The Polaks and Mahatma Gandhi- A Unique Relationship

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Dr Prabha Ravi Shankar, M.Phil. Ph.D. (University of Mumbai) is Associate Professor at the M.A. Centre for History in an affiliated college of the S.N.D.T. Women's University, Mumbai. She has been the recipient of the Pandit Sethu Madhavrao Pagdi Fellowship and an ICHR Senior Research Fellowship and has been an Associate of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla. She has over two decades of teaching and research experience at college and university level and has presented many research papers in national and international conferences. She has published a number of research papers on the political and social history of modern India in reputable historical journals.

Dr Prabha Ravi Shankar is the author of The British Committee of the Indian National Congress 1889-1921 (New Delhi, 2011), G.A. Natesan and National Awakening (New Delhi, 2015), a monograph jointly authored with Professor J.V. Naik titled The Jervis Brothers: George Risto Jervis & Thomas Best Jervis (Mumbai, 2014) and another monograph John Briggs, both published by the Asiatic Society of Mumbai (Mumbai, 2017).

This book titled The Polaks and Mahatma Gandhi T Unique Relationship A is about the long and close association between Mahatma Gandhi and Henry Salomon Leon Polaks and his wife Millie Polak and the help and support they gave him at a time when he was evolving into a 'Mahatma in South Africa. The book has grown out of my previous book G.A. Natesan and National Awakening (2015). It was during the course of this research that I became acquainted with H.S.L. Polak (1882- 1959), who was not only a close political aide of Gandhi but also a principal fellow seeker after truth. Polak was the author of The Indians in Transvaal; Helots within the Empire and How They Are Treated (1909), in which he graphically described the miserable conditions of the Indian indentured labourers there. He was also the author of the first monograph on Gandhi, Mr. Gandhi: A Sketch of his Life and Work (1910) both published by Natesan. This was India's first published book on that great man. The Polaks also contributed immensely to Gandhian literature by writing various articles on him from time to time. Polak's account of his life from 1869 to 1914 is complete in every detail, his portrayal of Gandhi's trial and struggles in South Africa, in particular, is fascinating. Millie Graham Polak wrote Mr. Gandhi, the Man (1931) that provides into the personal life of Gandhi.

A deep insight Polak was the editor of the Indian Opinion from 1906 to 1916. He was Gandhi's able and trusted comrade who identified himself completely with the Indian cause and endeavoured to bring about the abolition of indentured labour. Even after his return to England in 1916, Polak continued to take interest in Indian affairs. He founded the Indians Overseas Association to defend the interests of the Indian people in the colonies.

The period which Gandhi spent in South Africa was the formative in many respects. Life in the diaspora exposed him more keenly to the heterogeneity of his homeland. He came in contact with men and women of different nationalities and also men of different religions and regions of his own homeland. He saw how badly indentured workers were exploited. He understood the true nature of British imperialism and racism. His stay in South Africa was virtually a laboratory for him for his political evolution. He staged the first non- violent mass movement which involved defiance of unjust laws, courting arrest, boycotts, demonstrations and strikes in which all Indians irrespective of religions participated. It was a school where he learnt to discipline his own life, and the lives of thousands of his followers to face trials and tribulations, sufferings and sacrifice. There he first proved to the world the practical success of his own original method called Satyagraha or Truth-Force without resorting to violence. It was supported by a solidarity movement in India that was unprecedented.

Gandhi had a great ability to draw people to him. During his two decades in South Africa, he worked with some remarkable men and women such as A.M. Cachalia, the Gujarati Muslim, Jivanjee Rustomjee, a Parsi, the Tamil Thambi Naidoo and some sympathetic liberal-minded whites whose active support and participation were invaluable. They helped him to expand his political and social horizons. Some of them were follower’s bis political and social of leo advocates vegetarianism. Although there is little reference to Judaism in the Collected Works, Gandhi had many Jewish friends -Jews such as Hermann Kallenbach, Sonja Schlesin, L.W. Ritch and Henry Polak and his feminist Christian wife Millie Polak. There were also nonconformist Christians such as Albert West and the Rev. Joseph J. Doke; a few of these sympathisers suffered imprisonment for the Indian cause as well. By examining the influences that went into the making of the Mahatma, we see Gandhi, the spiritual seeker who attempted to find a new meaning to life through 'new age' experiments. As Thomas Weber wrote: