Durban, March 26
South Africa is dotted with memorials of Mahatma Gandhi in places where he lived during his formative years and made such an indelible mark not just in the minds of its populace but the entire world. These have now become major tourist attractions, particularly for visitors from India.
While Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was preparing for his bilateral meetings with Brazil, Russia and South Africa on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in Durban, his wife Gursharan Kaur, paid homage to one such at the Mahatma Gandhi Ashram established in the outskirts of the city.
The Ashram is a memorial to the famed Phoenix Settlement spanning 100 acres of land that Gandhi had set up in 1904 while he lived in South Africa. It was here that while propounding concepts of simple living, justice and equality that Gandhi held intense political discussions and interactions with Indians and Africans. These helped him shape his strategy, including using satyagraha as a weapon of resistance against colonialism.
An hour’s drive from Durban is Pietermaritzburg, the capital of KwaZulu-Natal province. Pietermaritzburg railway station still has the quaint red-brick Victorian façade with its cast-iron lace work and stone facing. It was at this railway station that a white man objected to Gandhi being seated in the first class carriage while he was travelling from Durban to Pretoria on June 7 1893. He ordered Gandhi to be moved to the van compartment of the train. When Gandhi, then a young barrister, refused, he was thrown out of the train.
It was extremely cold and Gandhi took refuge in the waiting room. A plaque at the doorway reproduces what Gandhi wrote about that event: “I entered the dark waiting room.
There was a white man in the room, I was afraid of him. What was my duty? I asked myself. Should I go back to India, or should I go forward, with God as my helper and face whatever was in store for me? I decided to stay and suffer. My active non-violence began from that date.”
It was here at the waiting room that Gandhi took the momentous decision to stay on in South Africa and fight racial discrimination and apartheid. Today the waiting room has a picture of Gandhi hung up. The railway station itself has half a dozen plaques, including one unveiled by APJ Abdul Kalam in 2004 when as India’s President he visited South Africa. The spot on the platform where Gandhi fell after being thrown out from the carriage is also marked by a stone tableau.
