This is a pdf copy of the author's accepted manuscript version of "Gandhi's Many Influences and Collaborators," by Gail M. Presbey. The version of record appears in Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East 35, No. 2 (2015): 360-69, which may be found online at https://doi.org/10.1215/1089201x-3139144 Used with permission. CC-BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode Users of the material shall give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. They may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses the licensee or his/ her use. Gandhi's Many Influences and Collaborators GAIL M. PRESBEY University of Detroit Mercy, Detroit, Michigan, USA Abstract. In Gandhi's Printing Press, Isabel Hofmeyr introduces readers to the nuances of the newspaper in a far-flung colony in the age when mail and news traveled by ship and when readers were encouraged by Gandhi to read slowly and deeply. This article explores the ways in which Thoreau's concept of slow reading influenced Gandhi and Hofmeyr herself. She discusses the community that surrounded Gandhi and the role it played in supporting the newspaper. Yet, I argue, the role of women of all races as well as Coloured and black South African men in leading, modeling, and shaping the movement of resistance to pass laws and other racist legislation might have been integrated more into the main narrative. Gandhi's newspaper, Indian Opinion, reported on the pass law protests of the African women of Bloemfontein, and Abdurahman's APO newspaper (popular in the Coloured community) reported on Gandhi's protests. Indian Opinion included speeches given by John Dube, and it often praised Dube and the work at Ohlange and reprinted stories from the black press. I offer these remarks to supplement Hofmeyr's fascinating account by providing additional information in portraying the newspaper in its historical and social context. It is understandable why many in this fast-paced world of ours would be fascinated by an earlier world when things were slow. The slow food movement, for instance, now challenges the fast food nation, as we want to savor the moment in taste, nutrition, and conversation. In Gandhi's Printing Press, Isabel Hofmeyr paints a picture of this earlier world, where news traveled by post and arrived by ship. In South Africa in the early twentieth century, people would gather at the dock in anticipation of receiving the news, and Gandhi would string together these pieces of mail to create his newspaper, Indian Opinion. But already back then, Gandhi lived a hectic life in a hurried world, and he also harkened back to an earlier time, to those who came before him who wondered if there was more to life than grasping bits of daily news. As Henry David Thoreau said in his reflections on life in the United States (published 1854), the laying of the transatlantic cable (begun in 1854, completed in 1858) may not be the blessing it seems, because why must we know that "Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough"? Wouldn't it be better, Thoreau maintained, to concentrate on reading the Bhagavad Gita?1 Thoreau devoted a whole chapter of his book to propounding a philosophy of reading much like what Hofmeyr calls Gandhi's "slow reading." Gandhi wanted to publish not only bits of relevant news, but also insights of profound writers like Thoreau, John Ruskin, Leo Tolstoy, and Socrates, and he wanted people to cherish these excerpts (and condensations) by saving them and reading them over and over again. And so, Hofmeyr points out, to think that GAIL M. PRESBEY GANDHI'S MANY INFLUENCES AND COLLABORATORS 2 Gandhi published a "newspaper" might be to misunderstand, if we presume his format was the same as what we consider newspaper formats today. (And even today, newspapers are considered by some to be old-fashioned, as people turn to Twitter and the Internet for their instant news). But where did this train of ideas start? While he drew upon Thoreau's philosophy of reading and quoted him in Indian Opinion in 1911 (89–91), Thoreau could not have been the original source of this philosophy of reading. First of all, Thoreau claims that Egyptian and Hindu philosophers had earlier found timeless wisdom, and he references by name a Persian and Urdu poet from Delhi, Mîr Camar Uddîn Mast, as the source of his philosophy of reading.2 Surely the idea of condensing great insight into short phrases which must then be taken to heart - or as Hofmeyr points out, quoting Gandhi's use of metaphor, must be "'imprinted' and 'engraved on the [reader's] heart'" (131) - is part of a long tradition of spiritual reading in India. As