Читать книгу Daughter Of Midnight - The Child Bride of Gandhi - Arun Gandhi - Страница 16

The letter, unheralded and unsolicited, arrived in Rajkot in mid-March of 1893. It offered Mohandas instant escape from the professional doldrums, and prospective rescue from a financial quagmire. It brought Kasturbai new hopes — and new uncertainties.

The letter came from a longtime friend of the family, a prosperous Muslim merchant of Porbandar whose shipping and trading firm, Dada Abdullah & Company, flourished in South Africa where there was a sizeable population of Indians. They had heard of Mohandas and his qualifications, and felt the young Indian barrister could be useful to their firm, assisting their South African lawyers in a big case involving a claim of £40,000 against another Indian merchant in South Africa. The whole matter would take about a year for which Mohandas would receive a fee of £105. The firm would pay all his living expenses and provide a first-class, round-trip ticket to Durban, the chief port of the British Crown Colony of Natal.

Seasoned traveller that he had become, Mohandas was immediately intrigued by this chance to get away, to see a new part of the world, have new experiences. Of course, he knew even less about South African law than he did about Indian law. Also it was unclear whether Dada Abdullah & Company wanted to engage him as a qualified advocate or as a glorified clerk, and the fee was a modest one, even in those days. But this offer, coming when his morale was at the lowest ebb, seemed providential. He could not reject it.

Mohandas found it difficult to contemplate another parting with Kasturbai. He loved her dearly. The thought of leaving her once again to seek an uncertain future in an unfamiliar country gave him pause, and he said so. But, by way of consolation to them both, he added, “We are bound to meet again in a year.”

To Mohandas’ surprise, Kasturbai (more attuned to his aspirations and disappointments than he knew) was quickly convinced he should go, especially after he explained about his fee. With all his own expenses paid, the entire sum could go to Lakshimidas — £105, more than enough to cover all household expenses for her and their sons while he was away.

Kasturbai found comfort and reassurance in the thought of such financial security — even for just one year. It pained her that her husband, the most qualified of the Gandhi brothers, the one on whom the whole family had pinned its faith, had not yet made good in life, and she had lately begun to wonder if he ever would. Proud and self-reliant by nature, she had lived for too many years with a daily awareness of her dependence on her brothers-in-law, ever conscious of the hard times the family was facing, and of the fact that the debt Lakshimidas had incurred to send Mohandas to London was still unpaid. But Kasturbai was also optimistic by nature. She told herself that, given this new chance in this new and faraway place, Mohandas would at last succeed.

Kasturbai, with her two small sons, saw Mohandas off on the train to Bombay in mid-April of 1893, to set forth once again on the “black waters”. This time he sailed southward, across the Indian Ocean to Natal. All her hopes went with him.

She kept her fears to herself.

When his ship arrived at the quay in Durban after a month at sea, Mohandas was on deck, standing at the rail. He inhaled the brisk autumn air, basked in the bright sunshine, and admired the city’s wide, clean beaches, and its tree-lined boulevards. This was his first close-up view of the land where he would spend, all told, some 22 years. But his indelible first impression of South Africa on that day in May in 1893 had nothing to do with the fine climate and splendid scenery. What gripped Mohandas’ attention, what brought him up short, was his instant awareness of the country’s pervasive colour prejudice — a prejudice so blatantly visible that he could discern it from the deck of his ship before he even disembarked.

As he stood watching a crowd of Durban townspeople hurry up the gangway to greet arriving friends, Mohandas could not help but observe what he later described with admirable restraint as the “snobbishness” of white Europeans toward the darker-skinned people among them. Nothing Mohandas had experienced in India or in England had prepared him for the kind of gratuitous insults he was seeing and hearing.

At that moment, a tall, distinguished-looking Muslim stepped forward. It was Dada Abdullah himself, the firm’s principal partner and most influential trader, come to welcome his new employee. But even as they exchanged greetings, Mohandas was stung to realise that Abdullah was one of the very Indians who had just been treated with such obvious contempt by the white South Africans. Never one to put up with indignities, however meek and docile he might appear, Mohandas fully expected his new employer to take offence, demand apologies then and there. Dada Abdullah hadn’t even noticed the scorn or the taunts. He was obviously used to them. That disturbed Mohandas most of all.

In the weeks that followed, Mohandas learned more about the peculiarities of South Africa. His European-style attire set him apart from other Indians. An educated Indian barrister was regarded with curiosity by whites and non-whites alike. The lawsuit Mohandas was hired to work on would be conducted some 400 miles away in Pretoria, the capital of Transvaal.

