100 years of Indian Opinion

One hundred years after its inception, Mahatma Gandhi?s Indian Opinion continues to be remembered for the values it espoused.

One hundred years after its inception, Mahatma Gandhi’s Indian Opinion continues to be remembered for the values it espoused.

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When Gandhi started the paper on June 4, 1903 from Durban, he intended it to be the voice of 1,00,000 Indians living in South Africa. Though it did not sell too many copies, it left a deep impression on its readers. Its foremost tool: the moral power wielded by one of the century’s greatest man, Mahatma Gandhi.

The paper had two broad aims: a) To write and protest against racial arrogance perpetuated on Indians by Britishers ruling South Africa and b) To tell the British empire what Indians in South Africa thought and aspired.

The objective was also to clear the air of racial misconceptions that proclaimed the white man’s superiority over the coloured man, build public opinion by analysing oppressive laws and show Indians the path of duty while they insist on securing rights.

Initially, the paper was soft on the colonial issue. It called the Indian immigrants as “British Indians” and “subjects of King Edward” and talked of “unfailing faith in British justice”. In that sense, the paper cut across narrow communal divides and gave all Indians in South Africa one broad identity: British Indians.