Stanford University Press


  The South African Gandhi

Stretcher-Bearer of Empire

Ashwin Desai <http://navayana.org/blog/2015/08/31/ashwin-desai/> and 
Goolam Vahed <http://navayana.org/blog/2015/08/31/goolam-vahed/>

In the pantheon of global liberation heroes, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi 
has pride of place. Leaders like Mandela have lauded him as being part 
of the epic battle to defeat the white regime and prepare the way for a 
non-racial country. A popular sentiment in South Africa goes: ‘India 
gave us Mohandas, and we returned him to you as Mahatma’.

Against this background, /The South African Gandhi: Stretcher-Bearer of 
Empire /unravels the complex story of a man who, throughout his stay on 
African soil (1893–1914), remained true to Empire while expressing 
disdain for Africans. For Gandhi, whites and Indians were bound by an 
Aryan bloodline that had no place for the African. His racism was 
matched by his class (and caste) prejudice towards the Indian 
indentured. He persistently claimed that they were ignorant and needed 
his leadership, and wrote their struggles out of history—struggles this 
book documents.

The authors show that Gandhi never missed an opportunity to demonstrate 
his loyalty to Empire, with a particular penchant for war. He served as 
stretcher-bearer in the war between Brit and Boer, demanded that Indians 
be allowed to carry fire-arms, and recruited volunteers for the imperial 
army in both England and India during the First World War.

*Ashwin Desai* <http://navayana.org/blog/2015/08/31/ashwin-desai/> is 
Professor of Sociology at the University of Johannesburg. His previous 
books include /South Africa: Still Revolting/, /‘We are the Poors’: 
Community Struggles in Post-Apartheid South Africa /and /Reading 
Revolution: Shakespeare on Robben Island /among others.

*Goolam Vahed* <http://navayana.org/blog/2015/08/31/goolam-vahed/> is 
Associate Professor of History at the University of KwaZulu Natal. He 
writes on histories of migration, ethnicity, religion, and identity 
formation among Indian South Africans.

ISBN 9788189059736 |  Hardback  | 344 pages  | 6.25 x 9.25”



‘This is a wonderful demonstration of meticulously researched, 
evocative, clear-eyed and fearless history-writing. It uncovers a story, 
some might even call it a scandal, that has remained hidden in plain 
sight for far too long’
—*Arundhati Roy*, author of “The Doctor and the Saint”

‘In this impressively researched study, two South African scholars of 
Indian background bravely challenge political myth-making on both sides 
of the Indian Ocean that has sought to canonise Gandhi as a founding 
father of the struggle for equality in South Africa’ — *Joseph 
Lelyveld*, author of /Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi
and His Struggle with 
India/

‘Most arresting perhaps to readers familiar only with the hagiography 
will be Gandhi’s persistent attempts to improve the position of South 
African Indians by emphasising their superiority to Africans and 
reliability as subjects of Empire’—*Kathryn Tidrick*, author of /Gandhi: 
A Political and Spiritual Life/

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