Race, Empire, and Citizenship: Sarojini Naidu's 1924 Visit to South Africa

Abstract

This paper focuses on Sarojini Naidu's noteworthy 1924 visit to South Africa. She was the first high profile Indian to visit after the departure of Mohandas K. Gandhi in 1914. Her visit also highlighted that Indian political figures' visits to colonies often perpetuated a reliance on India for political redress. Naidu stood out because, even though she came as Gandhi's emissary, she went well beyond him in calling for a broad-based black alliance against white minority rule. She also emphasised that Indians in South Africa were national citizens and owed their allegiance to their adopted home. By emphasising the ‘South Africanness’ of Indians, she put paid to Gandhi's idea of imperial citizenship transcending the nation-state. Moreover, she was highly critical of Empire. The question is whether Naidu's visit should be understood within a particular historical trajectory or as the individual actions of an exceptional woman, feminist, and leader. This paper argues that she reflected changes in attitudes towards race in the colonies as well as feelings in India, including Gandhi's, of disillusionment with Empire. Rather than seeing Naidu's position as that of an outstanding individual, it should be contextualised within a specific historical conjuncture.

Keywords:

• Sarojini Naidu
• Mohandas K. Gandhi
• identity
• India
• colony
• swaraj

Notes

¹In the historiography the term ‘passenger’ has generally come to be associated with traders. However, as used here, the term merely refers to those Indians who came outside of any official arrangements between the governments of India and South Africa.

²A. Desai and G. Vahed, Inside Indian Indenture: A South African Story, 1860–1914 (Cape Town: HSRC Press, 2010), 49–52.

³See S. Bhana and G. Vahed, The Making of a Political Reformer: Gandhi in South Africa, 1893–1914 (New Delhi: Manohar, 2005) for the India-connectedness of South African Indians. Appendix 1 (157–161) contains a list of cultural-religious organisations with ties to India, while chapter 2 (26-51) provides details on many of these organisations. Pages 15–17 detail the religious, political, economic, and cultural contact between South Africa and India.

⁴P. Levitt and N.G. Schiller, ‘Conceptualizing Simultaneity: A Transnational Social Field Perspective of Society’, International Migration Review, 38, 145 (2004), 595–629, at 598.

⁵Bhana and Vahed, The Making of a Political Reformer, 17.

⁶Pearson, ‘Theorizing Citizenship in British Settler Societies’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 25, 6 (2002), 989–1012, at 994.

⁷In the peculiar South African context, where the obsession with race remains as strong as ever, the population is divided into black African, white, Coloured, and Asian (Indian). When ‘black’ is used politically, it refers cumulatively to Indians, Africans and Coloureds.

⁸van der Spuy, Patricia and Lindsay Clowes. ‘Sarojini Naidu, Cissie Gool and the politics of women's leadership in South Africa in the 1920s’, Unpublished paper presented at the International Federation for Research in Women's History Conference, Amsterdam, August 2010.

¹¹Quoted in D. Gorman, ‘Wider and Wider Still?: Racial Politics, Intra-Imperial Immigration and the Absence of an Imperial Citizenship in the British Empire’, Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 3, 3 (2002); muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_colonialism_and_colonial_history/toc/cch3.3.html (accessed 5 January 2009), para. 26.

⁹The term ‘passenger Indian’ has led to the stereotype of the wealthy Gujarati trader which, like all stereotypes, fails to capture the complex and diverse composition of this migrant stream from South Asia. According to Dhupelia-Mesthrie, the term ‘requires redefinition. Its simplified definition leads to a divisive understanding of migration from the Indian subcontinent and contributes to the stereotype of the rich Gujarati. The term needs to embrace workers and in terms of regional origins to include not just those from west India and certainly not just Gujarat but also those from other parts of India… [Many] Passenger Indians secured work in menial positions and some remained in these for more than just an initial phase’, (63–64) See U. Dhupelia-Mesthrie, ‘The Passenger Indian as Worker: Indian Immigrants in Cape Town in the Early Twentieth Century’, African Studies, 68, 1 (2009), 111–134.

¹⁰See M. Swan, Gandhi: The South African Experience (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1985), 38–78.

¹²S. Banerjee, Becoming Imperial Citizens: Indians in the Late-Victorian Empire (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010), 83.

¹⁶In Banerjee, Becoming Imperial Citizens, 1.

