The diplomatic tight-rope walking that Rt. Hon’ble Srinivasa Sastri had to execute in his remit as the Agent-General of the Imperial Government of India (1927-29) in South Africa was accomplished not only with great dexterity but also aplomb. For the services he rendered to both the British Government as well as to the Indian community at large in South Africa, and within such a short span of time, he earned fulsome praise and gratitude.
In 1931 — as much as we see today in 2025 in the Sastri School‘s plans for commemorating 2029 as their centenary year in Durban — South Africans remembered Srinivasa Sastri with great affection even two long years after he had left them to return to India. Such was the undying admiration and respect he aroused in South Africans. Below was a heartfelt tribute in 1931 penned by two South Africans of India-origin:
“Mr. Sastri returned us the first Agent General to the Government of India in the Union in June, 1927. He sailed for India on January 28, 1929. His stay in the country was eighteen months first for a year, and, on the request of the Governor-General of South Africa (the Earl of Athlone) and the Viceroy of India (Lord Irwin), he agreed to remain for a further period of six months.
“What eighteen months they were! A veritable king commanding homage wherever he went, winning over opposition and working unremittingly and persevering in labour for the advancement of the community. Now and again he would feel the burden of overwork, the infirmities of the body and the pain of advancing years, and for the moment he would lift aside the veil to those in close touch with him who might share in his disappointments.
“Oh, if I were young!” he once said to us, “It is a work which demands youth, in its vision and optimism to help in bringing about a state of the South African Indian acceptable to the country, an enlightened community that any people will be proud to claim its own. I am now old, weak in strength and the power to do. It was the will of the people of India that I came. Had it only been a few years ago! I wish for strength so that I can move about from one end of the country to the other, wherever a solitary Indian is to be found, sounding a clarion call to duty to this his country of domicile and birth.”
“Despite what he felt to be his limitations, very few would assert that he failed. If, he maintained, the British Commonwealth was based on equity to the least among its fellows, then the Europeans of South Africa, who were assured of the dominance of Western civilisation, must concede the right of the Indian to a proper place in the country. Mr. Sastri’s pleadings for the recognition of this aspect rose to heights of eloquence unsurpussed and unrivalled.
“Urging this plea with moderation and forbearance, he won to the cause he served the unqualified friendship and co-operation of the best of both the white races, Dutch and British. There are many amongst us who may still recall his speeches, combined with wonderful diction and thought; and ere the echo of the silvery cadence die, the figure grow dim, and the appeal lose its force, may we be permitted to preserve, even in its imperfections, the words of that great Indian-Srinivasa Sastri who may yet speak to us and the succeeding generations. (S.R.Naidoo and Dhanee Bramdaw – 1931)
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Neither Mahatma Gandhi nor the British Imperial Government could have ever found anyone else in India to serve as equal if not a better Ambassador in South Africa than Srinivasa Sastry. For, he excelled not only as a consummate and suave diplomat but also in the capacity of an extraordinary cultural exemplar of Indian civilisation. Another South African, a white man, wrote this about him:
“Not often does one find a speaker who at once has something to say, which is so well worth saying, and is able to say it with such distinction and such charm.
“Of the significance of Mr. Sastri’s ambassadorship for the Indians in South Africa it is hardly for me to speak; but one need not go beyond the speeches …. to find evidence of his wisdom in counsel, his discretion, his understanding sympathy, his unerring statesmanship.
“To the Europeans of our land his sojourn in our midst meant perhaps more than anything else the presentation of a new conception of India and its people. He became to us the interpreter of India— an India of which, to our shame be it said, we used to know all too little; or, where we knew of it, we allowed, all too readily, our remembrance of it to be obscured.
“He revealed to us an India of an ancient civilisation, one of the great civilisations of the world, a civilisation which has made many important contributions to our modern life; an India of a serene philosophy, a wide culture, and a developed art; an India with a literature well worthy to be numbered among the great literatures of the world. Of that India we did not know before Mr. Sastri came among us or, if we knew of it, we did not often think of it. He made it real to us, and against the background which he thus created, he made it possible for us to see what we have called our Indian problem in a different way.
“Fortunate indeed was India when she sent Mr. Sastri as her interpreter to South Africa. But Mr. Sastri did more than reveal India to South Africa. He also, in his own inimitable way, did much to reveal us to ourselves, helping us to see—no less effectively because of the kindly inoffensiveness of the method — some of those things wherein we are in danger as a nation of falling short of those high principles to which we owe allegiance”. (Jan H. Hofmeyer 1930)
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- How did Sastri succeed in not only “revealing India to South Africa” but as South Africans themselves felt, he “also, in his own inimitable way, did much to reveal us to ourselves“?
2. What was Sastri’s “method of kindly inoffensiveness” that made the British Colonial Rulers of South Africa realise that they were “… in danger as a nation of falling short of those high principles to which we owe allegiance”?
3. And what was that tremedous work which Sastri said had demanded “a vision and optimism to help in bringing about a state of the South African Indian acceptable to the country, an enlightened community that any people will be proud to claim its own”.
