SECTION I : Selected Letters

Gandhi Letter 3 : To G. K. Gokhale

Cape Town,
February 27, 1914

DEAR MR. GOKHALE,

For the time being I am at Cape Town watching the course of events. I do not want to inflict on you any news as about the struggle. I shall be as brief as I possibly can.
Mr Andrews and Mr Pearson are truly good men, we all like them very much. Sir Benjamin has disappointed us. He has hardly done any good and he may do a great deal of harm. He is weak and by no means sincere. Even now he has hardly grasped the details.
And he undoubtedly, consciously or unconsciously, fosters divisions among us. Mr Andrews will tell you all about him. But I thought that I should give you my impressions of Sir Benjamin.
If there is a settlement in March, I propose to leave for India in April. I shall have with me probably about 20 men, women and children who will live with me. These will include the school children who are likely to come. I do not know whether you still want me to live at the Servants of India quarters in Poona or how. I shall be prepared to do so immediately after I have paid a visit to the members of my family. It is likely that the number living with me may be augmented by some members of my family who may wish to share my life and work. Please do not consider yourself bound to keep me at the Society's quarters. I am entirely in your hands. I want to learn at your feet and gain the necessary experience. No matter whether I am staying somewhere under your guidance or not, I shall scrupulously observe the compact of silence for one year after my arrival in India. The vow of silence as I have understood it does not include the South African question and may be broken at your wish for furthering any project about which both of us hold the same view. My present ambition you know. It is to be by your side as your nurse and attendant. I want to have the real discipline of obeying someone whom I love.
and look up to. I know I made a bad secretary in South Africa. I hope to do better in the Motherland if I am accepted.
May you benefit in health by the change and the calmer atmosphere on the continent.
This letter will be in your hands about the middle of March. If you deem it necessary to say anything to me about my movements, you will of course cable. I assume too that you will not want me to go to Poona before you return. If you did, I should of course go.
If I am enabled to leave for India in April, I propose to use the funds you have sent for our passages which shall be all deck. I have no means of my own and Phoenix can hardly supply funds now. It is drained totally dry.

I remain,
Yours sincerely,
M. K. GANDHI

Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Vol. XII, pp. 360-61

Gopal Krishna Gokhale (1866-1915)—Statesman and educationist; was associated with the Indian National Congress since its early days; presided over its Banaras Session in 1905; founded the Servants of India Society at Poona; visited South Africa in 1912 at Gandhiji's invitation.