¹³Natal Archives Repository (NA), Colonial Secretary's Office (CSO), vol. 1632, 9294/1899, Gandhi to Colonial Secretary,19 October 1899.

¹⁴Bhana, Surendra, Gandhi's Legacy – The Natal Indian Congress 1894–1994. Scottsburgh: University of Natal Press, 1997.

¹⁵Circular letter addressed to select persons, 16 September 1899. The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi/Volume II/1899. Accessed at http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Collected_Works_of_Mahatma_Gandhi/Volume_II/1899#endnote_82, accessed on 14 April 2011.

¹⁷In Banerjee, Becoming Imperial Citizens, 1.

¹⁸Gorman, ‘Wider and Wider Still?’, para. 6.

¹⁹Radhika Mohanram's Imperial White: Race, Diaspora, and the British Empire (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007).

²⁰Gorman, ‘Wider and Wider Still?, para. 6.

²¹In S. Banerjee, ‘Empire, the Indian Diaspora, and the Place of the Universal’, Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies, 15, 1 (Spring 2006): 147–166, at 147.

²⁵M.K. Gandhi, ‘The Story of My Experiments with Truth’, Part II, Ch. XXVI. Accessed at http://www.scribd.com/doc/29021161/Gandhi-Britain-Loyalty-Disillusionment-Longing.

²² In S. Banerjee, ‘Empire, the Indian Diaspora, and the Place of the Universal’, Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies, 15, 1 (Spring 2006): 147–166, at 147, 149.

²³See Swan, Gandhi, 79–93, and Vahed, ‘“African Gandhi”: The South African War and Loss of Imperial Identity’, Historia, vol. 45 (June 2000), 201–219.

²⁴Banerjee, Becoming Imperial Citizens, 83.

²⁶Gokhale (1866–1915) was one of the founding leaders of the Indian Independence Movement against the British. He was a senior leader of the Indian National Congress. While promoting independence Gokhale believed strongly in the avoidance of violence and reform within existing government institutions.

²⁷Resolution for the Subsidisation of Vernacular Papers. 8 March 1911, Collected Works of GK Gokhale, vol. 1, 218. Cited in ‘Gandhi & Britain: Loyalty, Disillusionment, Longing’, http://www.scribd.com/doc/29021161/Gandhi-Britain-Loyalty-Disillusionment-Longing, accessed on 20 June 2011.

²⁸‘Indentured Labor for Natal’, 25 February 1910, CWOGKG, Vol. 1, 293. Cited in ‘Gandhi & Britain: Loyalty, Disillusionment, Longing’, http://www.scribd.com/doc/29021161/Gandhi-Britain-Loyalty-Disillusionment-Longing, accessed on 20 June 2011.

²⁹Joseph J. Doke, MK Gandhi. An Indian Patriot in South Africa, (Delhi: Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, 1967 (1909)), at http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/M._K._Gandhi:_Indian_Patriot_in_South_Africa, accessed at various times in March 2011 [chapter 20].

³⁰See Swan, Gandhi, 197.

³¹This included the prohibition on inter-provincial migration, restrictions on the entry of wives, loss of domicile after a three year absence from the Colony, the three pound tax on free Indians which forced large numbers of Indians to re-indenture, and so on.

³⁴Y. Chada, Rediscovering Gandhi (London: Century 1997), 175.

³² Cape Argus, 22 October 1912.

³³ Cape Times, 23 October 1912.

³⁵See Desai and Vahed, Inside Indian Indenture, chs 19 and 20, 371–419 for a discussion of the strike and the settlement. The Agreement facilitated the entry of wives and children of Indians domiciled in South Africa; and made provision for the granting of free passages to India to all Indians who gave up their right to domicile in South Africa. However, Indians were still banned from entering the Orange Free State, only Indians born in South Africa before August 1913 were allowed to enter the Cape, and restrictions against Indian immigration remained.

³⁶ Golden Number, Indian Opinion, 1914, CWOMG vol. 12, 473–478.

³⁷Banerjee, Becoming Imperial Citizens, ch. 2.

³⁸Gandhi, ‘The Stories of My Experiments with Truth’, Part IV, Ch. XXXVII.

³⁹Gandhi, Collected Works, 12, 523.

⁴⁰V. Naravane, Sarojini Naidu: Introduction to her Life, Work and Poetry (New Delhi: Orient Longman, 1980), 21.

