XI. SANITARY
REFORM AND FAMINE RELIEF
It has always been impossible for me to reconcile
myself to any one member of the bady politic remaining
out of use. I have always been loath to hide or connive
at the. weak points of the community or to press for its
rights without having purged it of its blemishes.
Therefore, ever since my settlement in Natal, I had been
endeavouring to clear the community of a charge that had
been levelled against it, not without a certain amount of
truth. The charge had often been made that the Indian was
slovenly in his habits and did not keep his house and
surroundings clean. The principal men of the community
had, therefore, already begun to put their houses in
order, but house-to-house inspection was undertaken only
when plague was reported to be imminent in Durban. This
was done after consulting, and gaining the approval of,
the city fathers, who had desired our co-operation. Our
co-operation made work easier for them and at the same
time lessened our hardships. For whenever there is an
outbreak of epidemics, the executive, as a general rule,
get impatient, take excessive measures and behave to such
as may have incurred their displeasure with a heavy hand.
The community saved itself from this oppression by
voluntarily taking sanitary measures.
But I had some bitter experiences. I saw that I could
not so easily count on the help of the community in
getting it to do its own duty, as I could in claiming for
it rights. At some places I met with insults, at others
with polite indifference. It was too much for people to
bestir themselves to keep their surroundings clean. To
expect them to find money for the work was out of the
question. These experiences taught me, better than ever
before, that without infinite patience it was impossible
to get the people to do any work. It is the reformer who
is anxious for the reform, and not society, from which he
should expect nothing better than opposition, abhorrence
and even mortal persecution. Why may not society regard
as retrogression what the reformer holds dear as life
itself ?
Nevertheless the result of this agitation was that the
Indian community learnt to recognize more or less the
necessity for keeping their houses and environments
clean. I gained the esteem of the authorities. They saw
that, though I had made it my business to ventilate
grievances and press for rights, I was no less keen and
insistent upon self-purification.
There was one thing, however, which still remained to
be done, namely, the awakening in the Indian settler of a
sense of duty to the motherland. India was poor, the
Indian settler went to South Africa in search of wealth,
and he was bound to contribute part of his earnings for
the benefit of his countrymen in the hour of their
adversity. This the settler did during the terrible
famines of 1897 and 1899. They contributed handsomely for
famine relief, and more so in 1899 than in 1897. We had
appealed to Englishmen also for funds, and they had
responded well. Even the indentured Indians gave their
share to the contribution, and the system inaugurated at
the time of these famines has been continued ever since,
and we know that Indians in South Africa never fail to
send handsome contributions to India in times of national
calamity.
Thus service of the Indians in South Africa ever
revealed to me new implications of truth at every stage.
Truth is like a vast tree, which yields more and more
fruit, the more you nurture it. The deeper the search in
the mine of truth the richer the discovery of the gems
buried there, in the shape of openings for an ever
greater variety of service.
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