recalls that his merchant hosts were unaware of this threat until he called it to their attention. The merchants, now apprised of the danger to them, asked Gandhi to stay and lead the fight against this franchise legislation on their behalf.
There is good reason to believe, as Maureen Swan has demonstrated, that this account is highly romanticized.20 By the time of Abdulla’s farewell party, the merchants had been resisting the attacks of the white power establishment on their interests for some time and were thus quite likely to be already keenly aware of any attack on the franchise. Dada Abdulla himself had served on the Durban Indian Committee, meeting with that group to discuss “important . . . political and other subjects.”21
What does not appear in dispute is the deal Gandhi struck with the merchants. He agreed to stay, but on the condition that he not be paid for his work, arguing that no one should take a salary to work in the cause for Indian rights. If the merchants would provide him, however, with start-up funds to pay for telegrams, literature, law books, travel, and legal fees for local lawyers and also agree to make available a corps of volunteers, he would stay on for an additional month, an amount of time he naïvely judged sufficient to beat back the attack on the Indian franchise. The agreement was made and Gandhi’s services were secured for a month.
Gandhi’s month of service stretched on—for twenty years. Not until 1914 would he finally leave South Africa and the cause he had now embraced.
FIVE
Not a White Barrister
There is still a Natal Law Society which . . . keeps alive the bright flame of bigotry and prejudice.
Natal Witness, September 5, 1894
WITH A RISING INDIAN POPULATION in Natal continuing to alarm many of the European colonists,1 the Natal Parliament undertook to limit Indian influence by prohibiting Indians from registering as voters.2 When in the late South African fall of 1894 Gandhi agreed to stay in Natal and fight the legislature on this issue, the process of enacting legislation was well under way. The Franchise Law Amendment Bill had already received its second reading and was poised for its third and final reading in early July. Against insuperable odds—the bill enjoyed the unanimous support of the legislature—Gandhi began his public work by lodging with the Natal Legislative Assembly (the larger of the two parliamentary chambers) the first of many petitions he was to write while in South Africa.3
GANDHI AS PETITIONER
This petition, the first known formal handiwork of this novice lawyer, stands as a superb reflection of Gandhi’s developing legal mind. The petition is quite well organized—much like a legal complaint—with a set of numbered paragraphs setting forth the identity of the petitioners, the gist of their grievance, and a concluding prayer for relief. The petition is authoritative, citing the writings of Sir Henry Sumner Maine, Professor Max Muller, and Sir George Birdwood, as well as the public statements of Sir Thomas Munro and Frederick Pincott. Compactly written, it is clear, straightforward, and easy to follow. Its tone is polite and deferential, yet firm. There is not so much as a hint of anger, but neither does it lack in confidence. Indeed, it is written with complete self-assurance.
The petition responds to the legislature’s argument that Indians should be denied the franchise because they lacked institutions of representative government in their home country. Gandhi rests his response on the historical record, citing the long existence of local self-government in India’s municipalities, the elections held for the governance of castes, the councils elected to govern trading communities, and the representative parliament established by the Indian state of Mysore. Gandhi concludes his petition by quoting remarks made by leading European figures, all in praise of the Indian character. The refined argument Gandhi makes befits an English barrister—careful, focused, and not at all strident. Conspicuously absent, however, is any appeal to conscience or universal human rights.
The petition was followed the next day by a letter from Gandhi and several others to the Natal premier and, just two days later, by a letter to all the members of the legislature. The letter was accompanied by a set of five questions. Question 4 provides the flavor of the document: “Do you think it just that a man should not become a voter simply because he is of Asiatic extraction?” Perhaps this was a rhetorical question. If, however, Gandhi expected answers to questions of this sort, he was revealing the naïveté of a novice political operative. The internal doubts Gandhi had about his capacity to represent the interests of his community rose to the surface in a letter he wrote to a senior advisor on July 5:
I am yet inexperienced and young and, therefore, quite liable to make mistakes. The responsibility undertaken is quite out of proportion to my ability. I may mention that I am doing this without any remuneration. So you will see that I have not taken the matter up, which is beyond my ability, in order to enrich myself at the expense of the Indians. I am the only available person who can handle the question.4
On July 1, the same day the questions were sent, Gandhi met with the Natal governor and followed the meeting up with a letter. He then lodged two more petitions with the legislature. Despite Gandhi’s prodigious output of words, the legislature passed the bill on its third and final reading on the 7th of July 1894. Gandhi then turned his attention to the governor, whose signature the bill required, presenting a petition to Sir Walter Hely-Hutchinson. The governor was not moved; he signed the bill. Gandhi then drafted a lengthy petition to the British secretary of state for the colonies, Lord Ripon, signed by about ten thousand Natal Indians.5 Gandhi’s recollection of his work on this petition demonstrates qualities that would be reflected in much of his work as a lawyer: “I took considerable pains over drawing up this petition. I read all the literature available on the subject. My argument centered round a principle and an expedience. I argued that we had a right to the franchise in Natal, as we had a kind of franchise in India. I urged that it was expedient to retain it, as the Indian population capable of using the franchise was very small.”6 In his career at the bar Gandhi would be known for his meticulous preparation and for a philosophy that held that the most principled action was usually that which was most effective. For now, however, this approach was unrefined and unperfected. Like his other attempts, the Ripon petition, too, would prove futile.7
THE MERCHANTS’ LAWYER
In mid-July 1894, while awaiting the response of the secretary of state, it became clear to Gandhi not only that the franchise battle would be protracted but also that it represented the start of a longer and more wide-ranging campaign being waged by the colonists against Indian interests. While the colony’s agriculturalists were sufficiently influential to block efforts to prohibit the continued importation of indentured servants, they were not concerned with staying the hands of those who desired to check Indian economic and political interests.
At the start of the franchise battle Gandhi had anticipated returning to India in mid-1894. With anti-Asiatic sentiment apparently on the rise and no relief in sight, what Gandhi earlier had thought to be a decisive battle he now understood to be a preliminary skirmish in a lengthy war. If he was to make a contribution to the Indian struggle in South Africa, he would have to remain. As Gandhi later recalled, “It was now impossible for me to leave Natal.”8
If he was to remain, he also needed to look after his own interests. Accordingly, Gandhi turned to those with money, making an arrangement with the wealthy merchants who led the Indian movement in South Africa. They had wanted to hire him, at the rather handsome sum of £300 per year, as their political organizer, but Gandhi refused, saying that he could not charge the merchants for “public work.” He reasoned that the work would not call on his skills as a barrister, that his main job would not be to perform work himself but to mobilize others to do the necessary work, that as a paid organizer he would have divided loyalties when raising money for the movement,
