The Past in the Present: Writing the South African Gandhi

Abstract

The standard narrative of Mohandas K. Gandhi's years in South Africa, from 1893 to 1914, suggests that his path to freedom fighter and political leader was set in motion when he was thrown off a train at the Pietermaritzburg station shortly after his arrival in Natal. As a political leader in South Africa, Gandhi developed his unique method of political resistance, Satyagraha, which he used to challenge successive white minority regimes and returned to India as a Mahatma to free his country from British rule. As South Africa achieved non-racial democracy, Gandhi transformed from a symbol of India's freedom struggle to a heroic South African liberation leader as well. In 2016, Ashwin Desai and I published a critical history of Gandhi's years in South Africa that did not take for granted the idea of the Mahatma as a “great man” but examined him as a discursively produced leader. The book created a political storm, caught as it was between rising black African nationalism and Indian ethnic chauvinism in South Africa. While a critical response was expected, the severity of the backlash, mainly from the general public, came as a surprise. This article analyses the reaction to the book, seeks to understand why the criticism of this icon received such a hostile reaction, and reflects on the personal consequences of venturing into the public domain with the book.