THAT ROUND TABLE CONFERENCE

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Gandhian Scholar

Gandhi Research Foundation, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

Contact No. – 09415777229, 094055338

E-mail- [e-mail];[e-mail]

 

 

 

THAT ROUND TABLE CONFERENCE

 

 

 So it has been announced that the forthcoming Conference on the position of Indians in South Africa is to take place in Cape Town and that a Commission from South Africa is likely to visit India in order to study Indian conditions. The Commission is to include Dr. Malan the present Secretary for the Interior and Mr. Duncan an ex-Secretary. This is all to the good. It is good that the Conference is to take place in South Africa. The Union Government being a wholly responsible government must have in all its undertakings the backing of public opinion in a sense in which the Indian Government has never felt itself under the necessity of having. Moreover no public opinion needs to be created in India in favour of the Indian claim. It is there already. In South Africa, too much cannot be done to educate European opinion on the absolute justice of the Indian claim. If, therefore, the Union Government means well and the selection of Indian representatives is wisely made, apart from the value of its deliberations, the Conference can be a means of directing European opinion in the right channel. It is well also that a Commission from South Africa is to visit India. It will gather impressions which only a personal visit can make. No amount of reading literature or meeting representatives can possibly make up for local inspection and seeing the people themselves face to face.

It is well also that the Commission is to include top men who are supposed to have studied the question. Our case is so just that the more it is studied, the better it is for us. We have nothing to lose by the closest examination and the widest publicity. The more South Africans visit us, the better for us. The greatest stumbling-block in the way of a settlement is the ignorance, on the Indian question, of the best among South Africans. They merely know the demand of the interested white traders. They know little of the Indian side. If the Conference results in a serious study of the question, the bogey of an Indian invasion or even the competition of those Indians who are already settled there will disappear in a moment. There is the other side to the picture. General Hertzog’s speeches are disturbing. I do not conceive the possibility of justice being done to Indians, if none is rendered to the natives of the soil. The mentality is the same in respect of Indians as of the natives. Indeed, it is much worse regarding Indians. Natives, it is said, have a claim upon the consideration of the whites; Indians are mere interlopers. Of course, it is forgotten that Indians were enticed in the first instance to go to South Africa to labour for the Whites and that they were promised permanent settlement under advantageous terms. The point, however, just now is not what they were promised, but what is the mentality of the Whites towards the Indian settlers. And it being one of greater hostility towards them, justice to them is not to be expected if injustice is done to the Natives. To reduce it to the lowest terms, the wish to see justice done to the Natives is based upon selfish considerations. If we go a little deeper, we shall discover that justice can never be purchased at the expense of another. When the seer prayed ‘may all people be happy’, he intuitively perceived a scientific truth.