What did Mahatma Gandhi think of black people?

Rama Lakshmi

Was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the revered leader of Indias freedom movement, a
racist?
A controversial new book by two South African university professors revealsshocking details
about Gandhis life in South Africa between 1893 and 1914, before he returned to India.
During his stay in South Africa, Gandhi routinely expressed disdain for Africans, says S.
Anand, founder of Navayana, the publisher of the book titled The South African Gandhi:
Stretcher-Bearer of Empire.
According to the book, Gandhi described black Africans as savage, raw and living a life of
indolence and nakedness, and he campaigned relentlessly to prove to the British rulers that
the Indian community in South Africa was superior to native black Africans. The book combs
through Gandhis own writings during the period and government archives and paints a
portrait that is at variance with how the world regards him today.
[The dark side of Winston Churchill no one should forget]
Much of the halo that surrounds Gandhi today is a result of clever repackaging, write the
authors, Ashwin Desai and Goolam Vahed, professors at the University of Johannesburg and
the University of KwaZulu Natal.
As we examined Gandhis actions and contemporary writings during his South African stay,
and compared these with what he wrote in his autobiography and 'Satyagraha in South Africa,'
it was apparent that he indulged in some tidying up.' He was effectively rewriting his own
history.
Prize-winning Indian author Arundhati Roy says the book, which will hit stores next month, is
a serious challenge to the way we have been taught to think about Gandhi.
Here is a sample of what Gandhi said about black South Africans:

* One of the first battles Gandhi fought after coming to South Africa was over the separate
entrances for whites and blacks at the Durban post office. Gandhi objected that Indians were
classed with the natives of South Africa, who he called the kaffirs, and demanded a separate
entrance for Indians.
We felt the indignity too much and petitioned the authorities to do away with the invidious
distinction, and they have now provided three separate entrances for natives, Asiatics and
Europeans.
* In a petition letter in 1895, Gandhi also expressed concern that a lower legal standing for
Indians would result in degenerating "so much so that from their civilised habits, they would
be degraded to the habits of the aboriginal Natives, and a generation hence, between the
progeny of the Indians and the Natives, there will be very little difference in habits, and
customs and thought."
* In an open letter to the Natal Parliament in 1893, Gandhi wrote:
I venture to point out that both the English and the Indians spring from a common stock,
called the Indo-Aryan. A general belief seems to prevail in the Colony that the Indians are
little better, if at all, than savages or the Natives of Africa. Even the children are taught to
believe in that manner, with the result that the Indian is being dragged down to the position of
a raw Kaffir.
* At a speech in Mumbai in 1896, Gandhi said that the Europeans in Natal wished to degrade
us to the level of the raw kaffir whose occupation is hunting, and whose sole ambition is to
collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with, and then, pass his life in indolence and
nakedness.
* Protesting the decision of Johannesburg municipal authorities to allow Africans to live
alongside Indians, Gandhi wrote in 1904 that the council must withdraw the Kaffirs from the
Location. About this mixing of the Kaffirs with the Indians, I must confess I feel most
strongly. I think it is very unfair to the Indian population and it is an undue tax on even the
proverbial patience of my countrymen.

* In response to the White Leagues agitation against Indian immigration and the proposed
importation of Chinese labour, Gandhi wrote in 1903: We believe also that the white race in
South Africa should be the predominating race.
* Gandhi wrote in 1908 about his prison experience: We were marched off to a prison
intended for Kaffirs. There, our garments were stamped with the letter N, which meant that
we were being classed with the Natives. We were all prepared for hardships, but not quite for
this experience. We could understand not being classed with the whites, but to be placed on
the same level with the Natives seemed too much to put up with.
* In 1939, Gandhi justified his counsel to the Indian community in South Africa against
forming a non-European front: I have no doubt about the soundness of my advice. However
much one may sympathise with the Bantus, Indians cannot make common cause with them.
In the pantheon of freedom fighters, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi has pride of place. His fame and influence extend far
beyond India and are nowhere more significant than in South Africa. "India gave us a Mohandas, we gave them a Mahatma,"
goes a popular South African refrain. Contemporary South African leaders, including Mandela, have consistently lauded him as
being part of the epic battle to defeat the racist white regime.
The South African Gandhi focuses on Gandhi's first leadership experiences and the complicated man they reveala man who
actually supported the British Empire. Ashwin Desai and Goolam Vahed unveil a man who, throughout his stay on African soil,
stayed true to Empire while showing a disdain for Africans. For Gandhi, whites and Indians were bonded by an Aryan bloodline
that had no place for the African. Gandhi's racism was matched by his class prejudice towards the Indian indentured. He
persistently claimed that they were ignorant and needed his leadership, and he wrote their resistances and compromises in
surviving a brutal labor regime out of history. The South African Gandhi writes the indentured and working class back into
history.
The authors show that Gandhi never missed an opportunity to show his loyalty to Empire, with a particular penchant for war
as a means to do so. He served as an Empire stretcher-bearer in the Boer War while the British occupied South Africa, he
demanded guns in the aftermath of the Bhambatha Rebellion, and he toured the villages of India during the First World War
as recruiter for the Imperial army. This meticulously researched book punctures the dominant narrative of Gandhi and
uncovers an ambiguous figure whose time on African soil was marked by a desire to seek the integration of Indians, minus
many basic rights, into the white body politic while simultaneously excluding Africans from his moral compass and political
ideals.

Gandhiji was a racist, says new book endorsed by Arundhati Roy

An explosive new book portraying Gandhi as a rabid racist and an unashamed flag-bearer for the
British Empire has provoked a heated debate, pitting his admirers against his critics, even before it is
out.
Whats more, it comes with an endorsement from author Arundhati Roy, who has riled Gandhi-tes in
the past by calling him a defender of the caste system and an upholder of oppressive gender relations.