⁴¹E.S. Reddy and M. Sarabhai, ed. and comp., The Mahatma and the Poetess. Being a Selection of Letters Exchanged between Gandhiji and Sarojini Naidu (Bangalore: Sarvadoya International Trust, 1998), 11.

⁴²Cited in T.A. Baig, Sarojini Naidu: Portrait of a Patriot (Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Govt. of India, 1974), 75.

⁴⁵‘Letter to Motilal Roy, a revolutionary from Chandernagore, 29 August 1914’, in Sujata Nahar (Ed), India's Rebirth. A selection from Sri Aurobindo's writings, talks and speeches (Mysore: Mira Aditi, 1997), http://voiceofdharma.com/books/ir/IR_part2.htm, accessed on 20 March 2011.

⁴³All quotes in paragraph from M.K. Gandhi, An Autobiography Or The Story Of My Experiments With Truth, Translated From The Gujarati By Mahadev Desai. (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, 1957), 198–99, http://bretleduc.com/upload/Books/MahatmaGandhi-Autobiography.pdf, accessed on 15 March 2011.

⁴⁴Gandhi, ‘The Stories of My Experiments with Truth’, Part V, Ch. II.

⁵²Harijan 4 September 1937, CWOMG vol. LXVI, 104.

⁴⁶On 13 April 1919, thousands of Punjabis gathered in Amritsar's Jallian wala Bagh public garden, the day of the Sikh Festival ‘Baisakhi fair’, to protest against British rule. General Reginald Dyer, without warning, fired into the crowd, killing 379 people and injuring over 1,526 people.

⁴⁷R. Gandhi, Gandhi: The Man, His People, and the Empire (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2008), 219.

⁴⁸See J. Lelyveld, Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle with India (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011), 159–160.

⁴⁹Gandhi, Gandhi: The Man, His People, and the Empire, 219.

⁵⁰Navajivan, 2 January 1921, CWOMG vol. XIX, 165–166.

⁵¹Gandhi, Gandhi: The Man, His People, and the Empire, 238.

⁵³ African Chronicle, 9 May 1914.

⁵⁴See Vahed, ‘African Gandhi’.

⁵⁵Letter from Leo Macgregor, Hon. Sec. of the South African League, Durban and Coast Branch, to the Town Clerk, 12 November 1920. NA, 3/DBN, 4/1/2/1150, 16/327.

⁵⁶Haines, ‘Natal and the Union, 1918–1923’ (MA thesis, University of Natal, Durban, 1976), 103–104.

⁵⁷ Indian Opinion, 12 September 1924.

⁵⁹ The Dharma Vir, 22 August 1919.

⁵⁸ The Dharma Vir, 24 January 1919.

⁶⁰P.N. Agrawal, Bawani Dayal Sanyasi: A Public Worker of South Africa (Etwa, Uttar Pradesh, India: Indian Colonial Association, 1939), 44.

⁶¹B. Pachai, The International Aspects of the South African Indian Question 1860–1971 (Cape Town: C Struik, 1971), 108.

⁶²See W.E.B. DuBois, ‘Worlds of Color’, Foreign Affairs, 3, 3 (April 1925), 437. Quoted in Lake and Reynolds, Global Colour Line, 330.

⁶³Marilyn Lake and Henry Reynolds, Drawing the Global Colour Line: White Men's Countries and the International Challenge of Racial Equality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).

⁶⁵Marilyn Lake and Henry Reynolds, Drawing the Global Colour Line: White Men's Countries and the International Challenge of Racial Equality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 306.

⁶⁴Marilyn Lake and Henry Reynolds, Drawing the Global Colour Line: White Men's Countries and the International Challenge of Racial Equality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008)., 308.

⁶⁹Pietermaritzburg, 7 March 1924. In Indian Opinion 21 March 1924.

⁶⁶Marilyn Lake and Henry Reynolds, Drawing the Global Colour Line: White Men's Countries and the International Challenge of Racial Equality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 298.

⁶⁷Marilyn Lake and Henry Reynolds, Drawing the Global Colour Line: White Men's Countries and the International Challenge of Racial Equality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 302.

⁶⁸Marilyn Lake and Henry Reynolds, Drawing the Global Colour Line: White Men's Countries and the International Challenge of Racial Equality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 302.

