BIOGRAPHY OF GANDHI
GANDHI - A Biography For Children And Beginners.

Chapter-8

As Gandhi was settling down in Johannesburg with his family, and building up the Natal Indian Congress as the spearhead of the struggle for the rights of the Indian Community, other developments took place. South Africa had to go through the ordeal of a civil war. The two sides who were ranged against each other were the descendants of the original Dutch settlers who had colonized large areas of South Africa, and the descendants of the whites who came later, particularly from Great Britain. They had their differences in attitudes and beliefs. The descendants of the Dutch were called Boers. They spoke 'Afrikaans' which was very similar to Dutch. They were tough farmers. They looked down upon the Indians and wanted only to use them as slave labour, confined to their locations. The attitudes of other whites were not very different.
Gandhi was in a quandary. What attitude should the Indians adopt in the war between these two white groups fighting for supremacy? Were they to side with the Government or with those who were challenging the Government that they were fighting? Or were they to remain neutral?
Gandhi believed that rights and duties were related. If Indians asked for equal rights they should be prepared to accept equal responsibility for discharging the duties of citizenship. A primary duty of the citizen was to defend the state when it was in danger. They could not claim exemption on the ground that they believed in pacifism or non-violence unless their faith in non-violence was well known even before the war. Moreover, even a symbolic participation by the Indian community would raise their standing in the eyes of the whites.
Gandhi therefore offered to raise a Corps of stretcher bearers to serve with the Army. His offer was accepted. With characteristic efficiency he recruited and trained an Indian Ambulance Corps. The members of the corps won admiration and praise for the exemplary courage they displayed on the field of battle carrying out their duties even in danger zones that they were not bound to enter. They surprised the Army and civilians with their feats of endurance, trudging through rough terrain, often doing more than 25 miles a day. All this compelled the white population to revise their view about the Indians whom they had written off as feeble and cowardly, and concerned only with eking out an existence. At the end of the war, the Indian corps was mentioned in the despatches of the General, and its members and Sgt. Gandhi were praised for their contribution, and awarded medals of recognition. Gandhi had put the bona fides of the Indian community beyond question.
The war with the Boers was over in 1901. Gandhi felt that he had put the Indian struggle on course. He had created awareness and determination. He had brought different sections of the community together. He had built up an organization. He felt that the time had come for him to return to India and work among his people there. The Indian community was sad, and did not want to let him go. But they could not dissuade him. So they arranged a farewell and showered him and Kasturba with gifts in gold and gems and jewellery. Kasturba herself was presented with a necklace worth more than fifty sovereigns of gold. Gandhi was deeply perturbed. How could he accept these costly gifts for services he rendered in answer to the call of his conscience? He had a sleepless night. He was deeply agitated, and paced up and down in his room. By the morning he had taken the decision to make a trust and donate all the gifts he had received from the community the day before, and five years ago, on the eve of his return to India. The Trust and income from it were to be used for the service of the community. It was not easy for him to persuade Kasturba to part with the golden necklace and diamonds gifted to her. She demurred and was in tears. Gandhi was harsh, and reminded her that the gifts were for the service he had rendered.
On his return to India, Gandhi wanted to set up practice in Rajkot. But he was persuaded to settle down in Bombay, since Bombay had more opportunities for public work as well as for his work as a barrister. He spent some time in Pune with the great Gopal Krishna Gokhale, and visited Calcutta, Varanasi and other places on his way back to Rajkot. He was shocked and appalled to see the river of blood flowing from the goats that were sacrificed at the Kali temple at Calcutta, and the filth and ungodly atmosphere at Varanasi.
He had hardly settled down in Calcutta when South Africa summoned him again, to lead a delegation of Indians to meet Chamberlain, the British Secretary of State for Colonies. Great hopes were entertained from the visit. Gandhi (and the Indians) believed that the Imperial Government would be more responsive and fair to the Indians because of the service that Indians had rendered in the cause of the Crown, and because Transvaal had now become a Crown colony after the defeat of the Boers. But they were shocked and sorely disappointed. Chamberlain was more interested in raising funds from the whites than in doing justice to the coloured or the blacks. The memorial that Gandhi had drafted was brushed aside saying that the colonies had self-rule.