a contemporary author describes the popular Tamil ethical treatise, the Thirukkural (Thiru meaning sacred and honorable, Kural meaning brief, concise, abridged), written by Thiruvalluvar (born 30 BCE in Mylapore, now part of Chennai, and part of India's Dravidian heritage) composed 1,330 "pithy" rhyming couplets whose "brevity" reveals the poet's "genius."3 Certainly the form encouraged easy memorization. Thoreau said in 1849 regarding the Laws of Manu that its wisdom is so concise it "renders many words unnecessary."4 Gandhi's favorite, the Bhagavad Gita (translated as "Divine Song") is also a brief, eighteen-chapter, seven-hundred-verse work, written mostly in couplets, which Gandhi eventually carried on his person at all times. He read the Bhagavad Gita in 1888 – 89 (in Sir Edward Arnold's 1885 English translation) at the age of twenty while he was a second-year law student in England.5 While Gandhi was embarrassed to admit that he had not read it earlier in India, he surely read it before he read Thoreau and Ruskin, the two sources of his philosophy of reading on which Hofmeyr dwells. In South Africa in 1903 he joined the Seekers Club (consisting of Christians and Theosophists) and together they read the Bhagavad Gita. At this point Gandhi decided he wanted to memorize the text, and he did so while cleaning his teeth as part of his ritual morning bath.6 Gandhi started Indian Opinion a few months later.7 Perhaps Gandhi's exposure to the concise and pithy sayings in Hindu scripture is the source of his emphasis on what Hofmeyr calls "slow reading." At the very least we can say that Gandhi was attracted to Thoreau's account of reading because it resonated with Hindu ideas and practices of spirituality with which he was already familiar. Hofmeyr does, however, allude to ways in which Hindu devotional practice may have influenced Gandhi's style, citing Gandhi's oft-mentioned phrase that he places the text before the reader, pointing out that offering the text has suggestions of a gift, of ceremony, and emphasizes the need for the gift's reception (151). She also notes that Indian Opinion occasionally published large portraits of movement heroes and that Gandhi suggested that readers would hang these on their walls and reverence them, using the daily gazing as an opportunity to recommit themselves to the cause. There are similar practices in popular Hindu worship.8 Hofmeyr notes that Gandhi's question-and-answer format, which he developed in the newspaper and used later in Hind Swaraj, uses Gujarat traditions of dialogue as a literary form (146). Yet what was the precedent for launching Indian Opinion, in June 1903, and closely thereafter establishing the Phoenix farm in 1904? Gandhi mentioned both Tolstoy and Ruskin in his article "Ourselves" as sources of his inspiration for starting the farm community GAIL M. PRESBEY GANDHI'S MANY INFLUENCES AND COLLABORATORS 3 (although he did not begin his personal correspondence with Tolstoy until October 1909).9 But there are other important precursors. Hofmeyr mentions that in 1898 Gandhi visited Mariannhill, founded by the Trappists and dedicated to meditative prayer and manual labor (57 – 58). Anil Nauriya noted that Mariannhill was about fourteen miles from Durban, and that about 1,200 Africans lived at the mission there. Gandhi was impressed with the way that the school there stressed dignity of labor and taught practical trades like sandal making, a skill that Gandhi later introduced in his own settlements.10 Indian Opinion published an article on Mariannhill's activities on October 8, 1904, just before Phoenix Farm was bought.11 To succeed, any book on Gandhi has to find a way to narrow its scope, since Gandhi wrote so much in his long life and has had so many books written about him. So it is of necessity that any one book on Gandhi's particular activities must leave many other aspects outside its focus. Still, it seems to me that there were some missed opportunities to highlight some significant aspects of the historical narrative related to the early years of Indian Opinion. Especially in this day and age, when the major historical narratives, including those regarding South Africa, focus on men and their movements, why not include key non-white agents of history? Why not include women when they were indeed crucial actors in history?12 In this vein, I seek to complement and contextualize Hofmeyr's account and delve into the complex race and gender relations of the time period, which had more cross-race cooperation and a larger role for women than one would imagine from reading Hofmeyr's excellent but necessarily limited account. Hofmeyr