⁷¹Mrinalini Sarabhai (Editor) and ES Reddy (Compiler), The Mahatma and The Poetess: A selection of letters exchanged between Gandhiji and Sarojini Naidu (Mumbai: Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan, 1998), http://www.mkgandhi.org/Selected%20Letters/Sarojini/index.htm, accessed at various time during March–April 2011.

⁷⁰Lake and Reynolds, Global Colour Line, 327.

⁷²Hughes, ‘Kenya, India and the British Exhibition’, 71.

⁷³ Hughes, ‘Kenya, India and the British Exhibition’, 72–76.

⁷⁴Durban, 10 March 1924. In Indian Opinion, 21 March 1924.

⁷⁵D.L. Hughes, ‘Kenya, India and the British Exhibition of 1924’, Race & Class, 47 (4), 66–85, at 72–76.

⁷⁶Z. Patel, Manilal Ambalal Desai: The Stormy Petrel (Nairobi: Zand Graphics, 2010), 60–61.

⁷⁹Mrinalini Sarabhai (Editor) and ES Reddy (Compiler). The Mahatma and The Poetess: A selection of letters exchanged between Gandhiji and Sarojini Naidu (Mumbai: Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan, 1998), http://www.mkgandhi.org/Selected%20Letters/Sarojini/index.htm, accessed at various time during March–April 2011.

⁷⁷Z. Patel, Manilal Ambalal Desai: The Stormy Petrel (Nairobi: Zand Graphics, 2010), 61.

⁷⁸Z. Patel, Manilal Ambalal Desai: The Stormy Petrel (Nairobi: Zand Graphics, 2010), 61.

⁸⁰ Lourenco Marques Guardian, 27 February 1924.

⁸¹National Archives Repository (SAB), Governor General (GG) 912, 15/1193; 15/1198; 15/1201, 28 February 1924.

⁸² The Star, 15 March 1924.

⁸³ The Star, 15 March 1924.

⁸⁴The bill was discussed in The Star (Johannesburg), 15 March 1924.

⁸⁵M.K. Gandhi, ‘Statement to the Press on Anti-Indian Campaign in South Africa’, 14 February 1924, http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/people/gandhi/51-73.htm, accessed 30 April 2011.

⁸⁶See obituary of P.K. Naidoo, Indian Opinion, 19 September 1924.

⁸⁷Cited in Indian Opinion, 21 March 1924.

⁸⁸28 February 1924. In Indian Opinion, 21 March 1924.

⁸⁹Cape Town, 18 March 1924. In Indian Opinion 28 March 1924.

⁹⁰ Cape Argus, 1 March 1924.

⁹¹ Cape Argus, 1 March 1924.

⁹⁶ Natal Mercury, 10 March 1924.

⁹² Cape Argus, 1 March 1924.

⁹³ Cape Argus, 1 March 1924.

⁹⁴ Cape Argus, 1 March 1924.

⁹⁵ Cape Argus, 1 March 1924.

⁹⁹ Pretoria Times, I March 1924.

⁹⁷Editorial, Cape Times, 29 February 1924.

⁹⁸ The Friend, 29 February 1924.

¹⁰⁰Cited in Indian Opinion 21 March 1924.

¹⁰¹ Indian Opinion 11 March 1949.

¹⁰² Natal Mercury, 10 March 1924.

¹⁰³Naidu's speech was summarised in the local press. The Natal Mercury reported that she had asked the women what they would be prepared to do ‘to be free; to get freedom; to get equal political status, and the respect of all other communities for the Indian community’ (Natal Mercury, 10 March 1924).

¹⁰⁴ Indian Opinion, 21 March 1924.

¹⁰⁵City Hall, 10 March 1924. Cited in Indian Opinion 21 March 1924.

¹⁰⁶Pietermaritzburg, 7 March 1924. Times of Natal 10 March 1924.

¹⁰⁷ Indian Opinion, 21 March 1924.

¹⁰⁸Albert Park, Durban, 9 March. Indian Opinion, 21 March 1924.

¹¹¹Durban, 10 March 1924. Cited in Indian Opinion, 21 March 1924.

¹⁰⁹In Indian Opinion, 21 March 1924.

¹¹⁰Pietermaritzburg, 7 March 1924: Times of Natal, 10 March 1924.

¹¹² Indian Opinion, 21 March 1924.

