XXI. THE
£3 TAX
Balasundaram's case brought me into touch with the
indentured Indians. What impelled me, however, to make a
deep study of their condition was the campaign for
bringing them under special heavy taxation.
In the same year, 1894, the Natal Government sought to
impose an annual tax of £25 on the indentured Indians.
The proposal astonished me. I put the matter before the
Congress for discussion, and it was immediately resolved
to organize the necessary opposition.
At the outset I must explain briefly the genesis of
the tax.
About the year 1860 the Europeans in Natal, finding
that there was considerable scope for sugarcane
cultivation, felt themselves in need of labour. Without
outside labour the cultivation of cane and the
manufacture of sugar were impossible, as the Natal Zulus
were not suited to this form of work. The Natal
Government therefore corresponded with the Indian
Government, and secured their permission to recruit
Indian labour. These recruits were to sign an indenture
to work in Natal for five years, and at the end of the
term they were to be at liberty to settle there and to
have full rights of ownership of land. Those were the
inducements held out to them, for the whites then had
looked forward to improving their agriculture by the
industry of the Indian labourers after the term of their
indentures had expired.
But the Indians gave more than had been expected of
them. They grew large quantities of vegetables. They
introduced a number of Indian varieties and made it
possible to grow the local varieties cheaper. They also
introduced the mango. Nor did their enterprise stop at
agriculture. They entered trade. They purchased land for
building, and many raised themselves from the status of
labourers to that of owners of land and houses. Merchants
from India followed them and settled there for trade. The
late Sheth Abubakar Amod was first among them. He soon
built up an extensive business.
The white traders were alarmed. When they first
welcomed the Indian labourers, they had not reckoned with
their business skill. They might be tolerated as
independent agriculturists, but their competition in
trade could not be brooked.
This sowed the seed of the antagonism to Indians. Many
other factors contributed to its growth. Our different
ways of living, our simplicity, our contentment with
small gains, our indifference to the laws of hygiene and
sanitation, our slowness in keeping our surroundings
clean and tidy, and our stinginess in keeping our houses
in good repair all these, combined with the difference in
religion, contributed to fan the flame of antagonism.
Through legislation this antagonism found its expression
in the disfranchising bill and the bill to impose a tax
on the indentured Indians. Independent of legislation a
number of pinpricks had already been started.
The first suggestion was that the Indian labourers
should be forcibly repatriated, so that the term of their
indentures might expire in India. The Government of India
was not likely to accept the suggestion. Another proposal
was therefore made to the effect that
1. The indentured labourer should return to India on
the expiry of his indenture; or that
2. he should sign a fresh indenture every two years,
an increment being given at each renewal; and that
3. in the case of his refusal to return to India or
renew the indenture he should pay an annual tax of £25.
A deputation composed of Sir Henry Binns and Mr. Mason
was sent to India to get the proposal approved by the
Government there. The Viceroy at that time was Lord
Elgin. He disapproved of the £25 tax, but agreed to a
poll tax of £3. I thought then, as I do even now, that
this was a serious blunder on the part of the Viceroy. In
giving his approval he had in no way thought of the
interests of India. It was no part of his duty thus to
accommodate the Natal Europeans. In the course of three
or four years an indentured labourer with his wife and
each male child over 16 and female child over 13 came
under the impost. To levy a yearly tax of £12 from a
family of four husband, wife and two children when the
average income of the husband was never more than 14s. a
month, was atrocious and unknown anywhere else in the
world.
We organized a fierce campaign against this tax. If
the Natal Indian Congress had remained silent on the
subject, the Viceroy might have approved of even the £ 25 tax. The reduction from
£25 to £3 was probably due
solely to the Congress agitation. But I may be mistaken
in thinking so. It may be possible that the Indian
Government had disapproved of the £25 tax from the
beginning and reduced it to £3 irrespective of the
opposition from the Congress. In any case it was a breach
of trust on the part of the Indian Government. As trustee
of the welfare of India, the Viceroy ought never to have
approved of this inhuman tax.
The Congress could not regard it as any great
achievement to have succeeded in getting the tax reduced
from £25 to £3. The regret was still there that it had
not completely safeguarded the interests of the
indentured Indians. It ever remained its determination to
get the tax remitted, but it was twenty years
determination to get the tax remitted, but it was twenty
years before the determination was realized. And when it
was realized, it came as a result of the labours of not
only the Natal Indians but of all the Indians in South
Africa. The breach of faith with the late Mr. Gokhale
became the occasion of the final campaign, in which the
indentured Indians took their full share, some of them
losing their lives as a result of the firing that was
resorted to, and over ten thousand suffering
imprisonment.
But truth triumphed in the end. The sufferings of the
Indians were the expression of that truth. Yet it would
not have triumphed except for unflinching faith, great
patience and incessant effort. Had the community given up
the struggle, had the Congress abandoned the campaign and
submitted to the tax as inevitable, the hated impost
would have continued to be levied from the indentured
Indians until this day, to the eternal shame of the
Indians in South Africa and of the whole of India.
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