She has hailed the book as a serious challenge to the way we have been taught to think about
Gandhi.
"This is a wonderful demonstration of meticulously researched, evocative, clear-eyed and fearless
history-writing. It uncovers a story, some might even call it a scandal, that has remained hidden in
plain sight for far too long, she writes.

Getty Image

Authored by two prominent South African academics of Indian origin , The South African Gandhi:
Stretcher-Bearer of Empire, casts him as a white supremacist who spewed hatred against native
Africans during his time as a lawyer in South Africa between 1893 and 1914.
Ashwin Desai, Professor of Sociology at the University of Johannesburg, and Goolam Vahed,
Associate Professor of History at the University of KwaZulu Natal, have mined Gandhi's own writings
to back their claims. They say that he called the natives "savages" and "Kaffir" and lobbied with the
British not to club Indians with them.
As we examined Gandhis actions and contemporary writings and compared these with what he
wrote in his autobiography and 'Satyagraha in South Africa,' it was apparent that he indulged in
some tidying up.' He was effectively rewriting his own history, they say.
Gandhi considered Indians as far superior to the native Africans, and never missed an opportunity
to demonstrate his loyalty to Empire, with a particular penchant for war.
He served as stretcher-bearer in the war between Brit and Boer, demanded that Indians be
allowed to carry fire-arms, and recruited volunteers for the imperial army in both England and
India during the First World War, they say.
Gandhi, the book claims, had only white friends and native Africans were not allowed to be members
of his Phoenix of Tolstoy Farms, a cooperative he set up near Johannesburg, inspired by the Russian
writers ideas

Being promoted as an authoritative refutation of conventional assumptions about Gandhi and his
saintly reputation, it says: "Leaders like Mandela have lauded him as being part of the epic battle to
defeat the white regime and prepare the way for a non-racial country. Against this background, The
South African Gandhi unravels the complex story of a man who, throughout his stay on African soil
remained true to Empire while expressing disdain for Africans."
A video, released by its publishers Navayana and Stanford University Press, starts with Albert
Einsteins famous tribute to Gandhi (Generations to come will scarce believe that such a man ever in
flesh and blood walked upon this Earth); and then rhetorically asks: But did Einstein know what
Gandhi did and said in South Africa? See the video:
So, how bad was Gandhis racism?
Here are some of the more cringingly racist quotes published by The Washington Post:
1. One of the first battles Gandhi fought was over the separate entrances for whites and blacks at the
Durban post office. Gandhi objected that Indians were classed with the natives who he called the
kaffirs.
We felt the indignity too much and petitioned the authorities to do away with the invidious
distinction, and they have now provided three separate entrances for natives, Asiatics and
Europeans."
2. On another occasion, expressing concern over a lower legal standing proposed for Indians he wrote
in a petition in 1895 that this would result in degenerating "so much so that from their civilised
habits, they would be degraded to the habits of the aboriginal Natives, and a generation hence,
between the progeny of the Indians and the Natives, there will be very little difference in habits, and
customs and thought."
3. In an open letter to the Natal Parliament in 1893, Gandhi wrote:
I venture to point out that both the English and the Indians spring from a common stock, called the
Indo-Aryan. A general belief seems to prevail in the Colony that the Indians are little better, if at
all, than savages or the Natives of Africa. Even the children are taught to believe in that manner,
with the result that the Indian is being dragged down to the position of a raw Kaffir.
4. In a speech in Bombay (Mumbai) in 1896, Gandhi said that the Europeans in Natal wished to
degrade us to the level of the raw kaffir whose occupation is hunting, and whose sole ambition is to
collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with, and then, pass his life in indolence and
nakedness.
5. Protesting the decision of Johannesburg municipal authorities to allow Africans to live alongside
Indians, Gandhi wrote in 1904:
Mixing of the Kaffirs with the Indians, I feel most strongly. I think it is very unfair to the Indian
population and it is an undue tax on even the proverbial patience of my countrymen.

6. About his prison experience in 1908: We were marched off to a prison intended for Kaffirs our
garments were stamped with the letter N, which meant that we were being classed with the
Natives. We were all prepared for hardships, but not quite for this experience. We could understand
not being classed with the whites, but to be placed on the same level with the Natives seemed too
much to put up with.
Pretty unpleasant stuff.
The reaction has ranged from chest-thumping we-told-you-so to incredulity; and attempts to
rationalise, understand and contextualise his actions.
Faisal Devji, Oxford University academic and author of The Impossible Indian: Gandhi and the
Temptation of Violence who has endorsed the book, distanced himself from its conclusions.
Devji said that he had conveyed his reservations to the authors when he read the manuscript and got
them to make a number of changes, but was still "not satisfied".
"Yes I did endorse it, but not for the argument about race. The authors don't seem to get the point that
Gandhi was doing his job as a lawyer when he made most of the comments they criticise.
"He was hit red to defend Indian merchants in a racially defined society, and could only do so in those
terms. And these terms were in fact very familiar all over Africa, with Indians, Arabs and Africans
making similar arguments to upgrade their status within racial hierarchies in East Africa, for
instance, Devji told me.
Critics, however, dismiss any defence as "political correctness". Whether or not Gandhi was racist, his
actions did smack of racism for which a lesser person would have been hanged and quartered.
There are several controversial books on Gandhis personal life but this one is different in that it raises
uncomfortable moral questions. After all, morality was Gandhis USP. He drew his authority from the
moral positions he took on difficult issues of the day earning him the sobriquet "Mahatma".
It will be interesting to see the reaction in India. Is another round of fireworks between Roy and the
rest in the offing?