Gandhi in South Africa: a heritage to preserve, but empty coffers

Ela Gandhi, 82, has not left South Africa where her grandfather, Mahatma Ghandi, developed his method of non-violence

Gandhi in South Africa: a heritage to preserve, but empty coffers

Ela Gandhi, 82, has not left South Africa where her grandfather, Mahatma Ghandi, developed his method of non-violence. But she is now battling with leaks in the roof of the big man's house and empty coffers to preserve her South African heritage.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi landed as a young man in 1893 in Durban, in KwaZulu-Natal (southeast), a province which is still home to one of the largest Indian communities outside India. The thought leader, whose heritage in Africa has sometimes been controversial, then worked for a law firm after having studied law in England.

At the time, the British colonists brought in hundreds of thousands of Indians, mainly to serve as labor in the sugar cane fields. But a small educated elite succeeded in commerce and the liberal professions.

Shy, jittery in court and not particularly committed, Gandhi spent about twenty years in the country (1893-1915), where he reached political maturity by standing up against apartheid laws restricting Indian immigration. .

Easing tensions between communities

"The course of his life has changed here," his granddaughter told AFP. And he left a mark, the hero of the fight against the racist regime, Nelson Mandela, openly claiming Gandhian philosophy for a time. His former home in Phoenix, 25 km from Durban, has been turned into a museum. But more than 70 years after his death, there is not enough money to maintain the building.

The museum recounts his intellectual journey, his reflections on race, women, science, explains Ela Gandhi. "If we let the place decay, Gandhi will end up forgotten", regrets the one who sat in Parliament in Mandela's time.

Until last year, the foundation she chairs received funding from the Durban municipality. But aid has been cut and money is now lacking, especially to change gutted windows. Contacted by AFP, the municipality did not respond.

The fund also aims to ease tensions between the inhabitants of Phoenix, mostly of Indian origin, and the black community of the neighboring township of Inanda, underlines Ela Gandhi. In 2021, Phoenix had been the scene of racial murders: about 30 black men had been brutally murdered. The country was then caught in the worst wave of violence in the young democracy, killing more than 350 people in riots and looting.

Memory contested

But it is also Gandhi's memory that is sometimes disputed. Famous for his resistance to British colonial rule in his native India, his legacy in Africa is more mixed. The apostle of non-violence has been accused of racism for having notably asserted in some of his writings that Indians are "infinitely superior" to black Africans.

In 2015, in Johannesburg, a statue bearing his likeness was defaced with paint on the sidelines of a demonstration. In Ghana, another statue had been removed from the country's largest university.

“Gandhi was indeed a product of colonialism,” believing that “white colonial society was the embodiment of civilization,” says Vishwas Satgar, professor of international relations at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. But his South African experience transformed him and he finally fought against racism, underlines the specialist.

Ela Gandhi is now looking for new patrons to preserve the memory of his grandfather in South Africa. But the preservation of historic sites "is no longer seen by donors as a priority", especially since the Covid pandemic, laments Sello Hatang, director general of the Nelson-Mandela Foundation, also affected by the lack of money.