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A brief history of September 11, 1906: The Birth of Satyagraha*

(Originally: <http://www.nvpf.org/np/english/workadayforpeace/briefhistory.pdf>;

 Archived at  <http://www.imaginemagazine.nl/peacetimes.html>.)

 

Adapted by Nonviolent Peaceforce volunteer Derek Mitchell & Nonviolent Peaceforce staff from the writings of Professor Michael Nagler, Professor emeritus and founder of the Peace and Conflict Studies program at University of California, Berkeley.

 

"During my half-century of experience,/ I have not yet come across a situation/ when I had to say ... that I had no remedy/ in terms of non-violence." ~ Mahatma Gandhi

 

One hundred years ago a historic meeting took place in Johannesburg, South Africa, that would change human history. Mohandas K. Gandhi, at the time a struggling lawyer, had arrived in South Africa in May of 1893 to serve as legal adviser for an Indian merchant. He quickly ran headlong into "man's inhumanity to man" in the form of a racism that was shameless in the African colonies. He was thrown off a train scarcely one week after his arrival for presuming to sit in a first-class compartment for which he had a valid ticket. The affront precipitated "the most creative night of his life," as he struggled with his feelings at the cold, mountain station of Pietermaritzburg. During that night, Gandhi overcame both his impulses to run back to India and to fight the railway company. He decided instead to turn his attention -- his anger -- to the much larger questions of racial prejudice, injustice and exploitation directed against his fellow Indians by the European colonists.

 

Gandhi launched a careful, stepwise campaign to rescue the dignity and the rights of the 100,000 'free' and indentured Indians in South Africa, who up to that time had borne the abuses heaped on them with helpless resignation. He oversaw the establishment of the Natal Indian Congress, organized the first petition ever submitted by Indians to a South African parliament, and founded "Indian Opinion", the first of several newspapers that would be the communication organs of his movements. Then, in September 1906, the Transvaal Assembly introduced the Asiatic Law Amendment Ordinance, intended in effect to reduce Indians and Chinese to a semi-criminal status. On September 11th three thousand Indians, both Hindu and Muslim, 'free' and indentured, gathered at the Empire Theater in Johannesburg to voice their outrage.

 

Gandhi first called on all present to pledge non-cooperation with the proposed law, irrespective of what penalties they might face -- civil disobedience (the term coined by Thoreau that Gandhi would later borrow to describe their novel method). Then a Muslim merchant, Seth Haji Habib, sprang to his feet and declared that the resolution must be passed "with God as a witness" that Indians would never yield in cowardly submission to such a law. The implications of such a solemn oath took Gandhi aback. While no stranger to vows in his own spiritual development, he realized that invoking God in a political struggle would demand an unswerving fight until the end. He was personally prepared to take on such a duty but would the community follow him? Twenty years later he recalled the memorable scene:

 

"The meeting heard me word by word in perfect quiet. Other leaders too spoke. All dwelt upon their own responsibility and the responsibility of the audience, and at last all present, standing with upraised hands, took an oath with God as witness not to submit to the Ordinance if it became law. I can never forget the scene, which is present before my mind's eye as I write. The community's enthusiasm knew no bounds."

 

Satyagraha was born. The struggle was to last eight years. There were many ups and downs and more than one bitter occasion when only Gandhi's vision kept resistance alive, but in the end it conceived a new relationship between Indians and whites in South Africa -- and a new method of struggling against violence.

(p2)