Gandhi Journal Article-III ( JUNE 2017 ) - THAMBI NAIDU - 'Lion Like' Satyagrahi in South Africa

Gandhi Journal Article-III ( JUNE 2017 )

THAMBI NAIDU - 'Lion Like' Satyagrahi in South Africa

By E S Reddy

One of the first satyagrahis in the movement of 1906-14 in South Africa and a most loyal and courageous colleague of Gandhiji was Govindasamy Krishnasamy Thambi Naidoo.¹ Apart from defying the law and going to jail many times, he made a crucial contribution in mobilising the Tamils in the Transvaal to participate in the satyagraha and the workers in Natal to strike for the abolition of an unjust tax which caused enormous suffering.

Thambi Naidoo was born in 1875 in Mauritius where his parents had migrated from Madras Presidency.² According to his daughter, Thayanayagie (known as Thailema), his father was a prosperous fertilisers and cartage contractor in Mauritius. Thambi was his youngest son. One day, his father said to him, “You are my youngest son. You must think of the people before you think of yourself”. Thailema continued:

“My father was very impressed by his father’s seriousness when he said these words and he took them to heart and afterwards built his life on them and taught them to us his children”.³

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Gandhi Journal Article-I ( November 2016 ) : Gandhi and South Africa

Gandhi Journal Article-I ( November 2016 ) 

Some of Gandhi's Early Views on Africans Were Racist. But That Was Before He Became Mahatma

By E S Reddy 

Gandhi with the leaders of the non-violent resistance movement in South Africa

The recent agitation at the University of Legon in Ghana for the removal of a statue of Mahatma Gandhi was provoked by a few statements made by the young Gandhi soon after he arrived in South Africa in 1893, long before he came to know the Africans. These statements, plucked from the Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi – published by the Indian government without any attempts at contextualising or annotating them – completely distort what his life represents.

Gandhi said, “My life is my message”. His life shows how an ordinary human being who has many weaknesses can rise to great heights by shedding his early prejudices and by adhering to love and non-violence instead of hate and greed. This message should be an encouragement for the youth.

Gandhi practiced what he preached. He conquered fear and defied the racist regime in South Africa and in imperialist Britain. He went to prison five times in South Africa and nine times in India during his struggle against racism and colonialism. He was incorruptible and forsook consumerism, which had become a menace to progress. He espoused dignity of labour and the need to protect the environment. He became a symbol of peace and non-violence and his appeal is universal.

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Gandhi Journal Article-I (May 2016) : And then Gandhi came

Gandhi Journal Article-I (May 2016)

And then Gandhi came

By Dr. Savita Singh 

9 January 2015 marked the centenary of Mahatma Gandhi's return to India after his 21 years sojourn in South Africa. The day is now celebrated as the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas under the auspices of the Ministry of External Affairs.

Thus 9 January came to assume special significance after 11 September 2006 when Satyagraha, the most potent weapon discovered by Mahatma Gandhi completed its hundredth anniversary. It is a tribute not only to Mahatma Gandhi's leadership in India's struggle for independence but also to the contributions made by immigrant Indian in the country of their adoption and helped built bridges between the country of their origin and the country of their adoption. 9 January 2015, therefore, calls for special commemorative programmes appropriate for the historic occasion.

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Scholars mark 100 years of Mahatma Gandhi's return to India from South Africa

Scholars mark 100 years of Mahatma Gandhi's return to India from South Africa

Academicians from around the world who converged at Johannesburg to mark the centenary of Mahatma Gandhi's return to India from South Africa have called for adhering to Gandhian principles for promoting interreligious dialogue.

A two-day international conference in commemoration of Mahatma Gandhi's return to India after initiating his passive resistance plans in South Africa, where seeds of his 'Satyagraha' were sown, was held over the weekend where various speakers from India, the US and Africa were in attendance.  

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Looking for Mahatma

Looking for Mahatma

Gandhi's face has returned to mass media. We now need space for Gandhi's mind and heart.

The return of a Mahatma to our newspapers in January 2015 should be considered almost as a welcome as the return of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi to his motherland on January 9, 1915.

