‘Between Two Fires’: Racial Populism, Indian Resistance and the Beginnings of Satyagraha in the Transvaal, 1902–06

ABSTRACT

In revisiting the historical circumstances leading up to the birth of satyagraha in the Transvaal in September 1906, this article seeks to place white popular protests against Asians within the same frame of analysis as Indian active nonviolence. In doing so it makes two interrelated arguments. First, I suggest that the evolution of satyagraha is better understood when examined in tandem with racial populism. Indian resistance to Transvaal laws was forged in a hostile, violent and racially charged environment. Gandhi and his followers were well aware of the power of white populism and its political influence over the Transvaal administration, and came to realise that some form of mass action of their own would be needed to counter this influence and achieve their political objectives. Second, I argue that it was the express intention of both white racial populists and the Gandhian resistance movement to exploit the competing imperial priorities of the Transvaal and British governments. The widespread agitation led by the White League and other organisations threatened the stability and authority of the colonial state; and so governors Milner and Selborne sought to appease settler opinion by enacting discriminatory legislation. However, London’s and Calcutta’s sensitivity to prejudice directed against British Indians in southern Africa also opened the door to anti-colonial protest, with Gandhi and his supporters generating support and sympathy in Britain and India by agitating for the repeal of unjust laws. The Transvaal administration was therefore forced to pick its way between white populists, Indian protesters, and imperial oversight and censure; and its anti-Indian policies were shaped by these contradictory pressures.

KEYWORDS:

• Gandhi
• satyagraha
• Transvaal
• white populism
• imperial tensions

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. See, for example, Richardson, Chinese Mine Labour in the Transvaal; Harris, ‘Chinese Merchants on the Rand’; Higginson, ‘Hell in Small Places’'; Kynoch, ‘Controlling the Coolies’'; Harris, ‘Private and Confidential’; Martens, ‘Richard Seddon and Popular Opposition’; Bright, Chinese Labour in South Africa.

2. Huttenback, Gandhi in South Africa; Swan, Gandhi; Lelyveld, Great Soul; DiSalvio, M. K. Gandhi; Guha, Gandhi before India.

3. Hyslop, ‘Gandhi 1869–1915’, 30.

4. Huttenback, Gandhi in South Africa; Swan, Gandhi.

5. Hyslop, ‘Gandhi 1869–1915’; Lelyveld, Great Soul; Guha, Gandhi before India; Desai and Vahed, ‘Empire's Soldier’; Desai and Vahed, South African Gandhi.

6. Hyslop, ‘Gandhi 1869–1915’, 30–31. Lake and Reynolds observe that similar transnational connections resulted in the emergence of a unified global white racial identity, which in turn inspired pan-Asian resistance movements, including that led by Gandhi in South Africa. Lake and Reynolds, Drawing the Global Colour Line

7. Hyslop, ‘Strange Death of Liberal England’; Lelyveld, Great Soul. Hyslop and Lelyveld also present circumstantial evidence that the large Indian strike action of late 1913 led by Gandhi was directly inspired by a white syndicalist strike taking place at the same time.

8. Hyslop, ‘Gandhi 1869–1915’, 37–38.

9. Stoler and Cooper, ‘Between Metropole and Colony’, 1–56.

10. Laidlaw, ‘The Victorian State’. Drawing upon work by Philip Howell, Laidlaw characterises nineteenth-century colonial states as the ‘products of the interaction between various imperial sites at different times' and constituted by networks that facilitated the ‘ebb and flow of ideas, practices and people, and contributed to ever-shifting power relations both between various local regimes and between domestic and non-domestic realms'.

11. Denoon, Grand Illusion, xiii.

12. Van Onselen, Studies, vol. 1, 26.

13. ‘Memorandum on the Position of British Indians in the Transvaal’, 7, Confidential Print (hereafter CP) African (South) 752, Colonial Office (hereafter CO), The National Archives, Kew (hereafter TNA).

