On this day in 1915, Mahatma Gandhi had returned from South Africa to India for good. In 2003, it dawned upon some sensible non-resident Indians that migrant Indians should have a commemoration day. They chose ‘January 9' to be known as the Prabasi Bharatiya Divas. Incidentally, South Africa crops up in Indian discourses only when Gandhiji figures in the topic because he had lived there from 1893 until 1915. But Indians had first arrived there in 1860 to work as indentured labourers on the sugar plantations in Natal.
Gandhi had studied law to become a Barrister at Inner Temple in England between 1888 and 1891. He started practising law at the Bombay High Court but could not impress clients at all. Then, he shifted to Rajkot and failed there too. By this time, a few adventurous Indians had migrated to South Africa and set up business ventures. But only a lucky few had met with success. The most prominent among them was Abdullah Haji Adam Jhaveri, who ran a firm, Dada Abdullah & Co with his brother Abdul Karim Jhaveri. The company was one of the biggest South African trading firms operating 15 branches for dealing in imported goods from Germany, India, and England. It also owned a fleet of steam ships. Incidentally, Dada Abdullah had put his cousin Tayob Haji Hkan Mahomed to manage the company's Transvaal branches. In 1890, Tayob bought out the firm's Transvaal operations and incorporated them as ‘TayobHajee Abdulla & Co'. But he messed up business operations and defaulted heavily on payments, for which big legal problems cropped up entangling Abdul Karim.
Dada Abdullah had heard of Gandhi as a British-trained young lawyer in India. He invited Gandhi to be the company lawyer for one full year with a salary of 105 pounds in addition to comfortable stay, food and travel expenses. Gandhi found the offer extremely lucrative as his struggle in India was getting worse than ever before. He accepted the offer instantly and arrived in Durban aboard a ship.
For company work, Dada Abdullah organised a trip for Gandhi to Pretoria by train in first class. But the train authorities threw him out of the compartment because a white man was uncomfortable about an Indian sharing the same space with him. This very incident turned Gandhi stubborn about fighting racial discrimination and inequalities across South Africa. Gandhi resolved never to return until the plight of non-whites changed in South Africa. After his contract with the Abdullah company was over, he worked as a lawyer-cum-activist; and non-whites, particularly Indians, began to recognise him as a messiah. So, he spent 21 years of his most productive life in South Africa to fight for rights of the discriminated lot.
By May 1894, he had organised the Natal Indian Congress. In 1896, he came to India only to organise support from some prominent Indian leaders and went back to South Africa with 800 free-minded Indians whose arrival was vehemently resisted. An enraged white mob attacked Gandhi physically, but he exercised unusual self-restraint as if obeying a divine commandment. His philosophy of winning the detractors with peaceful restraint, thus, turned a habit to subsequently become a lethal, failsafe weapon. Fortunately then, the British government put heavy pressure on the South African administration not to disfranchise Indians arriving there. The Natal Indian Congress by now was engaging in regular nonviolent protests against the oppressive treatment of the white government. When the Boer War broke out in 1899, the humane Gandhi gathered 1,100 Indians to establish ‘Indian Ambulance Corps’ for the British soldiers.
Gandhi suddenly felt he had to start movements in India. Africa was on its own now. So in 1901, he returned to India with family and travelled extensively. He also opened a law office in Bombay to start life afresh. But South African Indians broke down as their crusader of justice was abandoning them. They kept pleading with him not to leave them halfway. So, he returned dutifully to South Africa in 1902 to complete the mission he had begun.
By 1903, Gandhi was leading a life of exemplary discipline and self-restraint. His diet had become severely simple; he was his own doctor; the ‘Bhagwat Gita' had become his handbook of life; and he had begun confronting untouchability issues fiercely. By 1906, after undergoing many trials and tribulations of self-abnegation and eventually Brahmacharya (celibacy), he had become the most formidable force the South African government had ever feared to encounter. Except God, he feared none.
Gandhi set up the Phoenix Farm near Durban, where he trained his cadres on Satyagraha (peaceful restraint). Phoenix Farm is, therefore, known as the birthplace of Satyagraha. Tolstoy Farm was his second unit where Satyagraha was moulded into a unique weapon. He always said English artist John Ruskin's book ‘Unto This Last' had greatly inspired him to set up these human-manufacture outfits. In 1906, Gandhi organised a real big Satyagraha to protest against the Transvaal Asiatic ordinance constituted against the local Indians. Again, in 1907, he held another Satyagraha against the Black Act. In 1908, he was jailed for leading these movements. So in 1909, after a three-month jail term, he went to England to seek assistance of the Indian community there. In 1907, he organised yet another big nonviolent protest against the compulsory registration of Asiatics, which was known as The Black Act. In 1908, he had to go to jail for two months. However, he was released after a special compromise with Jan Christian Smuts, the South African statesman, military leader and philosopher, who was Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa from 1919 to 1924. But he was misunderstood and attacked by his own community for conniving with the enemy. Eventually, Smuts broke the agreement and Gandhi re-launched his Satyagraha with bigger force and vigour. In 1909, he was jailed for three months. After release, he sailed straight for England for support for Indians.
In 1913, he campaigned against nullification of marriages not solemnised according to Christian rights. Then, he launched a huge Satyagraha by leading 2,000 Indian miners across the Transvaal border. He was put in jail. But in no time, they released him unconditionally because he was already a colossal public figure who could cause bigger trouble for the administration. Gandhi's ‘ahimsa’ (nonviolence) weapon had triumphed. Even Smuts had said, “Gandhi is an inspiration for mankind.’
People have completely forgotten Dada Abdullah without whose trust and support Gandhi would never have become a ‘Mahatma’. Abdullah did not have any son to succeed him. And his sole daughter was married in India. Thus, upon his death in 1912, the firm appears to have been dissolved in South Africa. AB Moosa, a fourth-generation descendant of the Abdullah family, takes great pride in the fact that his ancestors had been instrumental in Gandhi's becoming a great soul.
South Africa experiments gave Gandhi the skills of peaceful resistance, which later helped him lead India to Independence. Gandhiji has severally confessed that he was born in India but made in South Africa.