says Gandhi's and Phoenix farm's neighbor John Dube, who would later become the first president of the South African Native National Congress (SANNC), which was renamed the African National Congress (ANC), "kept [his] distance and met rarely" (57). While she acknowledges community exchange between the two-hundred-acre Ohlange Native Industrial Institute and Phoenix Farm regarding experiences of healing and religion at Isaiah Shembe's Nazarite Church (all three in Inanda, although it's important to note that Shembe did not locate his church in Inanda until 191013), she notes that the African and Indian communities were more often competitors for the same scarce resources and jobs. Although she states that Gandhi wanted "little to do" with his neighbor John Dube and that they had an "arm's-length relationship" (22, 10), how does she account for the important fact, mentioned in her own book without additional comment, that the early editions of Dube's newspaper Ilanga lase Natal: Ipepa la Bantu (Sun of Natal: The Black People's Paper), first published on April 10, 1903, several months before Indian Opinion, were printed by Gandhi's press, that is, the International Printing Press (IPP)? (56).14 Could it have been a mere matter of convenience, of press for hire? In 1903 it was still controversial, and even dangerous, for Africans to express their desire for education and advancement, as Dube did in his first editorial in his first issue. He announced that the goal of his paper was to encourage comradeship, reduce suffering, reject lies, speak out when truth needs to be told, and encourage self-improvement.15 Hofmeyr says that in the years covered by her book, African and Indian presses worked "in isolation from each other" (40), unlike the later era of cooperation that began in the 1920s. I would think that Gandhi's press helped Indian-African race relations when it extended its services to Dube's publication, even if only temporarily. GAIL M. PRESBEY GANDHI'S MANY INFLUENCES AND COLLABORATORS 4 Hofmeyr does explain that since the IPP's establishment in November 1898, it published general job printing (invitations, for instance) as well as the monthly Theosophical Society magazine and a newspaper called the Volunteer (49). Publication of Indian Opinion began on June 4, 1903, two months after Dube began publishing with IPP.16 As a reader, I would have liked to learn more about what led Dube to the IPP for his printing needs. According to Hofmeyr, strongly united white printers defended their turf using "racial protectionism" and "white laborism" (54). But what about a survey of African-owned presses of the time? Hofmeyr says there were only a "minute number" of them (39). According to Uma Dhupelia-Mesthrie, Dube's newspaper was just one of many publications by black South Africans who were looking for outlets to criticize the British colonial government. DhupeliaMesthrie mentions five other African-owned newspapers published around the same time as Dube's, and then explains, "Gandhi belongs to this generation of rising black journalists and editors who were all committed to improving the position of black people especially at a time when whites were moving towards forming a Union of South Africa within which blacks had such limited rights."17 Rajmohan Gandhi suggests that the title Indian Opinion was a derivation inspired by the newspaper founded in 1884 by John Tengo Jabavu, the title of which translated into English is Native (or Black) Opinion.18 Here's another interesting parallel. Gandhi, with Mansukhlal Nazar, started his newspaper in June 1903. Hofmeyr goes on to mention that Dube received his own hand press in June 1903 so that his paper could be printed at Ohlange (56). Soon, Gandhi decided he wanted to move his press to a rural location, to be supported by a rural community. Albert West, who took over from Nazar, and Gandhi scouted for suitable land and found the Phoenix plot near Ohlange. They bought it, moved the press there, and published their first Indian Opinion issue from Phoenix on December 24, 1904.19 Hofmeyr emphasizes that Ohlange's motto, "to teach the hand to work, the brain to understand, and the heart to serve," could just as well have described Phoenix Farm's spirit and intention (56). While the inspiration for moving the press to a rural community has usually been attributed to Gandhi's reading Ruskin, the parallelism and timing would suggest that Gandhi may have been influenced by Dube's example.20 In "Recovered Narratives of an Inter-Cultural Exchange," Andreas Heuser contends that those who downplay Gandhi's connections to African and "Coloured" (those of mixed