14. CP African (South) 752, 8, CO, TNA.

15. Mawby, Gold Mining and Politics, vol. 1, 398.

16. Kalgoorlie Miner, 31 Dec. 1902.

17. Daily Express, 10 Nov. 1902.

18. Mawby, Gold Mining and Politics, vol. 1, 401.

19. Kalgoorlie Miner, 7 Feb. 1903.

20. Mawby, Gold Mining and Politics, vol. 1, 419; Guha, Gandhi before India, ch. 22.

21. Daily Express, 10 Nov. 1903.

22. Denoon, Grand Illusion, 121.

23. Gandhi, ‘The Indian Question’, Collected Works ebook, 3, 15, 26.

24. Gandhi, ‘Letter to G. K. Gokhale’, Collected Works ebook, 3, 16, 28.

25. Transvaal Colony, Government Notice No. 356 of 1903.

26. Milner to Chamberlain, 11 May 1903, Cd. 1684, 1903, 3–4, House of Commons Parliamentary Papers (hereafter HCPP).

27. Hamilton to Curzon, 28 May 1903 cited in Huttenback, Gandhi in South Africa, 140.

28. Indian Opinion, 11 June 1903, Gandhi, Collected Works ebook, 3, 45, 69. This report reproduces the official account of an interview conducted between Milner and a deputation of the British Indian Association on 22 May 1903.

29. Gandhi to Milner, 8 June 1903, Collected Works ebook, 3, 59, 95.

30. Indian Opinion, 23 July 1903, Gandhi, Collected Works ebook, 3, 103, 159.

31. Indian Opinion, 8 Oct. 1903, Gandhi, Collected Works ebook, 3, 183, 280.

32. Indian Opinion, 12 Nov. 1903, Gandhi, Collected Works ebook, 3, 211, 319.

33. Indian Opinion, 17 Dec. 1903, Gandhi, Collected Works ebook, 3, 245, 373.

34. Indian Opinion, 24 Dec. 1903, Gandhi, Collected Works ebook, 3, 249, 381.

35. Transvaal Colony, ‪Transvaal Law Reports: ‪Reports of Cases Decided in the Supreme Court (1905), 404–09.

36. Indian Opinion, 21 May 1904, Gandhi, Collected Works ebook, 3, 331, 503.

37. Indian Opinion, 23 July 1904, Gandhi, Collected Works ebook, 4, 31, 35–36.

38. Indian Opinion, 30 July 1904, Gandhi, Collected Works ebook, 4, 33, 37–39.

39. Indian Opinion, 13 Aug. 1904, Gandhi, Collected Works ebook, 4, 40, 48; Indian Opinion, 1 Oct. 1904, Gandhi, Collected Works ebook, 4, 63, 85.

40. Bhana and Brain, Setting down Roots, 145.

41. Huttenback, Gandhi in South Africa, 149.

42. Indian Opinion, 10 Sept. 1904, Gandhi, Collected Works ebook, 4, 54, 76.

43. Indian Opinion, 1 Oct. 1904, Gandhi, Collected Works ebook, 4, 64, 87–88.

44. Cd. 2239, 1904, 25–35, HCPP.

45. Milner to Lyttelton, 18 April 1904, Cd. 2239, 1904, 27, HCPP.

46. Lawley to Milner, 13 April 1904, Cd. 2239, 1904, 29–30, HCPP.

47. Ibid.

48. Milner to Lyttelton, 18 April 1904, Cd. 2239, 1904, 27–28, HCPP.

49. Lyttelton to Milner, 8 July 1904, Cd. 2239, 1904, 37, HCPP.

50. Milner to Lyttelton, 4 Aug. 1904, 11 Aug. 1904, 16 Aug. 1904, cited in Huttenback, Gandhi in South Africa, 151–52.

51. Huttenback, Gandhi in South Africa, 153.

52. Gandhi, Satyagraha in South Africa, ch. 7; Dhupelia-Mesthrie, Gandhi’s Prisoner, 33–38; Guha, Gandhi before India, ch. 5.

