With the Freedom Convoy protest making waves and the likelihood of similar movement springing up across the world, the act of civil disobedience is once again under the spotlight.
It, therefore, makes sense to revisit the earliest organized
civil disobedience moments in modern history.
It was in 1893 that a 24-year-old Indian attorney by the name
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi landed in South Africa.
Gandhi had lived a privileged life in India and like most men
of affluence he was educated in England where he trained to be an attorney.
When he returned to India he set up a practice in India but had sparing
success.
During this time he was presented to a case based in South
Africa, it was a dispute between two brothers.
South
Africa was the first occasion in life he experienced discrimination.
In court, Gandhi was ordered by the magistrate to take off his
turban, Gandhi pleaded that it was customary for Indian lawyers to wear turbans
in courts under British rule, but to no avail. Gandhi left the court in anger, what
also irked him was that Muslims and Persian individuals were permitted to wear religious
headgears.
But there was more to come.
Gandhi was traveling to meet his client by train in the first-class
compartment when the
ticket inspector unceremoniously threw him out because the law forbade people
of color to travel first class. He has a similar experience while traveling by
a horse-driven carriage, he was compelled to sit outside the carriage with the
cab driver because people of color were not allowed inside the cab.
When he studied in England and when he lived British ruled
India, he was treated equally like a subject of the British Empire. His
privilege led him to be insulated from discrimination in India that was usually
suffered by the working class. Hence his experience of racism in South Africa was
a shock.
Gandhi soon learned about the institutionalized discrimination
in South Africa against Indians.
In certain provinces, Indians were prevented from owning
property. Indians were not allowed access to certain public spaces.
The laws mandated Indians to submit their fingerprints and register with the
government and carry passes that could be checked anytime by authorities. Laws
were proposed that would deny Indians voting and even subject Indians to random
inspections of their properties without reason. An unfair tax was levied
specifically on Indian businesses.
Different people react differently to discrimination. Some
individuals swallow their pride and focus on earning a living. Some just escape
to a safer place for a better life. Most people live for themselves and their
families, they usually have no time or the patience to strive for the greater
good.
A rare kind among the affronted chose to react to
discrimination in the form of protests. Among those who organize protests, few
find sustained supporters. Usually, even sustained movements fail to bring
about any change. But the rarest among the rare kind not only organize
sustained protests but also manage to bring about real change.
Gandhi led such a movement.
But Gandhi wasn’t an overnight success. His first few
speeches to the Indian community in South Africa were fiascos. He was an
abominable public speaker and could barely muster words. The audience was
understandably disengaged.
But he gradually learned the art of rabble-rousing by using
emotions to get the public charged. Instead of giving spiels about laws, he
made it personal as he cited specific instances of potential instances of
discrimination owing to South African laws that offended the religious
sensibilities of Indians.
Gandhi also learned the importance of symbolism. At one point,
held an outdoor gathering where the discriminatory mandatory passes were
burned.
But most importantly Gandhi developed his philosophy of
passive resistance and civil disobedience where innovated peaceful measures of
expressing dissent.
The small Indian minority in South Africa participated in
demonstrations, boycotts, marches, and sit-ins. They gave up their livelihoods
and even participated in strikes to protest against discrimination and
government mandates that treated them as second-class citizens.
The South African government and their agents branded Gandhi
and the protestors as trouble makers and traitors.
Gandhi also knew if the protests were
to be restricted to just South Africa, they would probably be ruthlessly
crushed. Hence he founded a newspaper Indian Opinion to spread his message. He
took aid from the international media which were restricted to newspapers back
then, like-minded groups, and religious leaders to spread his message against
discrimination.
Since Gandhi’s stay in South Africa was extended he went back
to India bring his family to South Africa. The South African authorities
attempted to block Gandhi’s entry into South Africa claiming that pandemic of
the plague that had hit India, from where the ship sailed from. When he stepped
on land, he was subjected to violence by local thugs.
Gandhi and his allies were frequently imprisoned during the
struggle. During the last phase of the struggle, thousands of Indians
including women were imprisoned. Indian laborers, who had struck work were
flogging and were even shot. It was a terrible ordeal.
Despite his activism against British-ruled South Africa,
Gandhi led a stretcher-carrying service called the Indian Ambulance Corps to
aid British troops during the Second Boer War. Gandhi himself was awarded
medals by the British for his brave and selfless work on the frontlines.
In the end, after two decades of struggle led by Gandhi, there
were many triumphs, the laws pertaining to discriminatory passes were repealed
and so were the tax laws. The Natal Indian Congress (NIC) was founded which
marked the birth of the first permanent political organization to strive to
maintain and protect the rights of Indians in South Africa. These were the
earliest steps towards dignity for Indians in South Africa.
It has to be remembered that Gandhi and the Indian community
in South Africa were a small minority. This was a time when the British ruled
in countries across Asia, South Africa, the Middle East, and even North
America. The influence of the British Establishment was considerable.
Yet a few hundred Indians managed a unique struggle of Civil
Disobedience and managed to win back their human rights. It was the triumph of
the human spirit over seemingly insurmountable challenges. In the end, tyranny
and oppression were defeated without a single punch or firing a single bullet.
Gandhi wrote about his struggles in detail in his
autobiography
The Freedom Convoy in Canada and similar other movements
around the world find themselves in a similar position during the initial
phases. They are a minority against the might of and tyranny of governments.
But it is impossible to repress all the people all the time. If more people
join the civil disobedience movement against mandates, at some point, the
establishment will capitulate and freedom will win.
Gandhi famously said ““When I despair, I remember that all
through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been
tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the
end, they always fall. Think of it–always”
This article also appears on American Thinker
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