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Archives -> Gandhi and the Tamils GANDHI AND THE TAMILS » continued from page 1On July 15, 1914, Gandhiji spoke at a meeting of the Tamil Community in Johannesburg. Thambi Naidoo presided. The following is from a report of his speech in Indian Opinion, August 5, 1914. “Mr Gandhi said that he felt, in coming to meet the Tamil brothers and sisters, as if he came to meet blood relations. That was a sentiment, which he had cherished now for many years and the reason was quite simple. Of all the different sections of the Indian community, he thought that the Tamils had borne the brunt of the struggle. The largest number of deaths that passive resistance had taken had been from the Tamil community. They had that morning gone to the cemetery to perform the unveiling ceremony in connection with the two memorials to a dear sister and brother. Both of these had been Tamils. There was Narayansamy whose bones lay at Delagoa Bay. He had been a Tamil. The deportees had been Tamils. The last to fight and come out of goal had been Tamils. Those who were ruined hawkers were all Tails. The majority of the passive resisters at Tolstoy Farm had been Tamils. On every side, Tamils had shown themselves to be the most typical of the best traditions of India and by saying that he was not exaggerating in the slightest degree”. Their faith, the abundant faith in God, in Truth, that the Tamils had shown had been one of the most sustaining forces throughout those long drawn years. The majority of women to go to goal were Tamils. The sisters who defied the authorities to arrest them had gone from door to door, from barracks to barracks at Newcastle, to ask the men to lay down their tools and strike work – who were they? “Again, Tamil sisters. Who marched among the women? Tamils of course. Who lived on a pound loaf of bread and an ounce of sugar? The majority were Tamils; though there he must give their due also of their countrymen who were called Calcutta men. In that lat struggle they also responded nobly, but he was not able to say quite so nobly as the Tamils; but they had certainly come out almost as well as the Tamils had, but the Tamils had sustained the struggle for the last eight years and had shown of what stuff they were made from the beginning. Here in Johannesburg they were a handful and yet, even numerically, they would show he thought the largest number who had gone to goal again and again; also if they had wanted imprisonment wholesale, it came from the Tamils. So that he felt when he came to a Tamil meeting that he came to blood relations. “The Tamils had shown so much quick so much pluck, so much faith, so much devotion to duty and such noble simplicity, and yet had been so self-effacing. He did not even speak their language, much as he should like to be able to do so, and yet they had simply fought on. It had been a glorious, a rich experience, which he would treasure to the end of life. “How should he explain the settlement to them? They did not even want it. But if he must he could only tell them all that they and theirs had fought for had been obtained and obtained largely through the force of character that they had shown; and yet they did not want, they had not wanted to reap the reward except the reward that their own consciences would offer them. They had fought for the Cape entry right for Colonial-borns. That they had got. They had fought for the just administration of the laws. That they had got. The three-pound tax was now a matter of the past. And, with reference to the marriage question, all those dear sisters who had gone to goal could now be called wives of their husbands, whilst but yesterday they might have been called so out of courtesy by a friend, but were not so in the eye of the law.”. “That was one of the things they had fought for and had got. Truth was that they had been fighting for, and Truth and conquered – not he or they. They might tomorrow for an unrighteous thing, and as sure as fate they would be beaten and well-beaten. Truth was unconquerable and whenever the call to duty came, he hoped they would respond. There was one thing more. They had sometimes, as every other section of the community had, jealousies amongst themselves. They had petty jealousies not in connection with the struggle, but in matters which had nothing to do with the struggle. All those petty jealousies and differences he hoped would go and they would rise higher still in the estimation of themselves and of those who at all grew to know them and the depth of character which they had. They had also, as all sections of the Indian community had, not only those jealousies but sometimes many bickerings also, and petty quarrels. He felt these also should be removed especially from their midst, because they had shown themselves so fit to give themselves to the Motherland. And here, of course, it was a Tamil who had given his four sons to be trained as servants of India..." Indian Opinion, August 5, 1914 Collected Works |
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