race, considered a separate category under South African law) communities of his day and instead emphasize Gandhi's reluctance for formal alliances across races (as does Hofmeyr) - and his strategic reasons for preserving his energies for the struggles facing Indian communities - can't account very well for how satyagraha nonviolent methods became popular in Africa and were soon embraced and enacted by many African communities.21 Of course there are ways to account for such widespread influence that avoid Heuser's characterization of Gandhi's role. For example, Elleke Boehmer states that both Gandhi and Sol Plaatje, whom she argues showed little interest in each other, had a common source of inspiration for their nonviolent political actions: the suffragettes of Britain.22 But there are other cases where Gandhi clearly interacted with, influenced, and was influenced by his non-Indian contemporaries in the African context. Gandhi admitted that Africans were engaged in extensive non-cooperation with pass laws, taxes, and other facets of colonial rule long before he came along with his specific satyagraha methods. He only attempted to improve upon the methods.23 GAIL M. PRESBEY GANDHI'S MANY INFLUENCES AND COLLABORATORS 5 While Hofmeyr notes that Gandhi wanted "little to do" with Dube (22), Heather Hughes, in her biography of Dube, suggests that the two men did not meet until August 1905 because of each one's pressing schedule, which involved much travel away from Phoenix and Ohlange. But she says that the first meeting (organized by businessman Marshall Campbell) resulted in each having a favorable impression of the other. Campbell had taken conference attendees from Cape Town via mail boat to Natal, where they visited a sugar refinery Campbell owned and then were hosted for a meal at Mount Edgecomb, where the Inanda singers performed. Campbell asked Dube to give a speech, which Gandhi wrote about in Indian Opinion.24 Mesthrie catalogs the many places in Indian Opinion where Gandhi covers stories of racist injustices suffered by Africans or makes celebratory comments when a struggle is decided in their favor.25 The paper included Dube's speeches, often praised Dube and the work at Ohlange,26 and also commended the election of Walter Rubusana to the Cape Provincial Council in 1910.27 Indian Opinion reprinted stories from the black press, including the newspapers Imvo Zabantzundu and Ilanga lase Natal.28 James D. Hunt, in his article "Gandhi and the Black People of Africa," admits that Gandhi did not, like Dr. Abdullah Abdurahman, try to gather together a coalition of various racial groups in a united movement. Gandhi often claimed that Indians' legal position in South Africa, and therefore their problems and their possible solutions, were different from those of Africans. He admits that Gandhi seems unconcerned or unmotivated to personally become involved in righting the wrongs against the Africans in South Africa, as he concentrates on Indian problems (and Mesthrie gives voice to a similar estimation). But Hunt still insists that it is wrong to suggest that Gandhi imagined passive resistance as a method for the Indian community only, or that Dube was unknown to Gandhi. Hunt mentions the collaboration in publishing Dube's newspaper and notes that Gandhi wrote approvingly of Dube in Indian Opinion. Hunt adds that when Gandhi showed Gopal Krishna Gokhale around South Africa in 1912, he brought Gokhale to Ohlange on November 10, when he had a chance to talk to Dube at length. Hunt also mentions the many ways in which Gandhi cooperated with Abdurahman, an encounter that I will return to below. These kinds of robust connections between Gandhi and other leaders in KwaZulu Natal are also covered by Anil Nauriya, who points out that Gandhi suggested in a speech at Germiston, Transvaal, on June 7, 1909 (summarized in Indian Opinion on June 12, 1909) that Native Africans use the method of "soul force" to gain redress of their grievances. Nauriya also documents Gandhi's avid interest in legal questions regarding African ownership of land.29 Indeed, Hofmeyr has noted that Gandhi was sometimes quite sensitive about the links between caste discrimination in the Indian context and racism (85, 106). She notes that Henry Polak wrote against racism in a pamphlet published by IPP (116 – 17). But Hofmeyr cautiously balances accounts of Gandhi and his followers' antiracist commentary with accounts of their faux pas and derogatory remarks about Africans. She further notes that Dube and Gandhi were both wary of each other's race and engaged in "race-making projects" (11). Indeed, many of Gandhi's remarks and