The year 1915 marked a seminal moment in history, for Gandhi’s intervention in India’s freedom movement ended the era of European colonisation, a process that progressed without setback for three centuries, and never seemed stronger than it did in the first decade of the 20th century. It was said, famously, that the sun did not set on the British Empire. After Gandhi, the sun never rose on any empire.

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A grand welcome of 'Gandhi'

A grand welcome of 'Gandhi'

Centenary of Gandhi's arrival to India from South Africa.

"I appreciate your words replete with love and goodwill as your blessings for me...," barrister Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi had said exactly one hundred years ago after his historic homecoming after spending 22 years in South Africa.

Mumbai Sarvodaya Mandal along with other Gandhian institutions in Mumai and University of Mumbai organised a special programme to commemorate the Centenary of Gandhi's return to India on Friday, 9th January 2015.

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Celebrating 100 years of Gandhi's return to India from South Africa

Gandhi Journal Article-II : The Satyagrahi in South Africa

The Satyagrahi in South Africa

By Nechama Brodle

Hundred years is a long time, particularly in a town only a little older than a century itself. 

The road to Tolstoy Farm, Mahatma Gandhi's penultimate residence in South Africa, is no longer marked, if indeed it ever was. To get there I have to head south along Lenasia Drive and then follow a set of rather cryptic directions provided by an urban geographer and a sociologist. 

The farm was founded in 1910, the same year Count Leo Tolstoy would die. Gandhi was a great fan of the Russian writer and the two had exchanged several rather beautiful letters, rich with ideas and encouragement. 

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Virtual Gandhi in South Africa : New online resource lets you trace the footsteps of an icon

Virtual Gandhi in SA: New online resource lets you trace the footsteps of an icon

Mahatma Gandhi’s time spent in South Africa was a significant period in the history of the country. Tourism South Africa is offering locals and tourists the chance to virtually follow in Gandhi’s footsteps through a new website called Gandhi in South Africa (www.gandhi.southafrica.net).

Gandhi arrived in South Africa in 1893 as a young lawyer in his early 20s and remained for 21 years before leaving 1914 to take on British rule in India.

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Gandhi Journal Article - II

Gandhi and the Natal Indian Ambulance Corp

By Heather M. Brown

In the late nineteenth century, the socio-economic status of the indentured Indian population in South Africa changed as the growing ‘Arab’ population challenged white merchants for market dominance. As a result, the white European population retaliated with public prejudice that manifested itself “not only in humiliating, discriminatory social conventions, but also in legislation and municipal ordinances restricting Indian civil rights, franchise and freedom to enter, live and trade at will." It was in South Africa that the once-shy London-educated lawyer from Gujarat, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, spent twenty-one years of his life challenging the “increasingly strident and locally present determination of white settlers to maintain white superiority in matters social, economic and political.”

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MANDELA-GANDHI WALL EXHIBITION LAUNCHED

MANDELA-GANDHI WALL EXHIBITION LAUNCHED

The Nelson Mandela Foundation has launched a Mandela-Gandhi wall exhibition to honour the two individuals' fight for freedom.

“This Gandhi-Mandela wall really commemorates and celebrates the enduring connection that has existed between these two great leaders. They may not have met, but they are connected through ideas, through the essential message that reverberates through lives,” Virendra Gupta, High Commissioner of India in South Africa, told CNBCafrica.com.

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Mahatma Gandhi, South Africa and Satyagraha

Mahatma Gandhi, South Africa and Satyagraha

By E. S. Reddy

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A century ago, on 10 January 1908, M. K. Gandhi, an attorney with a lucrative practice in Johannesburg, appeared before the magistrate’s court for defying an anti-Asiatic law and disobeying an order to leave the Transvaal within 48 hours. He asked for the heaviest penalty – six months’ imprisonment with hard labour – for organising defiance of this “Black Act” by the Indian community. The magistrate, however, sentenced him to two months simple imprisonment.

Gandhi gladly went to prison to  enjoy “free hospitality” at “His Majesty’s hotel”, as did 150 other resisters.

That was the first of many imprisonments of Gandhi and the first non-violent challenge to racist rule in South Africa. READ MORE…