including its several stores, would be handed over to Mohamed in return for a promissory note. The purchase price approached £40,000, an astounding figure for the time. A dispute arose over the sale, the exact nature of which is unclear, causing Dada Abdulla and Company to bring suit in the High Court against Mohamed and Company for the balance alleged owing on the sale, £18,000. It is clear that one of the major issues concerned the question of how items in stock should be valued, with each party claiming a different date as that on which the stock should be valued. The difference in the two stock-takings ranged approximately between £4,000 and £6,000.10
The case was set for trial on February 9, 1893, before the High Court. Faced with a matter of some apparent complexity, the court eventually thought the better course was not to try the case immediately. With the consent of the parties, the case was referred to two accountants whose job as commissioners it was to examine all the account books, call witnesses as necessary, and issue a report of their findings to the court. Accordingly, their role might best be understood as that of special masters called in to develop a complicated factual picture. Because the account books they were to examine were not all kept in the English language, Gandhi, trained in the law and fluent in Gujarati, could be useful in interpreting the books for Abdulla’s counsel during this process.
The commissioners apparently having finished their work by the South African spring of 1893, a trial date was set, and the attorneys for the parties engaged in some final pretrial skirmishing. Then the parties, in a major development, agreed to abandon the courtroom and turn the case over to an arbitrator in Pretoria for resolution. When the arbitration opened on April 11, 1894, in Pretoria, little did the lawyers for the two sides realize what a bizarre turn the case would soon take.
CARRYING BAGS
Representing Dada Abdulla was Albert Weir Baker, a successful, somewhat eccentric Pretoria attorney who had first practiced in Natal before relocating to Pretoria. Gandhi called on Baker the day after his arrival in Pretoria. The veteran lawyer lost no time in cordially but frankly giving Gandhi an idea of his role. “We have no work for you here as a barrister, for we have engaged the best counsel. The case is a prolonged and complicated one, so I shall take your assistance only to the extent of getting necessary information. And of course you will make communication with my client easy for me, as I shall now ask for all the information I want from him through you.”11
So this was to be Gandhi’s role—to carry Baker’s bags. So little had Gandhi to do by way of actual work that he found the time to engage in other pursuits, one of which was to study the condition of Indian life in Pretoria and to agitate for its improvement. Gandhi began by making the acquaintance of every Indian in Pretoria, starting with his opponent in the Abdulla case, Mohamed.12 Soon thereafter Gandhi called a meeting of the Indian community in Pretoria; most of those who attended the meeting were, like Mohamed, merchants, mainly Muslim, though with a sprinkling of Hindus among them. Gandhi wasted no time in lecturing his audience on the deficiencies in the Indian community, focusing on the need for merchants to be truthful in their business dealings and for all Indians to reform their derelict sanitary habits. Gandhi attempted to rouse his countrymen by urging them to set aside their religious and ethnic differences and to unite for their mutual benefit.
This was Gandhi’s first speech in South Africa, and the contrast with his courtroom and public speaking experiences in India could not have been greater. He spoke with none of the difficulties of nervousness and even panic that had characterized his earlier efforts. His audience was sufficiently moved that regular meetings to discuss similar issues began. At least by his own account, Gandhi had made a “considerable impression” on his listeners.13
Gandhi devoted the vast bulk of his free time, however, to a detailed study of religion, reading some eighty books during his year in Pretoria. He was buffeted by calls for his conversion made by his Muslim and, especially, Christian friends. He admits to being “overwhelmed” by Tolstoy’s The Kingdom of God Is Within You, but his friends’ entreaties resulted only in Gandhi’s tighter embrace of Hinduism, even with the faults Gandhi saw in it. He so immersed himself in his comparative study of religion, and his services were so little in demand, that he never bothered to apply for admission to the bar while he was in Pretoria.
Gandhi also had time to make the acquaintance of a number of powerful European figures in the Transvaal. Among them was Dr. Albert Krause, the state attorney and brother of the future public prosecutor. Their common membership in the Inner Temple must have served as an immediate bond for Krause and Gandhi. Krause was embarrassed by the fact that his fellow barrister, as a nonwhite resident, needed a pass to be on the streets after 9 P.M. Rather than give him a pass, something a master would provide for a servant, Krause presented Gandhi with a special letter from himself authorizing Gandhi to be out at any and all times. Gandhi, the barrister, did not refuse this privileged treatment but accepted the letter and carried it with him always.
The letter did not protect him, however, on one of his evening walks. His course took him by the home of the Transvaal president, a residence guarded by a police officer who, without warning, pushed and kicked Gandhi off the footpath. As chance would have it, a European acquaintance of Gandhi who happened to be passing by observed the incident. He urged Gandhi to sue. Gandhi resisted the invitation and, revealing a bit of the legal philosophy beginning to take shape in him, stated he would not “go to court in respect of any personal grievance. So I do not intend to proceed against him.” At this point in his young career as a lawyer, Gandhi was even reluctant to bring a test case. He told his friends that he would rather first work through channels by seeking the assistance of the British agent in the Transvaal.
Gandhi’s superior in the Abdulla case, Baker, was not so shy and traditional a lawyer. He led a busy and multifaceted life. His first career had been that of a carpenter. After becoming a member of the bar, Baker also established himself as a lay preacher and missionary. He was well known for his religious zeal and, as a member of the Wesleyan Church in Pretoria, he would employ drunkards as clerks in his law office for the purpose of helping them regain control over their lives. He tried on numerous occasions to convert Gandhi to Christianity. Although Gandhi politely declined his entreaties, he did join Baker for daily prayer. And it was Baker’s challenges to Gandhi’s religious thinking that spurred on Gandhi’s study of spirituality. A clue to Baker’s character and a sign of things to come lay in his willingness to lead open-air church services in Pretoria,14 services that resulted on multiple occasions in his getting arrested for breaching the peace.
AN INTRODUCTION TO DEFIANCE
Baker’s principled stubbornness was not confined to his defense of Christianity. On April 25, 1894, the parties to the Abdulla case met to engage in a hearing before the arbitrator, John Livingstone. After the parties, the reporter, the witnesses, the lawyers, and the arbitrator had taken their places, three Pretoria detectives burst into Baker’s office and immediately arrested Abdulla Hajee Adam, Dada’s partner, for breaking customs regulations. The detectives were not there just to arrest Abdulla; they announced that they also had a warrant for the seizure of certain materials belonging to him that were needed to substantiate the charges. The warrant, in Dutch, was translated by the multilingual Baker, who understood the document as authorizing only the seizure of books and nothing else. Baker identified for the detectives the materials belonging to the plaintiff and even identified Abdulla. But when one of the detectives attempted to seize Baker’s papers in the case, the attorney resisted by attempting to stuff them into his briefcase. The two engaged in a struggle over the papers. The detectives got the best of it when a second detective came to the first’s aid. The detectives then put Baker under restraints and seized everything in sight—Abdulla’s books and papers, Mohamed’s books and papers, documents of record in the case, Baker’s private papers, and even the arbitrator’s notes. The detectives then paraded the handcuffed Baker through the town to a police office, where he was charged with resisting the detectives. Baker posted bail and was released.
When