ideas deserve criticism.30 Clearly, some authors have erred by waxing too romantic about Gandhi's practice of eschewing social barriers. For example, Girja Kumar says that at Phoenix, Mohandas and Kasturba Gandhi became "heads of a joint family of brown, white, and black and had persons of European, Indian, and African GAIL M. PRESBEY GANDHI'S MANY INFLUENCES AND COLLABORATORS 6 extraction on its roll."31 As J. N. Uppal explains, Gandhi's "extended family" at Phoenix Farm included some Tamil-and Hindi-speaking Indians, two Englishmen, "one or two Zulus[,] and a few Gujaratis." Hunt clarifies that the Zulus at Phoenix were hired laborers, and while there was a black family at Tolstoy farm, they were squatters and not participants of the Tolstoy community.32 Despite some exaggerated accounts of racial harmony, a more sober account of contact and camaraderie is more likely. Enuga S. Reddy has provided an overview of the criticisms of Gandhi's seeming provincialism and counters with an attempt to understand the context and to set the record straight on Gandhi's contribution to and encouragement of nonviolent resistance beyond the Indian community. Hofmeyr is not alone when she engages in this narrative of the insular Gandhi; the attempts to debunk this portrayal have gone on for decades, with Hunt's article in 1989, Reddy's response to this "provincial" theory of Gandhi published in 1995, and Nauriya's book-length treatment in 2006 and recent article in 2012.33 Heather Hughes notes that despite Reddy's optimistic assertions about friendliness between Dube's and Gandhi's communities, one can nevertheless find both Gandhi and Dube expressing in the pages of their respective newspapers some political views that show that the two communities are at odds with each other on many topics.34 But the Indian and African communities still supported each other in crucial ways. Hughes even says, "Dube's Ilanga simply could not have survived without the regular and loyal support of the Hafferjees, Randerees, Glowhoosins, and Essops who advertised generously in every edition. The story of Indian and African interdependence in South Africa has yet to be properly told."35 Now I want to turn to the question of women in Gandhi's movement and their role in Indian Opinion. At his law firm, Gandhi was helped by his "secretary," Sonja Schlesin. Schlesin not only "virtually ran the publicity and business side of satyagraha," but also wrote moving speeches on the suffragettes (which Gandhi read aloud at a meeting) and refused to sit in train cars reserved for whites, thereby courting arrest. Gandhi called her the "watchman and warder" of his office and of the movement.36 Gandhi himself mentions that she managed all the accounts and finances and, especially relevant to Hofmeyr's chosen topic, edited articles for Indian Opinion.37 Gandhi had already invoked the suffragettes of England as role models for his own movement in several news articles in Indian Opinion. Indeed, Hofmeyr does mention in one sentence Gandhi's inclusion of the suffragettes as well as the African women of Bloemfontein as examples of passive resistance, and she references two articles, one of July 22, 1911, and the other of April 1, 1914 (120). The rest of that section devotes much more space to Ruskin and Socrates as Gandhi's role models. But in fact Gandhi makes reference to the suffragettes much earlier,38 suggesting that indeed these women may be more direct role models for Gandhi's satyagraha than Ruskin and Socrates. To tell the next part of this story, which involves the African and Coloured women of Bloemfontein and their resistance to the pass laws, I must first develop the account of Gandhi's relationship to Dr. Abdurahman, and to his newspaper, APO. As Julia Wells explains, Dr. Abdullah Abdurahman, the Coloured leader of the African Political Organization (APO) in Cape Town, had followed closely the developments of Gandhian satyagraha since Gandhi's first protests in 1906. Abdurahman began the APO newspaper in 1909 and used it to promote the idea that Indians, Coloureds, and Africans should join GAIL M. PRESBEY GANDHI'S MANY INFLUENCES AND COLLABORATORS 7 together and use Gandhian nonviolent methods to effect change in South Africa. The APO was popular in Bloemfontein. The black community there was very diverse, made up of fourteen different African and Coloured groups.39 As Mohamed Adhikari explains, Abdurahman dominated APO from 1905 to 1940 and wrote most of the editorials for the newspaper.40 According to Uppal, Gandhi got to know Dr. Abdurahman as they sailed together for four weeks on the RMS Kenilworth Castle to England. Both of