53. Guha, Gandhi before India, ch. 5.

54. Gandhi, ‘Notes on the Indian Question’, 6 May 1902, Collected Works ebook, 2, 238, 466–67.

55. Gandhi to Gokhale, 4 July 1903, Gandhi, Collected Works ebook, 3, 84, 133–34.

56. Gandhi, ‘The Indian Question’, Collected Works ebook, 3, 15, 25 (ft 1).

57. Milner to Chamberlain, 12 May 1903, Cd. 1683, 1903, 3, HCPP.

58. Gandhi to Indian National Congress, London, 6 June 1903, Collected Works ebook, 3, 57, 88.

59. Gandhi, ‘Position in the Transvaal’, 6 June 1903, Collected Works ebook, 3, 58, 89.

60. Chamberlain to Milner, 23 May 1903, Cd. 1683, 1903, 5, HCPP.

61. Curzon to Salisbury, 21 June 1903, cited in Huttenback, Gandhi in South Africa, 143.

62. Godley to Curzon, 13 Nov. 1903, cited in Huttenback, Gandhi in South Africa, 142.

63. Curzon to Brodrick, 15 Nov. 1903, cited in Huttenback, Gandhi in South Africa, 143–44.

64. Milner to Lyttelton , 18 April 1904, Cd. 2239, 1905, 27, HCPP.

65. Indian Opinion, 18 June 1904, Gandhi, Collected Works ebook, 4, 19, 25.

66. Cd. 2239, 1904, 3–24, HCPP.

67. Bhownaggree to Chamberlain, 15 Sept. 1903, Cd. 2239, 1904, 21–22, HCPP.

68. Milner to Lyttelton, 18 April 1904, Cd. 2239, 1904, 25–35, HCPP.

69. Lyttelton to Milner, 20 July 1904, in Cd. 2239, 1904, 45, HCPP.

70. Indian Opinion, 14 Jan. 1904, cited in Gandhi, Collected Works ebook, 3, 256, 397–98.

71. Indian Opinion, 21 Jan. 1904, Gandhi, Collected Works ebook, 3, 263, 408.

72. Ibid., 266, 411.

73. Ibid..

74. Ibid., 266, 412.

75. Guha, Gandhi before India, ch. 9; DiSalvio, C. M. K. Gandhi, 195–96; Swan, Gandhi, 117–18.

76. Guha, Gandhi before India, Chap. 8; DiSalvio, C. M. K. Gandhi, 209–13.

77. Indian Opinion, 3 March 1906, Gandhi, Collected Works ebook, 5, 83, 92.

78. Indian Opinion, 17 March 1906, Gandhi, Collected Works ebook, 5, 111, 120.

79. Guha, Gandhi before India, ch. 8.

80. Indian Opinion, 10 June 1905, Gandhi, Collected Works ebook, 4, 249, 300.

81. Ibid.

82. Indian Opinion, 1 July 1905, Gandhi, Collected Works ebook, 4, 289, 339.

83. Selborne to Lyttelton, 21 Aug. 1905, cited in Huttenback, Gandhi in South Africa, 159–60.

84. Gandhi and Ally to Elgin, 31 Oct. 1906, Gandhi, Collected Works ebook, 5, 407, 450–51, italics in original.

85. Breckenridge, ‘Gandhi's Progressive Disillusionment’, 339.

86. Huttenback, Gandhi in South Africa, 161–62.

87. Selborne to Elgin, 21 May 1906, Cd. 3308, 1907, 8–9, HCPP.

88. Selborne to Elgin, 20 June 1906, Cd. 3308, 1907, 11, HCPP.

89. Elgin to Selborne, 21 Sept. 1906, Cd. 3308, 1907, 14, HCPP.

90. Indian Opinion, 8 Sept. 1906, Gandhi, Collected Works ebook, 5, 297, 324.

91. Ibid., 297, 324–25; 301, 328.

92. Gandhi, Satyagraha in South Africa, ch. 12.

93. Indian Opinion, 15 Sept. 1906, Gandhi, Collected Works ebook, 5, 309, 336–38; 5, 310, 338–39.

94. The Star, 22 Sept. 1906, Gandhi, Collected Works ebook, 5, 314, 345.

95. Indian Opinion, 22 Sept. 1906, Gandhi, Collected Works ebook, 5, 321, 352.

96. Selborne to Elgin, 8 Nov. 1906, Cd. 3308, 1907, 38, HCPP.

97. Milner to Chamberlain, 11 May 1903, Cd. 1684, 1903, 3, HCCP.