The white man had never encountered this religious and revolutionary mood anywhere. Of course the Bible had spoken thus, the early Christians had, after all, practised these noble principles, but that was long ago and far away. London fought only for the unity of the Empire against the Boers. The Biblical Boers fought against the Englishman for being English and for trying to be gentlemen, while Gandhi, the meek, the truthful, the non-violent, handcuffed, walked the streets of Johannesburg, a book of Tolstoy between his hands. Smuts, the philosopher of holism, and great statesman, was now minister of the interior. He sent Gandhi to prison again and again. He also sent his prisoner books to read. When Gandhi came out, immense crowds gathered to greet him, and finally when London could not force Smuts to be gentlemanly with Gandhi, ten thousand Indians, workmen and peasants, clerks and businessmen, walked from Durham in Natal towards Johannesburg, the first people’s march in history. The white population in the countryside, especially those of British origin, cheered the Indians. Mounted police, Smuts’s henchmen, stood against these non-violent matchers. Some whites in admiration had joined these pilgrims of liberty. Thousands were arrested and sent to concentration camps.3 Smuts had finally to yield. The poll tax would be removed.

Truth had won, thought Gandhi. Truth was probably winning. Indians are a large community in South Africa even today. But they are second-class citizens. One of Gandhi’s sons is still there fighting for the Indians, the non-violent way.

Gandhi did not win in South Africa.4 He was not defeated in South Africa. Defeat is for man. Truth needs no victory. For Truth itself is victory: ‘Satyameva jayate.’5

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