{"id":1103,"date":"2013-07-13T01:32:34","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:32:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1103"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:32:34","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:32:34","slug":"55-the-transvaal-indians-vol-02-karmayogin-volume-02","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/02-karmayogin-volume-02\/55-the-transvaal-indians-vol-02-karmayogin-volume-02","title":{"rendered":"-55_The Transvaal Indians.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n


\nThe Transvaal Indians<\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\nT<\/b><\/font>HE
\n<\/b><\/span>visit of Mr. Polak has excited once more a
\ncloser interest in the Transvaal question and associations are being formed
\nfor the agitation of the question. It will therefore be opportune to consider
\nthe practical aspect of the struggle in the Transvaal and the possibility of
\nhelp from India. There can be no two opinions outside South Africa, and
\npossibly Hare Street, as to the moral aspects of the question; for it must be
\nremembered that the Indians in the Transvaal are not claiming any political
\nrights, but merely treatment as human beings first, and, next, equality before
\nthe law. It is open to the South Africans to exclude Indians altogether, but,
\nonce they are admitted, they are morally bound to refrain from a treatment of
\nthem which is an extreme and unpardonable outrage on humanity. To degrade any
\npart of the human race to the level of cattle is in the present stage of
\nprogress an insult and an offence to the whole of mankind. It would be equally
\nreprehensible, to whatever race the humanity so degraded belonged, but the fact
\nthat these men are Indians has made their sufferings a national question to us
\nand a standing reproach to the British people who, out of selfish fear of
\noffending their own kith and kin, allow this outrage to be committed on their
\nown subjects whom they have deprived of all means of self-protection. The great
\nglory of the Transvaal Indians is that, while men under such circumstances have
\nalways sunk into the condition to which they have been condemned and needed
\nothers to help them out of the mire, these sons of Bharatavarsha,
\ninheritors of an unexampled moral and spiritual tradition, have vindicated the
\nsuperiority of the Indian people and its civilisation to all other peoples in
\nthe globe and all other civilisations by the spirit in which they have refused
\nto recognise the dominance of brute force over the human soul. Stripped of all
\nmeans of resistance, a helpless handful in a foreign land, unaided by India,
\nput off with empty professions of sympathy by English statesmen,<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 301<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

they,
\nignored by humanity, are fighting humanity’s battle in the pure strength of the
\nspirit, with no weapon but the moral force of their voluntary sufferings and
\nutter self-sacrifice. Mr. Polak has well
\nsaid that the Indian nation is being built up in South Africa. The phrase is
\ntrue in this sense that the supreme example of the moral and spiritual strength
\nwhich must be behind the formation of the new nation, has been shown first not
\nin India but in South Africa. The passive resistance which we had not the
\ncourage and unselfishness to carry out in India, they have carried to the
\nutmost in the Transvaal under far more arduous circumstances, with far less
\nright to hope for success. Whether they win or lose in the struggle, they have
\ncontributed far more than their share to the future greatness of their country.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

We must consider their chances of success, and though we do not wish
\nto speak words of discouragement, it will not do to hide from ourselves the
\nenormous difficulties in the way. For success, either the Government in England
\nmust interfere and compel the Transvaal to do right, or the Transvaal must be
\nstirred by shame and by the interest of the poorer part of the Boer community
\nto reverse the laws, or the Indian Government must intervene to protect its
\nsubjects. The first course is unthinkable. It would mean a quarrel with the
\nnewly conciliated Transvaal, the marring of the work of which the Liberal Government
\nis justly proud, and a resentment in South Africa which the English ministry
\nwill not face for the sake of all India, much less for a handful of Indian
\ncoolies and shopkeepers. The poorer Boers will be only inconvenienced, not
\nseriously hurt by the extinction of the Indian shopkeeper, and, in any case,
\nthey are not a class who are wont to act politically. The Transvaal Government
\nis not likely to yield to any sense of shame. The Boers are a stark race,
\nstubborn to the death, and the grit they showed in the face of the British
\nEmpire, they are also likely to show in this very minor trouble. Nor are they
\nlikely to have forgotten the action of the Indians who rewarded the
\ncomparative leniency of the Boer Government previous to the war by helping
\nactively in the British attack on the liberty of the Transvaal. With their slow
\nminds and tenacious memories they are a people not swift to forget and forgive; we do not rely greatly on their present<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 302<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

professions
\nof friendship to the Power that took from them their freedom, and they are
\nwholly unlikely to put from their minds the unpardonable intrusion of the
\nIndian residents into a quarrel in which they had no concern or status.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

There remains the Indian Government, and what can the Indian
\nGovernment do ? It can forbid, as has been suggested, Indian cooly recruitment for Natal. This would
\nundoubtedly be a great blow to the planters and they would throw their whole
\ninfluence into the Indian scale. But, on the other hand, the mass <\/i>of the
\nNatal whites are full of race prejudice and their desire is for that impossible
\ndream, a white South Africa. A more effective
\nmeasure would be the suspension of trade relations by the boycott of Colonial
\ngoods and the cessation of the importation of Indian raw materials into South
\nAfrica. But that is a step which will never be taken. Even if the Indian
\nGovernment were willing to use any and every means, the decision does not rest
\nwith them but with the Government in England, which will not consent to
\noffending the colonies. The Indian Government would no doubt like to see an end
\nof the situation in the Transvaal as it weakens such moral hold as they still
\nhave over India, and they would prefer a favourable termination because the
\nreturn of ruined Indians from the Transvaal will bring home a mass of
\nbitterness, burning sense of wrong and a standing discontent trained in the
\nmost strenuous methods of passive resistance. And many of them are Mahomedans.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

The one favourable factor in favour of the Transvaal Indians is
\ntheir own spiritual force and the chance of its altering the conditions by
\nsheer moral weight. It is India’s duty to aid them by financial succour which
\nthey sorely need and the rich men of the country can easily afford, by the
\nheartening effect of public and frequently expressed moral sympathy and by
\neducating the whole people of India literate and illiterate in an accurate
\nknowledge of what is happening in the Transvaal. This is the only help India
\ncan give to her children over the seas so long as she is not master of her own
\ndestinies.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 303<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n


\n
\nHOME<\/span><\/a><\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Transvaal Indians   THE visit of Mr. Polak has excited once more a closer interest in the Transvaal question and associations are being formed…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-02-karmayogin-volume-02","wpcat-23-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1103\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}