M K Gandhi an Autobiography

SR No.: 007603
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Mahadev Desai
Publisher: Navjivan Prakashan Mandir
Total Pages: 269
Language: English
Classification: Interfaith & Interfaith
File Size: 2 MB

Page 213

concerned. It is hardly practicable to obtain their consent or to get them every now and then to revise the chapters concerning themselves. Besides such procedure is outside the limit of this autobiography. I therefore fear that the rest of the story, valuable as it in my opinion to seekers after Truth, will be told with inevitable omissions. Nevertheless, it is my desire and hope, God willing, to bring this narrative down to the days of non-co-opeartion.
Chapter 135
ABOLITION OF INDENTURED EMIGRATION
W e shall, for a moment, take leave of the Ashram, which in the very beginning had to weather internal and external storms, and briefly advert to a matter that engaged my attention.
Indentured labourers were those who had emigrated from India to labour under an indenture for five years or less. Under the Smuts-Gandhi settlement of 1914, the £3 tax in respect of the indentured emigrants to Natal had been abolished, but the general emigration from India still needed treatment.
In March 1916 Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviyaji moved a resolution in the Imperial Legislative Council for the abolition of the indenture system. In accepting the motion Lord Hardinge announced that he had 'obtained from His Majesty's Government the promise of the abolition in due course of the system. I felt however, that India could not be satisfied with so very vague an assurance, but ought to agitate for immediate abolition. India had tolerated the system through her sheer negligence, and I believed the time had come when people could successfully agitate for this redress. I met some of the leaders, wrote in the press, and saw that public opinion was solidly in favour of immediate abolition. Might this be a fit subject for Satyagraha? I had no doubt that it was, but I did not know the modus operandi.
In the meantime the Viceroy had made no secret of the meaning of the eventual abolition', which, as he said, was abolition 'within such reasonable time as will allow of alternative arrangements introduced,
So in February 1917, Pandit Malaviyaji asked for leave to introduce a bill for the immediate abolition of the system. Lord Chelmsford refused permission. It was time for me to tour the country for an all-India agitation.
Before I started the agitation I thought it proper to wait upon the Viceroy. So I applied for an interview. He immediately granted it. Mr. Maffey, now Sir John Maffey, was his private secretary. I came in close contact with him. I had a satisfactory talk with Lord Chelmsford who, without being definite, promised to be a helpful.
I began my tour from Bombay. Mr. Jehangir Petit undertook to convene the meeting under the auspices of the Imperial Citizenship Association, the Executive Committee of the Association met first for framing the resolutions to be moved at the meeting. Dr. Stanley Reed, Sjt. (now Sir) Lallubhai Samaldas, Sjt. Natarajan and Mr. Petit were present at the Committee meeting. The discussion centred round the fixing of the period within which the Government was to be asked to abolish the system. There were three proposals, viz, for abolition 'as soon as possible,' abolition 'by the 31st July,' and 'immediate abolition. I was for a definite date, as we could then decide what to do if the Government failed to accede to our request within the time limit. Sit. Lallubhai