Phoenix rises from the ashes

The bucolic settlement in Durban where Mahatma Gandhi began nurturing his long commitment to unrelenting humanism has finally been turned into a South African heritage site

V K Cherian Phoenix

Phoenix, 24 km from Durban in South Africa, is where Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi began, in 1904, his experiments with community life. In a racially-divided society, where indentured Indian labourers were considered less than human, the young barrister set out to live in the first ashram of a series in which he nurtured his long commitment to communal living, peace and fighting political oppression.

Even as the few surviving workers of the Indian Opinion, Gandhi’s journal, who stayed in the Phoenix settlement for years, and Gandhi's grandchildren like Ela Gandhi and a group of Natal Indian Congress members celebrate the Phoenix settlement's 100th anniversary, Gandhi's lessons in community living shine as brightly as they did a century ago.

A visit to Phoenix reveals the devastation which the apartheid regime of South Africa played over the period. At the height of the anti-apartheid movement, in which many Indians were leaders, the whites reportedly instigated a raid on the Phoenix settlement, almost razing it down to the ground. Today's ruling African National Congress rebuilt the houses where Gandhi and his son, Mani Lal, had lived and made it part of the Inanda Heritage Route.

Today, what was a 100-acre settlement that Gandhi had purchased with his savings has been reduced to a couple of acres surrounded by black settlers. No one, least of all the members of the Gandhi family, speaks of evicting them. "Forceful eviction is not the Gandhian way," says Ela Gandhi. There is no farming here. The remnant of Indian Opinion, isn't published here. The locals call it an "unsafe area".

History was made at Phoenix. The war for Indian independence and Gandhi's experiments with truth were conceived and tested at Phoenix. "The community was unique…Those who lived here promoted religious tolerance and equality of all human beings irrespective of language, caste, class and religion," wrote Uma Dhupelia-Mesthrie, historian at Cape Town University and Gandhi's great-granddaughter. "It became the home of Gandhi's wife, Kasturba, and her four sons from 1906, while he remained in Johannesburg to carry on his legal practice. In early 1913, Gandhi moved to Phoenix. By this time, he had given up his law practice; had been to jail several times; had inspired hundreds of others to defy the new laws in the Transvaal enforcing passes for Indians and restricting immigration. Phoenix played a crucial role in Gandhi's evolving philosophy of satyagraha and ahinsa (quest for truth and non-violence). He believed that communities like Phoenix which extolled communal living and a simple life were ideal training grounds for the struggle against social injustice." Dhupelia-Mesthrie's mother, Sita, had lived at Phoenix along with Ela and Arun Gandhi. Mani Lal Gandhi had been entrusted by Gandhi to look after the Phoenix settlement when he left South Africa in 1914.

Phoenix was also the beginning of Gandhi's concept of trusteeship. Although he had bought the 500 hectares, before he left Phoenix for India, Gandhi had drawn up a new deed of trust relinquishing ownership of Phoenix and Indian Opinion to a board of trustees. The trust deed also clarified Phoenix's goals which, in many ways, summarise the Gandhian values that would shake the mighty British Raj in the years to come.