The British, occupying Cape, initially drove the Boers (Dutch people) out to Natal, Free State, and Transvaal provinces. The land is a typical colonial story of mainly the Dutch and the English clashing with each other and then unitedly with the native population but with far more violence and tragic consequences like the apartheid. This was the predecessor to the present-day Republic of South Africa with nine provinces. Transvaal, Cape of Good Hope, Orange Free State, and Natal were the four provinces which came together as the Union of South Africa in 1910. Gandhi was in South Africa at a crucial point of its history. He finally reached India back on January 9, 1915. He was in South Africa till July 1914, a total period of 20 years. In 1910, he set up the Tolstoy farm near Johannesburg (Transvaal) where he gave a distinct form to his ideas of Satyagraha. Later, in 1903, Gandhi set up an ashram on a hundred-acre land at Phoenix (Natal) to start his ideas of simple living, collective work, and manual labour. He went back in November of the same year on an urgent request to represent Indians during colonial Secretary Chamberlain’s forthcoming visit. Gandhi briefly returned to India in 1902 after the Boer War to set up legal practice. He went on to stay in South Africa till 1914. ![]() Indian traders asked Gandhi to stay back to help fight this and he formed the Natal Indian Congress (NIC). Gandhi was due to return in 1894 when the Natal Parliament brought a bill abolishing Asian right to vote. Gandhi’s ejection from the first-class compartment despite having a valid ticket happened on the night of June 7, 1893. He reached Port Natal in May 1893 (Durban today) at the age of 24 years along with his wife and two sons. Gandhi was in the process of establishing a law practice in Bombay when the firm of Dada Abdulla offered him a year-long contract to assist in a legal matter in South Africa. After qualifying, he came back in 1891 to start a law practice. Gandhi immediately proceeded to London to study Law. Gandhi married Kastur and had their first son in 1888. Surprisingly, Gandhi appears to have a great following in South Africa too with the help of some image building like in India. This book gives a detail of his South African years in a most meticulous manner with extensive references and evidences. ![]() His early experiments of Satyagraha began in South Africa however, it was full of contradictions and ambiguities. Most Indians are simply unaware of the South African years of Gandhi where he spent a considerable amount of time. We focussed too long only on the good to make saints out of humans unrealistically. He was a great man, no doubt however, like all great men, he was a complex mix of the good and the bad. The opening of serious scholarship and global connectedness is perhaps evaluating Gandhi in a more realistic manner. His sainthood, stories, ideas, and deeds fill all our textbooks, political platforms, and academic coverage to the extent that it becomes difficult to question the divine status of Gandhi even slightly without inviting great wrath from some corner.Ī natural trajectory of the post-Independent Indian construction would have led to a point when a textbook in far future would have mentioned Gandhi fighting single-handedly with the British and driving them away. Prolific writers, Ashwin Desai (Professor of Sociology at Johannesburg) and Goolam Vahed (Professor of History at Natal) have written an important book on Gandhi – a name which permeates public consciousness greatly in India.
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