficult it must be for a respectable Indian to exist in such a country. I am sure, gentlemen, that if our President went to South Africa, he would find it, to use a colloquial phrase, “mighty hard” to secure accommodation in a hotel, and he would not feel very comfortable in a first-class railway carriage in Natal, and, after reaching Volksrust, he would be put out unceremoniously from his first-class compartment and accommodated in a tin compartment where Kaffirs are packed like sheep. I may, however, assure him that if he ever came to South Africa, and we wish our great men did come to these uncomfortable quarters, if only to see and realize the plight in which their fellow countrymen are, we shall more than make up for these inconveniences, which we cannot help, by according him a right royal welcome, so united, so enthusiastic we are, at any rate for the present.

Ours is one continual struggle against a degradation sought to be inflicted upon us by the Europeans, who desire to degrade us to the level of the raw Kaffir whose occupation is hunting, and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with and, then, pass his life in indolence and nakedness. The aim of the Christian Governments, so we read, is to raise people whom they come in contact with or whom they control. It is otherwise in South Africa. There, the deliberately expressed object is not to allow the Indian to rise higher in the scale of civilization but to lower him to the position of the Kaffir; in the words of the Attorney-General of Natal, “to keep him forever a hewer of wood and drawer of water”, “not to let him form part of the future South African nation that is going to be built”; in the words of another legislator in Natal, “to make the Indian’s life more comfortable in his native land than in the Colony of Natal”. The struggle against such degradation is so severe that our whole energy is spent in resistance. Consequently, we have very little left in us to attempt to make any reforms from within. 3

South Africa may, for our purposes, be divided into the two self-governing British Colonies of Natal and the Cape of Good Hope, the Crown Colony of Zululand, the Transvaal or the South African Republic, the Orange Free State, the Chartered Territories and the Portuguese Territories comprising Delagoa Bay and Beira.  The other States have no Indian population to speak of, because of the grievances and disabilities, except the Portuguese territories which contain a very large Indian population and which do not give any trouble to the Indians. 4 At Komatipoort, however, they were detained and prevented from entering the Portuguese territories. The sergeant at the Transvaal Border endeavoured to secure for them entry into Delagoa Bay, but to no purpose. My clients were subsequently detained at the jail in Komatipoort for, as they state, five days. The sergeant then bought for them tickets for Durban. On their applying for embarkation passes to pass through Durban, they are required to deposit £11 as also to buy their passage in Johannesburg. My clients inform me that they are too poor to either deposit the money or buy their passage in Johannesburg. I am in possession of their railway tickets. I shall be obliged if you will kindly let me know what my clients are now to do. They are quite willing to leave the country, if provision can be made for them. I have also the honour to enquire why my clients were detained at the jail in Komatipoort. 5 

Our complaint has always been that our countrymen in India have, as it might have appeared until recently, almost studiously ignored the question of its Imperial importance. The greatest prominence has been given to it by the suicidal action of General Smuts in having forcibly deported innocent Indians, in most cases penniless, from the Transvaal through the Portuguese territories to India. This has advertized the cause as perhaps nothing else has done, and now Mr. Henry S. L. Polak is in Bombay, from the Transvaal, in order to place the position before the Indian public. He has gone there with definite instructions not to come into touch with the Extremist Party, but to be guided largely by the Editor of The Times of India, Professor Gokhale and the Aga Khan. 6

At the risk of repeating what has been often stated in these columns, we may remind our readers that these far-reaching orders take place without any judicial trial. The cases are administratively tried under semi-secrecy. Against these administrative acts, there is no appeal to the Supreme Court. Thus, under a totally un-British procedure, the liberty of a subject is taken away with a stroke of the pen. What is lacking in the law has been supplied by the astute subtlety of an unscrupulous Department. Legally, these deportations can take place only as far as the Transvaal boundary. The Transvaal Government have, therefore, entered into an understanding with the Portuguese authorities (the neighbouring British Colonies would not or could not enter into such a nefarious contract), whereby passive resisters deported to the boundary of the Portuguese territories are taken up by the Portuguese Government and, without any trial, put on board a steamer going to India. 7

 

References:

1. An Appeal to the Indian Public Rajkot, August 14, 1896
2. Notes on the Grievances of the British Indians, September 22, 1896
3. The Times of India, 27-9-1896
4. Speech at meeting, Madras, October 26, 1896
5. Letter to Registrar of Asiatics, September 11, 1907
6. Letter to Lord Ampthill, August 4, 1909
7. Indian Opinion, 26-3-1910