Worse humiliation was awaiting Gandhi and the Indians in Transvaal where too the Indian community wanted to wait on Chamberlain. After the war, conditions in the Transvaal were not normal. An Asiatic Department had been set up. The declared aim of the Department was to protect the Asians, but the real purpose was to harass them and drive them out. They insisted that Asians from outside Transvaal could enter Transvaal only with a permit. The system of permits had led to corruption. Gandhi found it hard to get a permit to enter Transvaal, and when he managed to do so, he was not permitted to join the Indian delegation that Chamberlain received. This was an eye opener. Gandhi was insulted and excluded. He realized what the new policy of the Government meant. The odds would now be heavier. They would have to start afresh. He would not be able to return to India as he had planned to do. He would have to make Johannesburg (Transvaal) his headquarters. He got his colleagues to agree to his moving from Durban, and enrolled in the Supreme Court at Johannesburg. He found a house in the legal quarters of the city. Since he now anticipated a prolonged stay in South Africa, he asked his family to return to be with him.
He knew that the struggle was going to be long and hard. The whites had already hardened their attitude. It might harden further and might become ruthless when their interests were in real danger. Rights will not be granted for the asking. They will have to be wrenched from unwilling hands.
For this, two things were necessary. The Indian community should be united. Their organization should be strengthened. They should be willing to back their petitions with action, if that became necessary. Action was not possible without readiness to suffer its consequences, without sacrificing narrow self-interest, without readiness to pay the price of freedom and equality. The Indian community had to shed its fear; know its goals; understand the means that they were to employ, cooperate in the strategy of action. All this meant constant communication between him and all sections of the Indian community living in all the states of South Africa. Gandhi decided to start a journal for this purpose. The journal was published in English, Hindi, Gujarati and Tamil. Week after week he wrote on all issues, all aspects of the ideology behind the struggle, all problems before the community. It was the life line of his communication with the people, and with all sympathisers and adversaries. He continued to edit it till he returned to India in 1914.
The second need related to himself. He should become a fit instrument to lead his people in such a struggle, - the struggle in which the weak who were in the right were pitted against the mighty who were defending injustice. Gandhi had already shed his shyness. His diffidence had melted in the fire of his commitment to the cause. The cause was not self- glorification but the vindication of the dignity and equality of the human being. He had discovered the power of the spirit, of the will. This is present in all. But everyone has to be helped to discover it and to use it against evil. Gandhi had to help them to discover this treasure house of power that they held within themselves. But he could do so only if he became the selfless transparent manifestation of this power within. He could do so only if he purified himself, overcame, and became immune to, all temptations. In his own words, a leader had to be immune to all temptation, and be in command of his desires.
In the midst of all his public activity, he therefore embarked on a ruthless and relentless exercise of introspection and self-purification. He delved deep into the life and message of every great human being who had set out to discover the power and ways of the spirit. He embarked on a respectful study of all the main religions of the world, - Christianity, Hinduism, Islam and others. He had studied something of these religions earlier. But now it became urgent, and was based on his commitment to find and tread the path of the spirit for himself and for his colleagues.
He had many friends among the Christians. Many of them had been impressed by his respect for Christianity. They had hoped that Gandhi would accept the Christian faith. Some of them had urged Gandhi to do so. Gandhi was greatly attracted by the life of Jesus. Tears welled in his eyes when he thought of the crucifixion of Jesus, or the Sermon on the Mount, and its message of love and renunciation. But he had difficulties. He could not accept Christianity as explained by his followers. He could not believe in miracles. He could not believe that Jesus was the only Son of God. In his view, all human beings were the children of God. He could not subscribe to the belief that only those who accepted 'His great redemption' could find eternal peace. He replied, "I do not seek redemption from the consequences of my sin. I seek to be redeemed from sin itself, or rather from the very thought of sin. Until I have attained that end, I shall be content to be restless."