them went to England, landing there on July 10, 1909, to influence the outcome of the draft constitution of the newly proposed Union of South Africa.41 Neither won much support for their efforts in England. Hunt explains that Gandhi and Abdurahman were both in the House of Lords' Strangers' Gallery listening to the Parliament debate on whether the new South African Union Parliament should be restricted to whites. "After the failure to alter the Act, Gandhi recommended that Abdurrahman take up passive resistance and invited him to lunch to talk it over. He promised to get him a copy of Thoreau's essay on Civil Disobedience. A few weeks later Abdurrahman suggested in his newspaper that the Coloured adopt the Indian strategy of passive resistance, and Gandhi wrote an article for The APO."42 Abdurahman filled APO with stories covering Gandhi's imprisonment in November 1909. In the issue of December 4, 1909, Abdurahman invited Gandhi to write an article for APO. Gandhi described his tactics as "the greatest and yet most harmless force anybody can wield with perfect safety and a clear conscience," suggesting that it could be used by "illiterate natives."43 Abdurahman even began and coordinated an "Indian Passive Resistance Fund."44 On February 26, 1910, Abdurahman wrote about Gandhi's "long and stubborn" resistance in his newspaper, and said, "If the Coloured people will but follow the same line of conduct without flinching, success will come to them."45 In the June 1, 1912, issue, Abdurahman specifically encouraged women to use passive resistance as a means to getting the pass laws repealed. I want to point out that Gandhi only begins his plans to involve Indian women in a satyagraha protest after March 14, 1913, which is nine months after Abdurahman advocates involving women.46 The account of the Coloured and African women of Bloemfontein's protest against the enforcement of pass laws in their town has been covered in detail by Julia Wells's book and Frene Ginwala's and Nomboniso Gasa's articles.47 I want to draw attention to the timing to clarify that Gandhi did not use his newspaper to encourage women to engage in civil disobedience until May 1913, well after Abdurahman did so in his publication (in June 1912). The Indian women who participated in Gandhi's 1913 satyagraha did so in September 1913, months after the women of Bloemfontein, of whom eighty had been arrested on May 29, 1913. Before Indian women's imprisonment in the September 1913 satyagraha, at least thirtyfour of the Bloemfontein women had spent several months in prison, receiving sympathetic attention in a variety of newspapers and thereby garnering much support for their movement. Even Gandhi's newspaper chimed in with its support, with coverage of the developments in the July 5 issue and front page coverage in the August 2 Indian Opinion announcing the "Native Women's Brave Stand" against the pass laws.48 In Dr. Abdurahman's presidential address on September 29, 1913 (published in APO on October 11, 1913), during the annual meeting of the APO, he suggested to his members that the Indians' conscientious passive resistance was worth emulating. He went on directly to GAIL M. PRESBEY GANDHI'S MANY INFLUENCES AND COLLABORATORS 8 mention and commend the actions of the women of the Free State who resisted the unjust pass laws and went to prison. He then told his listeners that these methods should be adopted and tried on a large scale, asking his listeners to imagine their success if only "200,000 Natives on the mines" were to refuse to pick up their tools, and if the farm laborers refused to gather the harvest; in this circumstance, "the economic foundation of South Africa would suddenly shake and tremble with such violence that the beautiful white South Africa superstructure which has been built on it would come down with a crash."49 Within the next two months, Gandhi and the women in his movement organized a massive labor strike. Hofmeyr notes that Gandhi mentioned the anti-pass campaigners, considering them part of a universal satyagraha movement (120). But the story of how these newspapers, and therefore these diverse communities of activists, supported each other by encouraging solidarity, mutual learning, and role modeling is not part of Hofmeyr's focus, and so readers might not know about these significant developments. As if to prepare the ground for the new step of women's direct involvement in Gandhi's satyagraha actions, the April 19, 1913, issue of Indian Opinion carried an in-depth story on Emmeline Pankhurst, a famous suffragette.50 In "The Campaign," Gandhi mentioned his strategy of courting arrest over two issues: