While thinking far ahead of how best to break

"our shackles" in British

India, Gandhi led a merchant deputation to
address the new British
governor of Transvaal, Lord Selborne. Gandhi
appealed to the governor to
allow more Indians to enter Transvaal,
explaining that his merchant friends
"have constantly to draw upon India for
confidential clerks . . . reliable
men," currently excluded under the harsh
Immigration Restriction Act.23
He further requested that local boards or town
councils be empowered to
issue new trade licenses to expedite that
intolerably slow process. Finally,
he urged repeal of the £3 tax on ex-indentured
Indians and all new immigrant
Indians. "What we want is not political power;
but we do wish to live
side by side with other British subjects in
peace and amity and with dignity
and self-respect. . . which we have learned to
cherish as a priceless heritage
of living under the British Crown."24
To the end of 1905 Gandhi remained His
Majesty's loyal subject. But
Lord Selborne listened in stony silence to all
that Gandhi and his British Indian

1
Association deputation had to say, promising
nothing. Yet 1906 began,
it seemed to Gandhi, with reason to hope for
beneficent changes, first,
because the "Indian cause is just," and also
because a new Liberal government
was voted into power in Great Britain, bringing
"Honest" John Morley
to the helm of London's India Office as its
secretary of state. "His sympathies
for the weaker party are well known," Gandhi
assured his readers.
"A moderate appeal to him, therefore, . . .
cannot fail to obtain a good
hearing."25 Two months later, however,
Morley spoke of Bengal's partition
as "a settled fact," leaving Gandhi to conclude
that "the people of Bengal
will not get justice." Nor would the Indians of
Transvaal without the "requisite
effort."26
What began as "Natal Native trouble" in March
of 1906 escalated a
month later into a full-scale "Zulu Revolt."
Gandhi responded much the
way he had to the Boer War. "We are in Natal
by virtue of British power.
Our very existence depends upon it. It is
therefore our duty to render whatever

2
help we can."27 Gandhi proposed another
Indian Ambulance Corps at
a meeting of the Natal Indian Congress in
Durban. His proposal was sent
to the colonial secretary and accepted.
In April of 1906, brother Lakshmidas wrote
angrily to chastise Gandhi
for having stopped sending his monthly
savings to Rajkot and for appearing
no longer to be attached in any respect to his
extended family and for
neglecting the traditional duties of a younger
Hindu brother. "You are prejudiced
against me," Gandhi replied. "All that I have is
being utilized for
public purposes. It is available to relations who
devote themselves to public
work. . . . You may repudiate me, but still I will
be to you what I have al-
[ 57]
Gandhi's Passion
ways been. ... I have no desire for worldly
enjoyments of any type whatever.
I am engaged in my present activities as ...
essential to life. If I have
to face death while thus engaged, I shall face
it with equanimity. I am now
a stranger to fear."28