Shortly after Mohandas’ arrival in Durban, the firm’s lawyer in Pretoria sent word that he needed Dada Abdullah’s help in preparing the long-delayed lawsuit. Abdullah, busy with other affairs, dispatched his newly-hired barrister to represent him.

Mohandas boarded the train in Durban just before it left for the overnight trip to the Transvaal border where, since the South African railway system was still under construction, he would have to transfer to a stagecoach for the rest of the journey. A first-class ticket had been booked for him, and he was shown to his compartment. He settled into his seat, shuttered the windows, and brought out a book to read. It was cold and the night would be long.

When the train made its first stop at Pietermaritzburg, only some 50 miles from Durban, a white South African entered the compartment. At the sight of Mohandas he recoiled.

“You!” he barked. “What are you doing in here?”

Perplexed, Mohandas stuttered a reply, “Travelling to Pretoria.”

“Don’t you know you are not allowed in here? You must go to the van compartment reserved for blacks.”

“But I have a first-class ticket,” Mohandas said, pulling it out of his pocket to prove the point.

This seemed to enrage the white passenger. He stormed out of the coach, hut returned shortly with a railway official who also ordered Mohandas to move to the third-class van compartment.

Mohandas argued that he had been permitted aboard the first-class compartment in Durban, and he had every right to be there.

“I refuse to get out voluntarily.”

Infuriated at such impertinence from a presumptuous “coolie”, the two men summoned a constable, and together they pushed Mohandas out onto the train platform. They threw his luggage out after him, and the train steamed away into the night.

It was 9.00pm; no other trains were due until morning. There was nothing for Mohandas to do but follow along as his luggage was carted into Pietermartizburg’s dark, unheated railway station.

During the long hours that followed, sitting huddled in that cold, unlit waiting room thousands of miles from home, too humiliated to confront the stationmaster and reclaim his luggage (which contained his overcoat), and more miserable than he had ever been before, Mohandas asked himself some fateful questions.

Should he abandon his mission, take the earliest train back to Durban and the next ship back to India? No. He could not give up — not again. A panoramic view of his past life became starkly visible — all the times he had failed, times he had disappointed his family. He thought of Kasturbai, bearing the brunt of those disappointments, but never turning her ire on him, always encouraging him when a new opportunity arose. He must now seize this opportunity — he was, after all, a man of action. He must stay in South Africa and fight prejudice.

It took Mohandas three more days to reach Pretoria. Along the way, his new resolve was tested time and again — and not found wanting. The iron had entered his soul.

In Pretoria, the firm’s English lawyer, Mr. A. W. Baker, received Mohandas cordially and helped him find living quarters. Then he put him to work reviewing the complexities of Dada Abdullah’s lawsuit and translating the correspondence, much of which was in Gujarati. Besides being an attorney, Mr. Baker was a devout Christian and lay preacher. In the succeeding months, he would spend many hours trying to convert Mohandas to Christianity. Although glad to meet and talk with others interested in religion, Mohandas would reach the same conclusion he had in England: he should not think of embracing another religion before he more fully understood his own.

Soon after arriving in Pretoria, Mohandas invited the city’s entire Indian population to come together to discuss their problems. A large crowd showed up. Overcoming the shyness that had always left him tongue-tied, Mohandas gave what he later described as his first public speech.

His goal was to inform Indians of their rights, and inspire them to give voice to their grievances. He urged them to be honest and truthful in the business dealings; to be clean in their habits and sanitary in their living conditions; to forget their differences of religion, caste, class, and region; and to learn to speak English. Only after delivering this little homily on responsibilities did he turn to the question of rights. He suggested that they form a permanent association to document discrimination against Indians and present grievances to the Transvaal authorities.

However, his first order of business was Dada Abdullah’s lawsuit. The defendant in the case, Tyeb Sheth, was not only Abdullah’s cousin, but also his counterpart — he was the wealthiest and most influential Indian merchant in Pretoria and was one of the first to support Mohandas’ efforts to organise and unite Pretoria’s Indian population. The case, involving promissory notes, bookkeeping practices, and several fine points of law had remained unsettled for months. Even before leaving Durban, Mohandas had startled Abdullah by suggesting that an out-of-court settlement of his claim for damages might be a good solution for both plaintiff and defendant. Now, having met and talked with Tyeb Sheth, and conferred with the other attorneys, he saw that the facts favoured Abdullah. But he also realised that if the case dragged on, it could prove ruinous to both litigants. Only the lawyers would make money.