the need to repeal the three-pound tax and the need to change the marriage law, an issue he considered to have a direct impact on women's reputation,51 but there was no specific mention of women participating directly in the protest. On May 4, the Transvaal Indian Women's Association, via Schlesin, sent a telegram to Jan Christian Smuts that stated that they considered the new law an indignity, and if the government didn't amend the marriage law, the women would be ready to suffer imprisonment. Gandhi reported the telegram's message on page one of Indian Opinion on May 10, 1913, in an article called "Indian Women and Passive Resisters," adding, "We congratulate our plucky sisters who have dared to fight the government." But it is important to note that by the end of May, just after these publications relayed the intention of Indian women to court arrest, it was the women of Bloemfontein who first took this step. The Indian women would only do so months later. The women in Gandhi's movement rose to the occasion and led with bravery. Their story is more widely covered, as in Gandhi's own account,52 Reddy's 1995 account, and more recently, Rajmohan Gandhi's 2006 account and Ela Gandhi's 2013 account.53 Eleven Tamil women wanted to join the struggle, even though six of them had young babies and one was pregnant.54 A group of sixteen people from Phoenix Farm, including Kasturba and three other Gujarati-speaking women, were jailed for entering the Transvaal without permits and sentenced to three years of hard labor on September 23, 1913. The Tamil women who had courted arrest twice but had not been arrested went to Newcastle and began to tell the workers there about the protest against the £3 tax. The workers decided to go on strike. Gandhi said he was not prepared for such a development, but he considered it a good one. The Tamil women were arrested and sentenced (October 21, 1913) to three months' imprisonment. They were kept in Martizburg jail, where the food was terrible, and their health suffered. A sixteen-yearold woman, Valliamma R. Munuswami Mudaliar, suffered a fever while in jail and died a few days after her release.55 Many people were particularly upset to hear that women were imprisoned. Gandhi recounts that Sir Pherozeshah Mehta spoke in Bombay Town Hall, saying that his "blood GAIL M. PRESBEY GANDHI'S MANY INFLUENCES AND COLLABORATORS 9 boiled at the thought of these women lying in jails herded with ordinary criminals."56 Gandhi noted that "the women's imprisonment worked like a charm upon the laborers of the mines near Newcastle."57 Soon, the number of strikers grew from 78 to 5,000.58 Gandhi then encouraged the striking mine workers to proceed from Newcastle, Natal, to the Transvaal border, where they would court arrest for trying to cross the border. Gandhi was arrested on November 11 and sentenced to nine months of hard labor. While he was in prison, Reddy explains, the strike "soon involved some sixty thousand Indians in the largest general strike that South Africa had seen."59 Hofmeyr, who mentions that there were strikes and that striking workers courted arrest in the 1913 campaign, does not mention the involvement of women satyagrahis or that Schlesin helped keep the newspaper going during this time (29).60 In her unique contribution to scholarship, Hofmeyr introduces us to the nuances of the newspaper in a far-flung colony in the age when readers were encouraged by Gandhi to read slowly and deeply. She fills us in on the community that surrounded Gandhi and the role it played in supporting the newspaper. Yet the participation by women of all races as well as Coloured and black South African men in leading, modeling, and shaping the movement of resistance to pass laws and other racist legislation, including the role of their newspapers as well as street protest, might have been integrated more into the main narrative. I offer these remarks to supplement Hofmeyr's fascinating account by providing additional information in portraying the newspaper in its historical and social context. Notes 1. Thoreau, Walden, 67, 393–94. 2. See Thoreau, Walden, 130, 131, and Stein, "The Yoga of Reading," 482, 490–91. 3. George, "Compassion and Forgiveness in Ancient Tamil Literature," 231, 233. 4. Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimac Rivers, 127. 5. Fischer, The Life of Mahatma Gandhi, 29. 6. Ibid., 66. 7. Ibid., 67. 8. See Fuller, The Camphor Flame, 57–72. 