He could not accept many of the superstitions and rituals that had come to be identified as an essential part of Hinduism. He could not accept that God or religion could ordain human beings to be treated untouchables. He had revolted against this even while he was a young boy, and his mother had asked him not to touch the young Ulaka who belonged to a caste that was considered untouchable. He would touch Ulaka to show that the belief was a myth and was indefensible. There were many questions in his mind about human life, death, the soul, rebirth and so on, and he engaged in discussions and correspondence with Raichandbhai, a well-known religious thinker and practitioner in Gujarat. He delved into a study of the Gita, and discovered a veritable 'spiritual dictionary' in it. It had an answer for every occasion, every difficulty. Many of its stanzas brought tears to his eyes. To him the battle-field of Kurukshetra was metaphorical. There was an incessant fight going on within us between good and evil. Lord Krishna had shown us the path that could lead to the victory of the good. It did not lie through violence and war, but through the renunciation of attachment to desires and the fruits of action. A human being cannot escape action. He should wear himself out in action, not with attachment to the fruits of his action, but by dedicating them to all, by renunciation. He called the Gita the yoga of the non- attachment. He also saw in the Gita the message that all human beings had to earn their bread by their own work, looking upon all such work as a link in the sacrificial effort that maintained society and sustained nature. This he called the spirit of Yajna. He accepted the Gita's idea that one who wanted to serve others or even himself should control his desires and emotions and become a Sthitaprajna or a man of abiding wisdom. He had to overcome his ego and the temptation of the senses, and live by the sweat of his brow.
All these thoughts and beliefs were surfacing and milling in his mind when, on one of his journeys from Johannesburg to Durban, his friend and colleague, Polak gave him a book to read on the train. It was Ruskin's Unto This Last. He started reading, and found that he could not lay the book down. The book confirmed many of his thoughts:

1. The good of the individual is contained in the good of all, - since all human beings are interdependent.
2. All socially useful work, - whether that of the lawyer or barber has the same value.
3. A life of labour, particularly productive labour related to basic needs - like agriculture or handicrafts - was the life worth living.

Gandhi believed in practising whatever he accepted as true or desirable. So, he decided to lead the life of a farmer and craftsman, while devoting his life to the struggle for justice. He bought a farm near Phoenix, 14 miles from Durban, and moved to this farm which was named the Phoenix Settlement. This was in 1904 when he was 35 years of age. He often trekked from Durban to Phoenix and back. He invited his colleagues - Indian, European, Chinese and others to go and settle in the Phoenix Settlement. The printing press of the Indian Opinion was shifted there. The Settlement became Gandhi's laboratory to discover the transformation that the individual and the community needed to lead a life free from exploitation and dedicated to the realization of high ideals. Among the members of the community were Polak and his wife Millie, Maganlal Gandhi and many others.
The experiments that Gandhi conducted at the Settlement related to all aspects of life. He had to discover what helped to tame the body and mind, - to acquire mastery over the senses, to overcome the ego that stood in the way of the mind, and an order that worked for the welfare of all that he described later as Sarvodaya.
So there were experiments with food or diet; experiments aimed at self-sufficiency in the production of essentials; experiments on the extent to which an individual could go in achieving self-sufficiency consistent with interdependence; experiments in new methods of education through manual work or craft, supplementary study, character-building and community living. Gandhi was the example that inspired these experiments and monitored the evolution towards truth, love, sacrifice and non-exploitative values. The community also witnessed experiments aimed at acquiring control over emotions like anger and jealousy, and problems arising from boys and girls living in each other's constant company.
In the meanwhile South Africa was rocked by a rebellion of the Zulus. There were large-scale military operations against the Zulus. Again Gandhi offered to raise an Indian Ambulance Corps to tend the wounded and remove the dead. Gandhi's experiences during the Rebellion were harrowing and excruciating. He saw barbarism at its worst. Zulus were whipped till their skins peeled off. They were left in a pool of blood. Whites refused to tend the wounded Zulus. They wanted the Zulus to bleed and die, and be fed upon by birds of prey or wild beasts. The Indian Ambulance Corps looked after the Zulus - wounded and dead. Again the courage and forbearance of Gandhi and his colleagues were commended, and they were honoured with medals. But Gandhi's mind was restless and in remorse for what he had seen of the cruelty of man against man. The physical sufferings that he had seen had drained his mind of all desire for the momentary pleasures of the body. He had already been thinking of a vow to give up the life of the flesh, and the attractions of the flesh. The conviction grew in him that he could not do public work without leading a life of brahmacharya or celibacy. So, when he returned from the field of battle, he talked the matter over with his wife. She had no objection. He was happy to receive her consent. He took the vow of brahmacharya (celibacy) in 1906. He was 37 years of age.