‘Realization at Pietermaritzburg’

About Petermartizburg:
The estimated current population of Pietermaritzburg is around 500,000 (including neighboring townships) and has one of the largest populations of Indian South Africans in South Africa. Pietermaritzburg is on a plateau with an elevation of 596 meters. Prior to the end of apartheid in 1994, Pietermaritzburg was the capital of Natal Province. The average lower temperature in Pietermaritzburg during June is 3 degree Celsius and the recorded lowest ever is -4 degree Celsius. So we can assume that the temperature during the night of 31 may 1893 would have been close to 0 degree Celsius - the freezing temperature.

Barrister Mohandas K Gandhi in South Africa:
Gandhi could not practice as a barrister in Rajkot or Porbander due to his shyness. However he had found alternate employment as a petition drafter and had started earning Rs 300 per month, which was a respectable amount those days. However Gandhi sought for a release and the offer for going to South Africa was just the right fit and hence he accepted it. Though it was not a fancy offer yet it promised a net earning of 105 Pound in a year and a respectable stay in that country. The offer was to act as an interpreter between the Guajarati litigant Shekh Abdullah stationed at Durban and his white advocates at Pretoria, where he fought a case involving 40,000 Pound.
Gandhi reached in Durban on 23 May 1893 and immediately started acclimatizing with the local situation. In no time he’d know the deep racial feeling that characterized the ruling British attitude towards the non-whites. The color prejudice and discrimination varied between the provinces.


Gandhiji’s travel from Durban to Pretoria-
Just after being a week in SA Gandhi started for his destination: Pretoria- capital of Transval. The journey between Durban to Pretoria would last from 31 May 1893 to the night of 4 June 1893. But for the mishap at Pietermaritzburg Gandhi should’ve reached on the evening of 3 June 1893 at Pretoria.

At 9 in the evening/ night of May 31, 1893, a passenger who embarked at Pietermaritzburg station, objected the presence of Gandhi in the first class compartment. He was ordered to move to the van compartment at the end of the train. Gandhi, who had a first-class ticket, refused. A police constable was called and he was forcibly removed from the train at Pietermaritzburg. His luggage was also cast off. Quivering with cold, stung with humiliation and with his usual share of shyness he walked into the waiting room. The railway authorities secured the luggage. Being afraid of further humiliation and also for being very shy Gandhi could not go and retrieve his overcoat and other warm clothes, which were lying inside his luggage carrier. The whole night he spent inside the lonely dark waiting room shaking- both with bone crushing cold and sole piercing humiliation.
The night of realization
This night would prove to be his night of realization. Quitting this foreign land and going back to India briefly entered his mind, which he would purge for a more valiant alternative- “Fight back”. The churning produced a new man. Next day morning, from the waiting room, emerged a saint. A man who would preach ‘hate the sin not the sinner’; and, in the same vein, he did not target the white men, for their hatred towards the colored, but targeted the real enemy- Hatred itself!
Half a century later …
After half a century of that incident the Mahatma would ultimately call upon the British to quit India – in 1942. The British would do his biding, the Mahatma’s belief on the sense of justice of the Whiteman would not be belied. The coal miners and average electorates of Britain would vote against the hero of WW-II and in favor of the apostle of peace! Recalcitrant Churchill- the last lion of the British Empire- would be defeated in the general elections! The subsequent peaceful surrender of power would become one of the greatest events of human civilization and the posterity would look upon Gandhi, his principles and his brand of politics with ever increasing hope for human survival and sustainable development. Scientific developments and profound advancements in nuclear technologies not withstanding the greatest scientist of the 2oth century - Albert Einstein -would proclaim that “Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as [Gandhi] ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth.”

SA & Pietermaritzburg Today:
As it was then, now also the message of Love, moderation and non-violence is very much the need for this fledgling nation- SA. It’s sad that about 20% people in SA are HIV positive. The country has earned the sobriquet “crime capital” with 500,000 rapes and large number of other crimes a year. Where, in a recent study, every third women asked replied to have been raped in the previous one year.

The policies of apartheid- racial discrimination- were buried in 1994 and the whites found the right man in Nelson Mandela to negotiate this switchover. Like Martin Luther King (junior), Nelson Mandela is considered to be an worthy follower of Gandhi and his contribution is visible in the relative peace and tranquility of this new nation.

A bronze statue of Gandhi stands in Church Street, in the city center of Pietermaritzburg, gently reminding the power of ONE.