9. M. K. Gandhi, Indian Opinion, December 24, 1904, 3. In subsequent references Indian Opinion is abbreviated IO. English translations of IO articles that appeared in Gujarati are noted as such and taken from The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, abbreviated as CWMG in subsequent references. Titles of translated articles are taken from CWMG. Articles that originally appeared in English are taken directly from Indian Opinion. 10. Nauriya, The African Element in Gandhi, 14–15. 11. See Mesthrie, "From Advocacy to Mobilization," 110, and An English Protestant [pseud.], "Educating the Native: A Visit to Mariannhill Monastery," IO, October 8, 1904, 2. 12. Rassool, "Rethinking Documentary History," 28–30; Healy-Clancy, "Women and the Problem of Family," 454–55; and Ginwala, "Women and the African National Congress," 77. 13. Heuser, "Recovered Narratives of an Inter-Cultural Exchange," 89. 14. See Hughes, First President, 103–4. 15. Davis, "Qude maniki!," 83. 16. Hughes, First President, 105, 108. 17. Dhupelia-Mesthrie, "The Significance of Indian Opinion"; see also Hughes, First President, 105. 18. R. Gandhi, Gandhi: The Man, 107. 19. Ibid., 110. 20. See Swan, Gandhi: The South African Experience, 59–60. 21. Heuser, "Recovered Narratives," 92. 22. Boehmer, Empire, the National, and the Postcolonial, 5, 163. 23. See M. K. Gandhi, "The Duty of Transvaal Indians," IO, October 6, 1906, CWMG 5:383–84. 24. See Hughes, First President, 108–13; Reddy, Gandhiji's Vision of a Free South Africa, 19; R. Gandhi, Gandhi: The Man, 110, 144; and "The Kaffirs of Natal," IO, September 2, 1905, CWMG 4:398–99. GAIL M. PRESBEY GANDHI'S MANY INFLUENCES AND COLLABORATORS 10 25. See Mesthrie, "From Advocacy," 110. For coverage of the case of Magato, an African who had been ejected from the first class car of a train, see IO, March 23, 1912, 100. See also "Natives and Land in the Transvaal," IO, April 15, 1905, 1, and "Native Land Tenure," IO, July 29, 1905, 490–91, which discuss a legal decision allowing Africans to purchase land in the Transvaal. 26. IO, editorials of November 30, 1907, 496; March 6, 1909, 104; and February 10, 1912, 46–47. 27. "A Notable Event," IO, September 24, 1910, 313. 28. IO reprinted material from Imvo Zabantzundu on April 29, 1905. On June 8, 1912, IO reprinted an editorial from Ilanga lase Natal. See Mesthrie, "From Advocacy," 110. 29. See Hunt, "Gandhi and the Black People of South Africa," and Mesthrie, "From Advocacy," 111. For more on the connections between Gandhi and KwaZulu leaders, see "From Our Own Reporter," IO, June 12, 1909, cited in Nauriya, "Gandhi and Some Contemporary Leaders from KwaZulu Natal," 57, 67. 30. Hofmeyr cites critics like J. H. Stone; see, for example, 175n18. 31. Kumar, Bramacharya, 92. 32. Uppal, Gandhi: Ordained in South Africa, 202; Hunt, "Gandhi and the Black People of South Africa," 10–11. 33. See Hunt, "Gandhi and the Black People of South Africa"; Reddy, Gandhiji's Vision, 49, 129–41; Nauriya, African Element, 13; and "Gandhi and Some Contemporary African Leaders from KwaZulu Natal," 67. 34. See Hughes, First President, 108–11. 35. Ibid., 111. 36. R. Gandhi, Gandhi: The Man, 155, and M. K. Gandhi, Satyagraha, 165–66. 37. M. K. Gandhi, Satyagraha, 165. See also Paxton, Sonja Schlesin, 10, 16, 24. 38. See IO, December 22, 1906, CWMG 6:158, and "The Brave Women of England," IO, June 29, 1907, CWMG 7:27. For a related story see "S.A.B.I. Committee's Advice," IO, July 6, 1907. 39. Wells, We Now Demand!, 57. 40. Adhikari, "Voice of the Coloured Elite," 131. 41. Uppal, Gandhi: Ordained in South Africa, 281; also see Hunt, "Gandhi and the Black People of South Africa," 14. 42. Hunt, "Gandhi and the Black People," 14. 43. M. K. Gandhi, "What Is the Transvaal Struggle?," APO, December 4, 1909, 7. 44. Hunt, "Gandhi and the Black People," 14. 45. Abdurahman, "Persecution in Pretoria: Passive Resistance," APO, February 26, 1910, 5. 46. Ibid.; M. K. Gandhi, Satyagraha, 251–56; Abdurahman, "Curfew Bell at Johannesburg, Passes for Native Women," APO, June 1, 1912, 10. 47. See Wells, We Now Demand!; Ginwala, "Women, and the African National Congress, 1912–1943"; and Gasa, "Let Them Build More Gaols." 48. See Gasa, "Let them Build More Gaols," 137; Mesthrie, "From Advocacy," 117; and "Native Women's Brave Stand," IO, August 2, 1913, 1. See also "Native Women Passive Resisters," IO, July 5, 1913, 163. 49. Abdurahman, "1913 Presidential Address," 54. See also Abdurahman, "Variant Views," APO, February 26, 1910, 6. 50. M. K. Gandhi, "Mrs. Pankhurst's Sacrifice," IO, April 19, 1913, CWMG 13:81. For details on women's reputation, see Mongia, "Gender and the Historiography of Gandhian Satyagraha," 141. 51. IO, May 3, 1913, CWMG 13:112. 52. M. K. Gandhi, Satyagraha, 255–64. 53. See Reddy, Gandhiji's Vision; R. 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