(An article in the Indian Express newspaper chain in India on Mandela, Nehru and Gandhi, July

18, 2013)
Two men and an idea
Enuga Reddy :
It was in prison that Mandela began to seriously consider the need for reconciliation and
appreciate Gandhi's ideas

Nelson Mandela was born in Eastern Cape exactly four years after M.K. Gandhi left South
Africa from Cape Town — July 18, 1918, the date proclaimed by the United Nations as Nelson
Mandela International Day.

For 44 years of his life, before 28 years of imprisonment, he showed little interest in the
philosophy of Gandhi. He was known in the African National Congress as somewhat hot-headed,
and people joked about his middle name, Rolihlahla ("troublemaker" in slang). But soon after he
was released from prison and began negotiations with the apartheid regime, he was hailed as a
leader of peace and reconciliation in the 20th century, along with Gandhi and Martin Luther
King, Jr. How did this transformation take place?

When he enrolled in the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg to study law, he

developed close friendships with Indian students, especially Ismail Meer and J.N. Singh. He
shared a room for some time with Meer at Kholvad House in Market Street. They had many
discussions on the situation in South Africa. Mandela was interested in the Indian national
movement. He became an admirer of Jawaharlal Nehru when he read his book, The Unity of
India. He wrote: "It made an indelible impression on my mind and ever since then I procured,
read and treasured any one of his works that became available."

His presidential address to the ANC (Transvaal) Conference in September 1953 was titled "No
Easy Walk to Freedom", after an article by Nehru. The address ended with a quotation from that
article, slightly revised to adapt it to Africa: "...there is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and
many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before
we reach the mountain tops of our desires. Dangers and difficulties have not deterred us in the
past, they will not frighten us now..."

His letter to the Indian Council of Cultural Relations, smuggled from Robben Island prison when
he learnt of India's decision to bestow on him the 1979 Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International
Understanding, contains several quotes from Nehru and shows a profound understanding of
Nehru and the Indian national movement. When I met him in 1991, he recited a long passage
from Nehru's autobiography.

He was, of course, aware of Gandhi. In 1946-48, nearly 2,000 Indians went to prison in a passive
resistance movement against the "Ghetto Act", with guidance from Gandhi. Meer and Singh left
their studies to organise the resistance. Zainab Asvat, daughter of Ebrahim Asvat, Gandhi's
associate, left her medical studies to join the first batch of resisters from the Transvaal. Yusuf
Dadoo, president of the Transvaal Indian Congress, and G.M. Naicker, president of the Natal
Indian Congress, signed an agreement for cooperation with A.B. Xuma, president of the ANC, in
March 1947. They then proceeded to India and met Gandhi, who blessed cooperation if it was
based on non-violence.

Mandela and the ANC Youth League succeeded in 1949 in getting the ANC national conference
to approve a programme of action inspired by Gandhi and the Indian national movement.
However, Mandela remained an African nationalist, opposed to a united front with Indians until
June 1950, when he became the head of the coordination office for the national day of protest
against the so-called Suppression of Communism Act designed to silence opponents of
apartheid. His study of Nehru and Gandhi helped him to abandon narrow nationalism.

Dadoo told me, "Nelson used to visit Indian families but he would not touch the food they
offered. But after 1950, he became fond of curry." He began to visit the home of Naran Naidoo,
an adopted son of Gandhi, and Ama. Ama told me he liked crab curry. He was a frequent visitor
to the home of Yusuf Cachalia and Amina — the children of two close associates of Gandhi.

In 1952, the ANC and the South African Indian Congress jointly launched a passive resistance
campaign of all South Africans — the Campaign of Defiance against Unjust Laws. The plan of
the campaign was formulated mainly by Molvi Ismail Cachalia, brother of Yusuf. Mandela was
appointed volunteer-in-chief, with Ismail Cachalia as his deputy. Mandela, like Dadoo, was not
converted to Gandhi's philosophy of satyagraha, but embraced non-violence as the most
appropriate form of struggle for that time.

In 1961, Mandela decided that strict non-violence was no longer feasible. He went underground
and formed the Umkhonto we Sizwe ("Spear of the Nation") for armed resistance. It engaged in
numerous acts of sabotage while taking great care to avoid the loss of human lives. But it failed
in its primary purpose of persuading the whites to abandon apartheid, and the West to disengage
from apartheid South Africa. Mandela was arrested in August 1962, sentenced to five years in
November, and to life imprisonment in June 1964.

It was in prison that Mandela began to give serious attention to the need for reconciliation so that
all the people of South Africa could live together as equals. He recognised that the way to reach
the Afrikaners was through their language, to which they were greatly attached, and learnt
Afrikaans. From his own experience and contemplation in prison, he began to appreciate
Gandhi's ideas.

After his release, Mandela repeatedly referred to the need to allay the fears of the whites and
encourage them to join in the building of a new South Africa. After the first talks between the
government and the ANC, he said that the ANC went into the discussions in the spirit that there
should neither be victors nor losers, "...we are all victors. South Africa is a victor".

When he was presented my article in 1995, titled "Mahatma Gandhi — South Africa's Gift to
India", he exclaimed that was what he intended to say. He wrote in an article on Gandhi in Time
in 2000: "India is Gandhi's country of birth; South Africa his country of adoption. He was both
an Indian and a South African citizen." He was echoing what Gandhi himself had said at his
prayer meeting in New Delhi in June 1946, that he was born in India, but made in South Africa.