New take on Gandhi

THE SOUTH African Gandhi: Stretcher-Bearer of Empire, by Ashwin Desai and Goolam Vahed, is expected to hit bookstores soon.

In the pantheon of global liberation heroes, Mohandas Gandhi has pride of place. Leaders like Mandela have lauded him as being part of the epic battle to defeat the apartheid regime and prepare the way for a non-racial country. A popular sentiment in South Africa goes: “India gave us Mohandas, and we returned him to you as Mahatma”.

Against this background, Desai and Vahed’s book unravels the complex story of a man who, throughout his stay on African soil (1893–1914), remained true to Empire while expressing disdain for Africans.

For Gandhi, whites and Indians were bound by an Aryan bloodline that had no place for the African. His racism was matched by his class prejudice towards the Indian indentured. He persistently claimed they were ignorant and needed his leadership, and wrote their struggles out of history—struggles the book documents.

The authors show Gandhi never missed a chance to demonstrate his loyalty to Empire, with a particular penchant for war. He was a stretcher-bearer in the war between Brit and Boer, demanded Indians be allowed to carry fire-arms, and recruited volunteers for the imperial army in both England and India during World War I.

Desai is professor of sociology at the University of Johannesburg. His previous books include South Africa: Still Revolting, We are the Poors: Community Struggles in Post-Apartheid South Africa and Reading Revolution: Shakespeare on Robben Island.

Goolam Vahed is associate professor of history at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. He writes on histories of migration, ethnicity, religion and identity among Indian South Africans.

POST will publish an extract from the book next week.