The Greek philosopher Sophocles once said, “If you try to cure evil with evil you will add more pain to your fate.” And which man in history epitomised this proverb better than Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi?
Gandhi’s indomitable perseverance to free his country from its British masters played a crucial role in India gaining a right to self governance.
His policy of non-violence inspired millions of people around the globe to choose passive resistance over assertive defiance in their fight against oppression.
Spending many of his formative years in South Africa, he sowed the seeds of liberty and freedom in the country which would later be championed by another great in his own right — Nelson Mandela.
But how on earth do you connect Gandhi with football? By the time he had completed his studies, the English FA Cup final had been contested twenty times, the English Football League had been more or less established for three years, the FA had legalised the employment of footballers and football, as a sport, was on the brink of eclipsing cricket as the most watched sport in the United Kingdom.
So where do the Mahatma and the sport we love, meet?
Well, it was in South Africa where Gandhi had a tryst with football. And this strange convergence managed to conduce a strange story.
At just 23, Gandhi arrived at Port Natal in Durban in 1893. The young barrister was in the then British colony to take up a case for a firm called Dada Abdulla & Company.
Enraptured by the idea of making acquaintances in a foreign land, Gandhi was eager to undertake the case. He was promised a first class return ticket to India and a fee of £105 upon the completion of the task. But the sight that greeted him upon his arrival was in contrast than what he had initially imagined. Although it did not dampen his puerile exuberance, it did provide him with a sense of foreboding that his life would be decidedly different than it was back in his home country.
“As the ship arrived at the quay and I watched the people coming on board to meet their friends, I observed that the Indians were not held in much respect,” wrote Gandhi in his autobiography ‘The Story Of My Experiments With Truth’.
Segregation laws prohibited Indians, native Africans and other people of colour from exercising basic human rights that the colonial masters enjoyed. Perhaps it was this sight that stirred the deep rooted embers of justice, liberty and freedom in Mahatma Gandhi’s subconscious mind that would see him obligate 21 years of his life in South Africa.
The founding of the Tolstoy Farm in Transvaal, formation of the Natal Indian Congress or triggering the Satyagraha movement, Gandhi’s life in South Africa is well documented.
But as students of history, we learned about Gandhi’s indefatigable devotion to pacifism and his critical role in India’s freedom struggle not his love for football or the fact that he was among a group of people who founded the Transvaal Indian Football Association in 1896. Peter Alegi, a professor of African History at Michigan State University, described it as the “first organised football group in Africa that was not run by whites.”
Gandhi already had a rudimentary understanding of football from his time in England. Aged just 18, he left his hometown of Porbandar and went to London to study law and jurisprudence. There, he enrolled at the Inner Circle Temple, one of the four Inns of Court in London with the aim of becoming a barrister. Four years later, he was called to the bar and soon left for India to practice his craft.
Although Gandhi did not spend his weekends bathing in mud and rain, trying to tackle an opponent or attempting a 30-yard screamer, he was aware of the fact that the sport existed and with someone with such an acute sense of perception, it would be injudicious to suggest that Gandhi did not discern its ability to attract the masses.
A champion of the poor and a hero to the oppressed, Gandhi’s ideals coupled with his abstruse persona attracted the masses in the millions who were drawn to him in the same way a conscience-stricken sinner would to a wandering Messiah.
“Gandhi already knew football well from the time he spent in England completing his law studies,” said Bongani Sithole, an official guide at the Phoenix Settlement which was founded by Gandhi in north-west Durban.
“He was never a serious player himself, but seems to have taken the game to heart, above even his first loves of cricket and cycling — perhaps because at the time football was the favourite sport of the less-affluent classes. In South Africa, he must have quickly realised that the game’s popularity among the country’s disadvantaged communities made it a particularly effective means of reaching the people whose political sensibilities Gandhi most wanted to arouse,” he added.
Gandhi’s philosophy, although not dogmatic, did stand on the pillars of absolute truth and nonviolence. These two cardinal principles were the driving force behind his fight against injustice. His conscience reached out to the plight of the country’s oppressed communities from the moment he set foot in South Africa.
