A Diplomat, A Speech and A Bomb: Srinivasa Sastri in South Africa
Colonial histories come in binaries: the official and the subversive. Diplomacy, by its very ‘official’ and ‘international’ nature, remains the preserve of the colonial official. But, in India’s case, the inter-war era is suffused with instances where Indians acted as diplomats, often very successfully. Unable to fit in the binary, relatively little is written about them. The diplomatic lives of VS Srinivasa Sastri, Maharaj Singh, GS Bajpai, to name only a few, are yet to meet their biographers.
A detailed scrutiny of that claim is, however, not the intent of this post. I want to narrate an incident from a rural town in Western Transvaal in South Africa in the late-1920s, where an Indian diplomat found himself in quite an unusual situation.
A bomb went off in his public meeting.
V.S. Srinivasa Sastri was the first ‘Agent’, the pre-independence version of the High Commissioner, India sent to South Africa in 1927. Sastri had indeed been India’s roving ambassador for much of the early 1920s, representing India in the Imperial Conference, the League of Nations Assembly and the Washington Naval Treaty in 1921–1922. Widely hailed as one of the best English orators of his time, his eloquence was more subtle than powerful but his delivery — measured, moderate and meticulous — held an unbending charm over his audience who became, as one journalist noted, ‘willing captives to measured strains of his verbal music’. His memorable performances in these conferences as India’s representative led to him being invited by the governments in Australia, Canada and New Zealand to conduct a public diplomacy tour in favour of the rights of Indians settled in these white settler colonies in 1922.
In 1926, he went as part of the first ever Indian-led delegation to South Africa and played the most significant part in what eventually came to be known as the Cape Town Agreement. The Agreement, the first ever bilateral agreement within the British Empire without Britain’s involvement, enshrined a new sovereign order in the post-Balfour Declaration notion of the British ‘Commonwealth’. India, which held a dominion-like status, exhibited its own autonomy on matters of external affairs.
Soon after the Agreement, after considerable prodding from both Gandhi and the Viceroy, Lord Irwin, Sastri agreed to become India’s Agent to South Africa. There was hardly any precedent for what the Agent’s work would entail, but both the governments left the success of this mission to Sastri’s personal appeal and influence. The extent to which he was able to convince his white publics would shape the future of Indians in South Africa.
In his first year in South Africa, Sastri travelled around much of Natal and the Cape. He gave well attended talks in universities, clubs, and rural and urban towns. His range of topics included Gandhi, Gokhale, caste, Christianity, missions in India, the idea of public service, women in India, world peace, Sanskrit literature, non-violence, and the labour movement in India. His initial reception among his white audiences was cautious, but the more time he spent in South Africa, the more warmly he was received everywhere. He filled large halls — whether in towns or universities — with ease.
At the start of his second year, Sastri was requested by Jan Hofmeyr, the liberal academic-turned-administrator of Transvaal, to tour the Transvaal. Until then, Sastri had only lectured to urban audiences in Pretoria and Johannesburg in the province. Western Transvaal, in particular, was the heartland of Afrikanerdom and the hotbed of anti-Indian feeling in the country. In September 1928, he visited the towns of Krugersdorp, Heidelberg, Potchefstroom, Ventersdorp, and Springs. To everyone’s surprise, his speeches were cordial and well attended. His legendary oratorical prowess had ensured that he was received and dined by the who’s who of each town. In several instances, these were the first occasions in these provincial towns where Indians and Europeans attended a social function together.
This almost scripted routine went off track, however, in a town 170 km northeast of Johannesburg called Klerksdorp. Sastri was due to speak there on 15 September 1928. As was now the norm, a banquet in his honour in a local hotel was attended ‘by 138 Europeans’, a newspaper emphasized, including the Mayor, the Resident Commissioner and the Police Commissioner. However, there was one notable absentee: Morgan Evans, the Deputy Mayor.
A founding member of the anti-Asiatic League in West Transvaal, Evans had earlier caused trouble in a meeting of the Clement Kadalie-led Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union (ICU). He planned to do the same for Sastri. On the eve of Sastri’s arrival, he organised a protest meeting to boycott Sastri, where he issued a ‘dodger’, calling any concessions to ‘coolies’ — a term of derision for Indians — as a grave danger to the national interests of Afrikaner youth. Soon after the banquet, Sastri and his audiences moved to the Railway Institute Hall for his talk.
Upon arrival however, they found the hall had been broken into, and the front seats occupied by Evans’ supporters who booed and hooted. Once Sastri started to speak, they started heckling and interrupting him. Mildly irritated, Sastri continued. Sastri was quite used to heckling — often from supporters of the Indian National Congress, who pilloried him for opposing Gandhi’s non-cooperation movement in India and abroad. Once in 1921, he had to be escorted out of the Town Hall in New York under a mounted police escort, after Congress supporters became aggressive.
After about 10 minutes of his speech in Klerksdorp, Evans shouted that they hadn’t come to listen to an Indian, and stopped Sastri from speaking. When the Mayor, J. Jooste rose to calm the proceedings, the lights suddenly went out, a match was lit and, in no time, a gas bomb was thrown towards the platform. Fumes and the ensuing melee made it impossible to contain the audience in the room. The police were quick to vacate the venue. Casualties were avoided, except a woman and a child who were taken to hospital, and several other women who fainted.
The gathering resumed outside the venue. Those assembled implored Sastri to continue his speech. Unharmed and seemingly unperturbed, Sastri resumed: ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, as I was saying before the venue of the meeting was altered from indoor to the open air!’ His wit was intact, and so was the audience’s as they split into laughter. Sastri continued speaking and made an eloquent case for the rights of Indians in South Africa.
After finishing his speech, Sastri retired to his hotel room and slept soundly, unaware of commotion outside his room. Two men, it turned out, had barged into the hotel with a tin of petrol, intending to burn it down. Once again, the police were vigilant and apprehended the two men before they acted.
Messages of concern poured in from all parts of South Africa and India, including from the Governor General Lord Athlone, the Prime Minister Barry Hertzog, Lord Irwin and Gandhi. Indeed, Hertzog, who by now had become quite fond of Sastri, was livid. The incident was only a little dent in Sastri’s 18-month stay as Agent in South Africa. By all accounts, he remains the most remembered Indian official representative to South Africa. Among Indian leaders who have contributed to championing the rights of South African Indians, he is perhaps only next to Gandhi himself.
Gandhi turns 150 this year, and so does V.S. Srinivasa Sastri. There may not be commemorations for the man Gandhi affectionately called his ‘elder brother’ in India, but his brief diplomatic life still has a monument, the Sastri College in Durban. The College, built from funds raised by Sastri nine decades ago, was one of the very few which provided quality education to generations of South African Indians, who went on to play a vital role in the country’s political struggle.
