By Anoop Bose
The Father of the Nation Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born in the coastal town of Porbandar in Gujarat on 2nd October, 1869. Armed with two most potent weapons viz. “Satya” (“truth”) and “Ahinsa” (“non-violence”), Gandhi raised human values to new, mercurial heights and demonstrated to the world at large that wars could be fought and won and colonial masters could be vanquished without any violence or bloodshed whatsoever.
On 3rd March, 1839, another great son of India Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, the legendary Indian pioneer industrialist who founded the awesome Tata empire, was born in Navsari, a small town in South Gujarat. He too battled relentlessly for India’s freedom from a totally different perspective — planting the earliest seeds of industrialisation and economic self-reliance in India. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru aptly described him as one of the “founders of modern India”. His second son, Sir Ratan Tata, was born on 20th January, 1871 in Bombay and inherited his father’s unwavering nationalist and benevolent spirit. Sir Ratan played an extremely crucial role in India’s freedom struggle and patriotism.
On 24th May, 1893, Gandhi arrived at the port of Durban at the tender age of 24 as a fresh Barrister to work for Dada Abdulla and Co. Shortly thereafter, Gandhi was asked to travel to Pretoria for an important court case. While travelling by train to Pretoria on 7th June, 1893, Gandhi experienced his first taste of racial discrimination. Inspite of carrying a first class ticket he was bodily thrown out of the train. He later wrote, “I was pushed out of the train by a police constable and the train having left, was sitting in the waiting room, shivering in the bitter cold. I did not know where my luggage was, nor did I dare to inquire of anybody, lest I might be insulted and assaulted once again.”
It was the South African struggle that led Gandhi to the conclusion that to question the prevailing social order, doubt took possession of his mind. At last, rightly, it came to the conclusion that to go back to India would run the risk of relinquishing the unfinished task he had undertaken. It was in South Africa that Gandhi’s leadership skills were forged.
“I have worn these sandals for many a summer … even though I may feel that I am not worthy to stand in the shoes of so great a man. It was my fate to be the antagonist of a man for whom even then I had the highest respect…. He never forgot the human background of the situation, never lost his temper or succumbed to hate, and preserved his gentle humour even in the most trying situations. His manner and spirit even then, as well as later, contrasted markedly with the ruthless and brutal forcefulness which is the vogue in our day.”
The Indian community in South Africa was subject to extremely harsh and discriminatory treatment, and Gandhi’s struggle virtually became a crucible that forged his political identity and ideals. Gandhi came to South Africa as a lawyer, but spent most of the next twenty years there. His life and work in South Africa constitute the most formative period of his political philosophy.
Gandhi founded the Indian Opinion newspaper and developed an effective resistance movement against the discriminatory laws of the Transvaal government. The legislation imposing compulsory registration on Indians and the Asiatic Law Amendment were among the immediate causes that provoked his Satyagraha.
During the course of Gandhi’s movement in South Africa, Sir Ratan Tata came in close contact with Gandhi and helped him carry on with the struggle against abject racial discrimination in South Africa.
The genesis was in November, 1909 when Gandhi received a cheque for Rs. 25,000 from Sir Ratan to assist him in his non-cooperation movement in the fight for the rights of the Indians in South Africa.
“That India has been roused is evident from the generous gifts of Mr Ratanji Jamsetji Tata. By his big donation of Rs. 25,000 he has given a powerful impetus to our movement. He will probably be followed by other Indians.”
“Parsis are known the world over for their generous gifts. Mr Tata has been true to that spirit of generosity. The paper, Indian Opinion, has never been in a position to pay its way. The paper would have been in dire straits if Mr Tata’s generous help had not been drawn upon to meet its needs.”
On 5th December, 1909 at the Johannesburg Mass meeting, a resolution was passed stating — “This meeting of British Indians of the Transvaal places on record its thanks to Ratan Jamsetji Tata, Esq. for his munificent and timely donation of Rs. 25,000 in aid of the struggle.”
On 10th January, 1910, Sir Ratan wrote to Gandhi from Bombay, “My warm appreciation of the noble struggle our countrymen are waging and I am gratified to find that the beginning thus made by me (Rs. 25,000 in donation) has been followed up. I need hardly add that I shall watch the progress of the struggle with great interest and sincerely hope that these brave efforts for the vindication and upholding of the country’s honour and dignity will soon be crowned with the success they deserve.” Along with the same letter, Sir Ratan remitted a further donation of Rs. 25,000 to Gandhi.
“By donating another sum of Rs. 25,000 for the Satyagraha Campaign, Mr Ratan Tata has demonstrated that he has utmost sympathy for us and that he fully appreciates its value. Including his earlier donations, a total of Rs. 125,000 has been offered in India… His letter is as inspiring as his gift is generous. Mr Tata knows very well that this is not a struggle to secure our own narrow ends, but that it is for the honour of India.”
On 1st April, 1912, Gandhi addressed a public letter to Sir Ratan in which he said, “I am ashamed to have to own that I am only now able to fulfill the promise I made, to you and to myself, in my letter acknowledging your second generous contribution of Rs. 25,000 towards the expenses of the great Resistance struggle, that I should write a public letter to you, in which I intended to incorporate an account of receipts and expenditure.”
In an article entitled “Mr Tata’s Munificence” that appeared in the Indian Opinion on 10th August, 1912, Gandhi wrote, “Mr Ratan Tata has outdone himself. At the Sheriff’s meeting held at Bombay on the August 31, 1912, it was announced that Mr Tata had given a third contribution of Rs. 25,000 to the Transvaal passive resistance fund. The total given by Mr Tata, therefore, amounts to £5,000 — a fortune in itself… He has made the lot of passive resisters easy; and the fact that there are at the back of the struggle such distinguished Indians encourages those who are engaged in it, and probably brings them nearer their goal.”
Gandhi also later wrote, “The paper, Indian Opinion, has never been in a position to pay its way. The paper would have been in dire straits if Mr Tata’s generous help had not been drawn upon to meet its needs.”
Last but not the least, in a speech which Gandhi delivered on 8th August, 1925 in Jamshedpur, the bustling metropolis in Jharkhand named after Sir Ratan’s father Jamshetji, he publicly acknowledged the stellar role played by Sir Ratan in India’s freedom struggle.
“In all humility I may say that I have come here also as a friend of the capitalists — a friend of the Tatas. And here it would be ungrateful on my part, if I do not give you a little anecdote about how my connection with the Tatas began. In South Africa when I was struggling along with the Indians in the attempt to retain our self-respect and to vindicate our status it was Sir Ratan Tata who first came forward with assistance.”
It is the grand fusion of such great personalities as Gandhi and Sir Ratan that has not only transformed India into the world’s largest working democracy and a truly formidable nation to reckon with but has made each and every Indian proud of the golden pages of India’s history which were fashioned to such an indefinable extent on the hallowed soil of South Africa.