A few years ago, two South African scholars published The South African Gandhi: Stretcher-Bearer of Empire. Desai and Vahed looked at Mohandas Gandhi’s loyalty to the British Empire during his years in the country. While the book suffers from an anti-Gandhi bias, questions worth considering are raised. Why did a man who would become known the world over as a devout pacifist participate in a military campaign?
While the Indians were strictly stretcher-bearers in that conflict, Gandhi advocated that they be trained to fight in the 1906 Zulu Rebellion. His newspaper, Indian Opinion, frequently printed stories about new abuses and restrictions aimed at the Indian community. Indians were refused seating on railways, their store hours were reduced by law, and children as young as six were being forcibly separated from their parents when immigrating!
Despite this, a community meeting produced a resolution in support of defending the colony. As Gandhi described it, the Indians “are capable of forgetting personal grievances when the common good of the body politic, of which they form a part, is concerned.” By June, Gandhi had been given the rank of Sgt-Major, and led the group of 20 men, of whom one third were Muslim and the remainder Hindu.
Gandhi describes the situation in his autobiography.
On reaching the scene of the ‘rebellion’, I saw that there was nothing there to justify the name of ‘rebellion’. There was no resistance that one could see. The reason why the disturbance had been magnified into a rebellion was that a Zulu chief had advised non-payment of a new tax imposed on his people, and had assagaied a sergeant who had gone to collect the tax. At any rate my heart was with the Zulus, and I was delighted, on reaching headquarters, to hear that our main work was to be the nursing of the wounded Zulus.
The Zulus were not wounded in battle; many of them had been flogged as suspected insurgents, and their wounds had gone untreated until Gandhi and his men arrived. Others were friendlies, who soldiers had shot “by mistake.” The Indians cheerfully treated the festering sores, which didn’t go over well with the British soldiers, who tried to talk them out of it.
By the end of the month, they were marching into the field, grateful for the donated overcoats that cut the chill of the winter air at night. In a report for Indian Opinion, Gandhi describes the uphill struggle to carry a trooper accidentally shot in the thigh. On reaching enemy territory, orders came to put the man into a wagon, so any Zulus watching wouldn’t think they’d actually wounded a British soldier. The “fatigued bearers” happily complied. All was well until “the morning of the 3rd July, a day that will ever remain memorable to the members of the Corps.”
Have you ever volunteered for something against your better nature, in order to win appreciation?