¹¹³Newcastle, 5 May 1924. Natal Witness, 6 May 1924.

¹¹⁴ Indian Opinion, 21 March 1924.

¹¹⁸ Indian Opinion, 21 March 1924.

¹¹⁵ Indian Opinion, 21 March 1924.

¹¹⁶Durban City Hall, 10 March 1924. Natesan, Sarojini Naidu, 423; Indian Opinion, 21 March 1924.

¹¹⁷Interview with the Johannesburg Star. Cited in Indian Opinion, 21 March 1924.

¹¹⁹Cited in Indian Opinion, 21 March 1924.

¹²⁰Durban, 9 March 1924. Natal Mercury, 10 March 1924.

¹²¹Albert Park, 9 March, Indian Opinion, 21 March 1924.

¹²⁴ The Negro World, 17 May 1924.

¹²²Cited in Indian Opinion, 28 March 1924.

¹²³Cape Town 18 March 1924. Cited Indian Opinion, 28 March 1924.

¹²⁶ The Negro World, 17 May 1924.

¹²⁵ The Negro World, 17 May 1924.

¹²⁷ The Negro World, 17 May 1924.

¹²⁸ The Negro World, 17 May 1924.

¹²⁹ Young India, 15 May 1924; Collected Works, Vol. 24, 47–48.

¹³²Microfilm of a newspaper cutting, SN 8535; Collected Works, Vol. 23, 258–259.

¹³⁰ Cape Times, 17 March 1924. Jivanjee (1856–1936), a prominent merchant in Kenya and founding member of the East African Indian National Congress and the newspaper East African Standard, stayed in Natal until the end of March. Many private and public functions were held in his honour by local merchants and the NIC gave him an official farewell (Indian Opinion, 4 April 1924).

¹³¹ Indian Opinion, 21 March 1924.

¹³³ Indian Opinion, 21 March 1924.

¹³⁴ Indian Opinion, 21 March 1924.. See also South African Indian Congress, first annual report, 1924, excerpted at http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/library-resources/online%20books/bhana/part02-A-54.htm.

¹³⁵ Indian Opinion, 21 March 1924.. See also South African Indian Congress, first annual report, 1924, excerpted at http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/library-resources/online%20books/bhana/part02-A-54.htm.

¹³⁶Pahad, ‘Development of Indian Political Movements in South Africa’, n.p.

¹³⁷Reproduced at www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/people/gandhi/51-73.htm#N_10_, accessed 30 April 2011.

¹³⁸ Natal Mercury, 19 March 1924.

¹³⁹ Natal Mercury, 19 March 1924.

¹⁴⁰ Indian Opinion, 4 April 1924; 11 April 1924. Mrinalini Sarabhai (Editor) and ES Reddy (Compiler), The Mahatma and The Poetess: A selection of letters exchanged between Gandhiji and Sarojini Naidu (Mumbai: Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan, 1998), http://www.mkgandhi.org/Selected%20Letters/Sarojini/index.htm accessed at various time during March–April 2011.

¹⁴¹Reported in Indian Opinion, 11 April 1924.

¹⁴² Indian Opinion, 11 April 1924.

¹⁴³ Indian Opinion, 11 April 1924.

¹⁴⁴ Indian Opinion, 2 May 1924.

¹⁴⁵Published in Indian Opinion, 2 May 1924.

¹⁴⁶ The Hindu, April 17, 1924, CW 23:442.

¹⁴⁷ Indian Opinion, 23 May 1924.

¹⁵⁰ Natal Mercury, 2 April 1924; reprinted in Indian Opinion, 23 May 1924.

¹⁴⁸In Indian Opinion, 4 April 1924.

¹⁴⁹Natal Mercury, 2 April 1924; reprinted in Indian Opinion, 23 May 1924.

¹⁵¹G.A. Natesan, Speeches and Writings of Sarojini Naidu, 3 ^rd ed. (Madras: G.A. Natesan & Co., n.d.), 427.

¹⁵² G.A. Natesan, Speeches and Writings of Sarojini Naidu, 3 ^rd ed. (Madras: G.A. Natesan & Co., n.d.), 432–423.

¹⁵⁴ Young India, 14 January 1926.

¹⁵³G. Lewis, Between the Wire and the Wall (Cape Town: David Philip, 1987), 135–136.