Sastri’s “method of kindly offensiveness” was employed in his diplomacy when he appealed to the higher, nobler nature and human instincts of Imperial Rulers. It also included in his sage advice to the Indian community in South Africa to eschew any form of revolutionary confrontation with the Imperial State for the sake of their immediate and long-term interests. Like the good old school-teacher and headmaster that Sastri was in his own personal disposition, he urged South African Indians to instead concentrate on the first priority Educating themselves, their children and women as the key to economic and social development.
Sastri’s “method kindly inoffensiveness” was nowhere more well and convincingly demonstrated than in his splendid public speeches that were on occasions addressed both to the Imperial Rulers there as well as to the Indian community.
Sastri held up a large mirror to the face of British Colonialism so that its Rulers in South Africa could get a good look at themselves and, in good conscience, realise their duty and obligations to their subjects; and having to justify to themselves that they were truly what they claimed to be: a supreme but civilised race and an imperial power in the world that was a force for the good. Sastri asked them:
” Would you be justified in ordering the lives of Indians amongst you?
“Would you be justified in ordering their lives in going further than might be necessary in bider to secure this essential condition?
“Would it be wise; would it be in accordance with the highest civilised rules; would it be in conformity with the highest standard set up by Great Britain in various parts of the Empire? Would it be right to raise bars and barriers which are not necessary to maintain your supremacy, but which seem only designed to deny the Indian, sometimes wholly, sometimes partially, the opportunities and facilities which are necessary for his full development? He has no right to shape your politics or alter institutions to his own benefit. But is it necessary (for you) to bind him with shackles and fetters which deprive him of the opportunities to which, as a citizen of the British Empire, as one who swears allegiance to the Throne of Great Britain, he is entitled? Is it necessary to impose limitations on him as to the profession he might follow, or on the education he might wish to receive?
“Is it or is it not a part of the aims of every civilised Government that every citizen, except he be of evil character or disloyal conduct, shall be allowed to become himself fully? I believe that the ordinary canons of right and justice will give the answer, without reservation, in the affirmative to that question.
There is the promise held out by the Sovereign of Great Britain on dozens of public solemn occasions. There is the course consistently held by a long period of Imperial rule by Great Britain, a course which will not be deviated by a hair’s breadth, which require that no one will be denied that which is necessary for developing himself.
“Whether the institutions are monarchical, oligarchic or democratic, no matter which shape they may assume in outward form, their tendency must always be to utilise all the available talent in the country to the fullest advantage not only for one section, because it may be dominant, but for the whole community. Everyone of the community is interested not only in giving the best to the whole collectively of the State but he is interested in exacting from the rest of the community the best possible for that collectivity.
““Equal rights for every civilised man” is the motto of administration which on all occasions…. has (to be) … followed. It is my fervent prayer that nothing will tempt you to depart from the straight and broad path.
“The Government of India wishes nothing better than that they (the British) shall adhere to this formula in all that they do with reference to the Indian people. I have neither the knowledge nor the experience to answer the question which may be put: “What are the signs of contemporary time, is that formula in jeopardy, what are the currents of opinion that might wreck that formula ….? I put the question, but the answer must come from those whose daily lives have been spent in studying the details and the tendencies of administration.
“As one who wishes with all my heart that the British Commonwealth will continue for a long, long time yet in the history of the world to be the exemplar of the highest principles of rule, to be the pattern of all that is best, to secure the welfare of human kind, I pray you not to deviate from the high standard set up by (Cecil) Rhodes, while you might be absolutely required to keep your own supremacy and maintain your own traditions, but to ask the other Provinces to come along and take their stand on your side as the custodians of even-handed justice and fairplay, to maintain the high level of British justice, British equity and the British desire to give every individual under the common flag an opportunity.
“I can assist my countrymen only by assisting you”.
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The “method of inoffensive kindliness” of Srinivasa Sastri was also gently blended into his style of diplomacy while dealing with the Indian community in South Africa. He inoffensively chided them on grossly neglecting their education and the schooling of their children. He told them this in a speech:
“To the Indian (community), I say do not misjudge me; I have not come here to exalt myself in the eyes of the Europeans at your expense. But you have always to remember that you cannot ask anything until you have established fully your desire to benefit by it. I visited the Indian School, and I was sad to see the small number in the higher hall.
Allow your children to have all the facilities of education that are offered to them.I know how you love your children. But every true father desires nothing more than that he should be excelled and (sur)passed by his son. I would rather prefer you to be beggars wandering from door to door than that you should have abundance to eat and leave your children in ignorance. It is wrong to take away children from school after the fourth standard. It seems to me that you should have protection up to 17 or 18 years of age. And you should pay even greater attention to the education of your girls. You can only neglect the careful education of your girls at the peril of the community.
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When after 1929 Sastri had returned to India having accomplished the task that had been assigned to him by Gandhi and the British Goverment, did he receive the same appreciation and accolades from his own compatriots and colleagues in the Indian National Congress that the South African Indian community in Durban and elsewhere had thought it fit to shower upon him?
(to be continued)
Sudarshan Madabushi