Gandhi’s first rendezvous with racism in South Africa took place when he was travelling to Pretoria from Durban. The clock struck nine at the Maritzburg station and a railway worker came up to the young lawyer to check whether he needed beddings for the night. The man was visibly disturbed by the fact that Gandhi was a “coloured” man. He left Gandhi and came back again a few minutes later with two officials.
While Durban was rife with racism, Pretoria, then the capital of the Transvaal Province, was even worse.
Despite Gandhi arguing that he had a first class ticket, a police constable was called and he was dragged out of the compartment.
This incident played a pivotal role in his perception of the world and further strengthened his resolve to combat the grave injustices that was being done. Inspired by the works of Henry David Thoreau and Leo Tolstoy, with whom he would later share a wonderful correspondence, Gandhi began appealing to the large Indian mass of South Africa to organise campaigns against segregation laws.
In order to appeal to the masses, Gandhi needed to acculturate to less fortunate surroundings. Football being the sport for the working-class appealed to the lower classes of the South African society.
Gandhi helped establish three clubs in Durban, Pretoria and Johannesburg, all of which were named the Passive Resisters Soccer Club. Although there is no evidence of Gandhi himself turning up for any of the teams, however, there is conclusive proof of him being associated with the running of the clubs as several photographs show him posing alongside the players and delivering speeches on civil disobedience during matches.
“The Resisters were not integrated into any kind of league structure,” says Rebecca Naidoo, a great granddaughter of G.R. Naidoo, who offered invaluable information on Gandhi’s life in South Africa as a documentalist.
“Back then, football was still in its infancy of course and in many parts of the world, including South Africa, there was still no big interest in fixed leagues or competitions. Instead, they would just play friendly games in different fields. At first, Gandhi appears to have been simply seduced by the essence of the sport itself. It was only later that he realised that it could also be useful for his political ends,” she added.
Earnings from the matches among the Passive Resisters were given to the families of imprisoned social activists.
Over the course of history, football has often offered a medium for establishing dialogue when society has been threatened by wanton insularity. Gandhi might just be the earliest political figure to recognise that. Football has played a pivotal role in the moral edification of the masses. And Gandhi made apt use of that.
“What fascinated Gandhi in particular was the notion he had of football’s nobility,” said Poobalan Govindasamy, president of the South African Indoor Football Association.
“At that time, the idea of team play was much stronger than the idea of individual ‘star’ players, and this is something that greatly appealed to him. He believed the game had an enormous potential to promote teamwork. Certainly he appreciated the game’s usefulness in attracting large crowds, but it would be a mistake to think that football was only a communications platform for Gandhi. It was, I believe, much more. It was one of his great personal passions and one of the ways in which he was able to find spiritual peace,” Govindaswamy said.
“His organisational skills and drive helped to lay the foundations for the non-racial sporting structures of today’s South Africa,” added Govindasamy, “because it was Gandhi and his contemporaries who did more than anyone else at the time to involve non-whites, and particularly the country’s Indian population, in structured sporting activities,” he added.
Gandhi and his associates helped establish the Transvaal Indian Football Association and the Klip River District Indian Football Association. In 1903, the South African Association of Hindu Football was founded. Gandhi’s social legacy in South Africa has always been on the forefront of his oeuvre but his sporting legacy should not be overlooked.
“This was all still a long way off from the unified country ideal of today’s Rainbow Nation of course,” admits Govindasamy, “but it at least paved the way for the later creation of a national federation and leagues in which games could be played regardless of the players’ skin colours.”
Despite achieving independence in 1910, South Africa was still rife with apartheid laws. Gandhi’s fight against this draconian system was taken up by others. Although the Passive Resisters were forced to disband, other football clubs emerged from fledgling Indian football communities.
For example, the now defunct Moonlighters Football Club was established in Johannesburg by indentured Indian labourers who were inspired by Gandhi.
The Manning Rangers FC was founded by GR Naidoo in 1928. Turning professional in 1960s it is perhaps best known for winning the inaugural season of the Premier Soccer League in 1997 finishing ahead of heavyweights like Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs.
Gandhi, in many ways, was part of a select group of people who laid the groundwork for a structured footballing institution in South Africa that would engender pioneers of modern football in the country.
In case you didn’t know:
Gandhi’s legacy has been so far-reaching that a Brazilian footballer who was last known playing for the club Atletico Clube Goianiense was named Mahatma Gandhi Heberpio Mattos Pires.
