A look at the Indian diaspora in South Africa where indentured labor predominates but there are formeer indentured laborers who have small businesses and merchants or 'passenger' Indians' who have paid there own way. Gandhi goes to South Africa as lawyer for a merchant but encounters the plight of indentured labor. He develops the technique fo satyagraha to protest discrimination against Indians.

1. Indians in South Africa
• Indentured labor
• Ex-indentured and colonial born Indians
• “Passenger Indians;” chiefly Gujarati Muslims and
Parsees

2. Indentured labor in Natal
• ~150,000 between 1860 and 1911
– Largely from Madras and Calcutta
• Five year contracts; free return after 10 years
– Up to 1890 return passage could be exchanged for land
– 52% accept
• 1871 In response to complaints of abuse, Indian
government suspends indenture program
– Relents after appointment of Coolie Commission
• No organized political activity before 1896

3. Indentured Labor
• Long trips from home to port
• Wait in port with unsanitary conditions
• Long sea voyages
• Maltreatment
– Hard work at low wages

4. Gandhi’s Figures for Natal, 1896
• 400,000 natives or Zulus
• 50,000 Europeans
• 51,000 Indians
– 16,000 indentured
– 30,000 formerly indentured: free laborers, gardeners,
hawkers, fruiterers, or petty traders, some educated
– 5,000 traders or merchants
Speech at Public Meeting, Bombay (26-9-1896)

5. Natal Population 1904
Population group Number Percent Commerce
Black 904,041 81.5
Asian 100,918 9.1 4,144
White 97,109 8.8 7,094
Coloured 6,686 0.6 235
Total 1,108,754 100
Religion-Asians
Hindu Muslim
86% 10%

6. Indian Diaspora

7. “Passenger” Indians in Natal, etc.
• Start mid 1870s
– Pay their own way
– Predominantly Muslims and Gujarati Hindus
– ~1,000 in South Africa

8. Gandhi in London
• Financed by his brother with 13,000 rupees
• Introduced to vegetarianism
– Experience writing and speaking for the Vegetarian Society
• Introduced to theosophists
• Reads New Testament
• Gandhi passes law exams, coming 34th out of 109
• Gandhi in Porbandar: Career marred by trying to use
a London connection on his brother’s behalf
• Eventually repays brother ~60,000 rupees

9. In London

10. Gandhi in South Africa
with Dada Abdulla
Hired by Abdulla to
represent him in a case
that required a lawyer who
could read Gujarati.
Won a settlement of
£37,000 in arbitration.

11. Gandhi in South Africa
Clip from the movie Gandhi
Scene where he encounters racism and is thrown
off the train
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duZm6OytA
ns

12. Pietermauritzburg Station

13. Natal Indian Congress
• 1895 Report
“A correspondence was carried on by the late President with
the Government in connection with the separate entrances
for the Europeans and Natives and Asiatics at the Post Office.
The result has not been altogether unsatisfactory. Separate
entrances will now be provided for the three communities.”

14. Gandhi
Sonia Schlesin
Hermann Kallenbach

15. Hermann Kallenbach
• Architect from German-Jewish family, born in
Lithuania
• Gave land for Tolstoy Farm
• Associated with Gandhi on satyagraha and
vegetarianism
• After WWI they would disagree on Zionism

16. House at Tolstoy Farm

17. Miss Schlesin
• Hired as stenotypist
• Sometime letter and speech writer
• “When during the Satyagraha days almost every
one of the leaders was in jail, she led the movement
single- handed. She had the management of
thousands, a tremendous amount of
correspondence, and Indian Opinion in her hands,
but she never wearied.”

18. Gandhi with Ambulance Corps 1899-1900
(Reverend Booth, Supt. Indian mission schools)

19. 1906 Bambatha Rebellion
• Natal has a shortage of farm workers
– Zulus reject farm labor for more lucrative gold mines
• Natal imposes £1 poll tax
• Zulu chief Bambatha opposes the tax
• British depose him
• Guerilla war
• Gandhi organizes stretcher corps to aid Natal
government

20. Sgt. Maj. (hon.) Gandhi with the volunteers of the 2nd Indian
Stretcher Bearer Corps

21. 1906 Satyagraha Campaign
• ‘Black Act’ in Transvaal
– ‘Asiatics’ were required to register and carry passes
– Restrictions on where they could live were enforced
• Response
– Picket registration stations
– Non compliance
Only 511 out of the 13,000 Indians registered; 2,000
arrested
– Compromise by Gandhi with Smuts: Register voluntarily

22. Black Act Continued
• By 1909 97% had registered
• Delegation sent to London

23. Marriage Case
• Supreme Court of the Cape Province declared all
Hindu and Muslim marriages polygamous, and hence
legally invalid in South Africa.
– Impacted ability to inherit

24. 1913 Satyagraha Campaign
• Issues
– £3 tax on former indentured labor
– Cape Province Marriage Decision
• Gandhi’s first response to indentured labor

25. Great March
• Women supporters cross into Transvaal
• Gandhi leads march of 2,037 men, 127 women and
57 children (including residents of Tolstoy farm and
Phoenix
• Mass arrests including Gandhi, his wife Kasturba, and
friends Kallenbach and Henry Polak
• Miners strike and march from Newcastle to the
border

26. Great March
Women jailed in Satyagraha Campaign

27. Negotiation with Smuts
• Pressure from London and India
• The tax on the ex-indentured labourers was
abolished
• Marriages performed according to Indian rites were
legalized
• Certificate bearing the holder’s thumb-imprint was
sufficient evidence of the right to enter South Africa.