It took months of negotiations and reams of correspondence to convince both Dada Abdullah and Tyeb Sheth to go to arbitration. When they did, the decision favoured Abdullah — he was awarded £37,000, almost the full amount of his claim. But Mohandas took the process one step further. He saved Tyeb Sheth from bankruptcy (and certain ignominy in the Muslim community) by persuading Abdullah to accept payment in installments rather than the usual lump sum. This happy outcome restored goodwill between the relatives, and convinced Mohandas that a lawyer’s true function was “to unite parties driven asunder.”

With the lawsuit settled and his contract fulfilled, Mohandas returned to Durban in May of 1894, full of self-confidence and eager to book passage on the next ship home to India. Of late, he had been thinking of Kasturbai constantly. His vow of lifelong fidelity remained unbroken. He was longing to see her and his sons. But, again, fate took a hand.

On the day before he was to sail, Dada Abdullah honoured him with a large farewell party. Leading members of Natal’s Indian community came to meet the young barrister who had done such good work in Pretoria. While waiting for lunch to be served, Mohandas picked up that morning’s edition of the Natal Mercury, and his eye fell on a small news item buried at the bottom of an inside page under the caption “Indian Franchise”. A bill had been introduced into the Natal Legislative Assembly to deprive Indians of their right to vote. What had happened in the Boer republics was now happening in Natal.

“Hello, what is this? Have you seen this news item?” he asked the friends who had gathered. He read the paragraph aloud.

Dada Abdullah, speaking for the group, said it made little sense to them. “We are businessmen,” he explained. “We have little education. We buy the newspapers only to read the market rates.” As for politics, “Our European attorneys are our eyes and ears.”

But for several moments, he said nothing further. Tomorrow, he would be leaving. He was going home to India to make a living; to get ahead in his profession. He was going home to Kasturbai, to his sons, to his family. If he uttered a single word, he feared he would find himself more deeply involved than he wished to be in problems that were not his concern. Then he remembered the humiliations he had suffered simply because of his colour. He knew the Indian franchise matter was his concern. He could not remain silent.

“If this bill passes, it will be the first nail in our coffin,” he said. “We will not be able to live here with self-respect.”

“Well, then; what is your advice?” Dada Abdullah asked.

Before Mohandas could reply, someone from the back of the crowd shouted: “Cancel your departure and stay here, and we promise to fight under your direction.” Another voice suggested that if he did, the community should pay his fees. Mohandas was moved.

“There can be no fees for public work,” he protested, saying that if he was to stay, he would earn his living as a lawyer and help them without fee. But they would need considerable money, he said, and a great deal of manpower if they wanted to fight the government.

“The money and the manpower will be available,” said Dada Abdullah. “Just lead us on.”

With that, Mohandas’ farewell party turned into a working committee to plan the first petition in the Indian franchise campaign.

For weeks, Kasturbai had been telling her sons that their father would soon be home. But when Mohandas’ letter arrived announcing he would stay in South Africa for a while to help the Indian community oppose the unjust laws, she felt a mixture of relief and apprehension. Relief that, at last, her husband had found something he would do well. She did not fully comprehend what all the trouble was about in South Africa, but she was glad the Indians in that strange land held Mohandas in high regard and looked to him for guidance — and that he would still be able to send money home. Apprehension because their separation would continue for — how long?

Kasturbai was more troubled by his absence than she cared to admit. Her misgivings were not for herself; she had long since grown accustomed to their constant partings and reunions. Though they had been married for some 11 years now, they had lived together a total of only about four years of that time. She could accept this ongoing separation from her husband, like all the others, as a way to help him prosper. But what of her sons? How were Harilal and Manilal being affected by Mohandas’ frequent and lengthy disappearances from their lives? Were they to grow up thinking of him as a visitor to the Gandhi household?

Harilal remembered the games, the walks, and the songs this stranger had shared with him. But Harilal had spent less than two of his now six years of life with Mohandas. By emotional attachment no less than physical proximity, he was much closer to his ever-present uncles, particularly his Uncle Lakshimidas, than to his own father. And little Manilal, just six months old when Mohandas left, had no memory at all of his real father. Manilal was now in his second year; walking, talking, learning so fast, changing so much each day that Mohandas would not even recognise his son. Not now, nor on whatever future day he came back home.

Could time lost ever be found again; could missed opportunities ever be reclaimed? Would there still be a place in her sons’ lives for Mohandas when he returned?

These were questions Kasturbai asked herself as she went about her timeless tasks on each unchanging day, dreaming of a time when she might be with Mohandas again. Perhaps they would have their own house; a home of her own. And she was too tired some nights to remember to say a silent prayer for her husband’s safe return from a distant place called South Africa.