Chapter 48 Chapter XXI The Three Pounds Poll Tax

The Balasundarang incident brought me into contact with Indian indentured workers.It was, however, the struggle against the attempt to subject them to a peculiarly heavy taxation which prompted me to study their case in depth. In that very year, 1894, the government of Natal proposed to impose an annual tax of £25 on Indian indentured workers.This suggestion shocked me.I brought the matter up to the General Assembly, which immediately decided to organize the necessary resistance. First, let me briefly describe the origin of this taxation. Around 1860, the Europeans in Natal found that there was a lot of room for development in sugarcane cultivation, but there was a shortage of labor.

Because the Julu people in Natal are not suitable for this form of work, it is impossible to grow sugar cane and refine sugar without foreign labor.Therefore, the Natal government communicated with the Indian government and obtained the latter's consent to recruit Indian labor. The method of recruitment is to sign a contract to work in Natal for five years. After the expiration of the period, the workers are free to settle there and have full rights to buy land.This was a bait for them, because the whites were looking to the skills of the Indian workers to stay after their indentures to improve their agriculture.

Indians, however, offer more than is expected of them.They grow a lot of vegetables.They brought a large number of Indian varieties and managed to grow the local varieties cheaper.They also spread mangoes.Their businesses are not limited to farming.They entered the business world.They bought land and built houses, and many rose from the status of laborers to land and house owners.Merchants from within India followed and settled down to do business.The late Abu Bakar Ahmad Sai was number one of them; he quickly built a huge business. This situation made the white businessmen feel wary.They initially welcomed Indian laborers, not expecting that these people also had the ability to do business.They might have been tolerated as independent farmers, but their commercial rivalry was intolerable.

This sowed the seeds of hostility to the Indians, and many other factors contributed to its growth.We live differently from them, we live austerely, we are content with a small income, we are careless about sanitation regulations, we are not good at keeping our surroundings tidy, and we are not good at keeping our houses looking good—all of this. , coupled with differences in religious beliefs, all help to fan the flames of hostility.This antagonism is manifested in the abolition of the suffrage bill, in the taxation of the Indian indentured laborers, and besides the legislation, a whole host of methods of oppression have been begun long ago.

The first initiative was that the Indian laborers must be forcibly repatriated so that their indenture expired in India.The Indian government probably will not accept this approach. Therefore, another suggestion was put forward, the content of which is: 1. The Indian laborer must return to India when the contract expires; 2. If he does not return, he must sign a new contract every two years; Third, if he is unwilling to return to India and sign a new contract, he will have to pay a tax of 25 pounds a year.A delegation of Sir Henry Binns and Mr. Mason was sent to India to obtain the assent of the Indian Government for this proposal.The Governor of India at that time was Lord Yelgin.He disapproved of a £25 tax but agreed with a poll tax of £3.

I thought then, and I think even now, that this was a serious mistake on the part of the Governor.In approving such a proposal, he took no account of India's interests.It was not his duty to make such concessions to the Europeans of Natal.Over a period of three or four years, an indentured worker and his wife, as well as a boy over 16 and a girl over 13, are all taxed.A family of four - couple and two children - paying £12 a year in tax, while the average father earns only 14 shillings a month, is atrocious, and the most expensive thing to do anywhere in the world nothing. A fierce struggle was organized against this taxation.Had the Indian Congress of Natal remained silent on the subject, the Governor-General of India might have even approved a tax of £25.The reduction from £25 to £3 may have been entirely due to the dissatisfaction of the General Assembly.But I may be wrong in thinking this way.Perhaps the Indian Government would have disapproved of the £25 tax in the first place, and would have reduced it to £3, whether or not the Assembly objected.All in all, this is an unpopular move by the Indian government.As the trustee of India's welfare, the Governor should never have approved of such inhuman taxation.

The Assembly did not consider it a significant achievement that the tax had been reduced from £25 to £3.It remains a pity that the Congress was not able to fully defend the interests of Indian indentured workers.It was always determined to achieve the abolition of this taxation, but this determination was not realized until twenty years later.And when this determination is realized, it is not only the result of the Natal Indians, but the joint efforts of all Indians living in South Africa.The perfidy of the late Mr. Gokhli made this last struggle, in which the Indian indentured workers all took part, in which some lost their lives and more than ten thousand were injured as a result of the decisive shooting by the authorities. imprisonment.

But truth finally triumphed.The suffering that the Indians adopt is an expression of that truth.But without fearless faith, without great patience and relentless effort, there will be no victory.If the diaspora abandons the struggle, if the Congress abandons the struggle and appoints such a tax as unavoidable, then this abominable tax will continue to be levied on the Indian indentured workers, and it will not be levied to this day. Cease, and leave eternal disgrace to Indians living in South Africa and to India as a whole.