A flurry of arrests
November 9, 2023
After years of struggle in South Africa, the beginning of the end for Gandhi arrived in October 1913. Thousands of mine workers in Natal had walked out on strike, in protest of the annual £3 tax levied on formerly indentured Indians who did not return to their home country. In the last half of the month, Gandhi spoke before large crowds, urging them to stay united, as he would five years later to striking mill workers in Ahmedabad, India.
The strike was financially unsustainable, and as long as the workers remained near the mines, they were subject to intimidation and coercion by local authorities. Gandhi came up with an audacious plan; the workers could come and live at Tolstoy Farm until things were resolved. There was one minor detail. The farm was nearly 200 miles away, and there was no money for train fare. Gandhi proposed they walk.
By November 5, more than 2,000 miners, some with their families, had gathered in Charlestown, thirty-five miles from where they started. They tripled the population of the sleepy village on the border of Transvaal. Women and children got lodging, the men slept out in the open.
The next morning, promptly at 6:30 a.m., prayers were offered and the march began. The first obstacle was the border crossing; no one had the necessary permits. Gandhi approached the policemen there and began to explain the situation, but while he was doing so, gave a signal to the army massed behind him. At once, they all rushed across the border.
Did Gandhi really hope to lead the long march all the way to Tolstoy Farm? I’m sure he would have been delighted if it had succeeded. But here was a fallback plan. Other Indians, including his wife Kasturba, has illegally crossed the border previously in order to be arrested and incarcerated. If the government arrested everyone now, then they would be responsible for providing for the striking mine workers.
However, the mass of people was not immediately arrested. Rearranging them into orderly rows, Gandhi continued the march. When they had settled in for the night, a white man with a lantern approached, and told him he was under arrest. Gandhi told his second-in-command not to break the news to anyone else until after things were underway in the morning.
He was released on bail on November 7, caught up to the marchers, and was arrested again November 8, after which he was again released on bail. On November 9, it happened again.
As Gandhi describes it: “I was thus arrested thrice in four days.”1
He saw this as a victory for satyagraha, “for trusting to our nonviolence,” that a single police officer had no fear of walking into a crowd of 2,000 and arresting the leader. Two days later, he would be on trial.
Is there a cause you’d be willing to walk 200 miles for?
Satyagraha in South Africa (M.K. Gandhi, 1928) Chapter XLV: ALL IN PRISON