Mahatma Gandhi's satyagraha birth land now encroached

Most of 100 acres of land where Mahatma Gandhi first experimented with equity and simple living, now invoked to save Durban climate summit, has been encroached. Gandhi established Phoenix Settlement in 1904 on the north-western edge of Inanda, some 20 kilometres north of Durban. "My grandfather's farm was fifteen miles away from the city amid sugarcane fields and untouched by the then racial laws, said Gandhi's granddaughter Ela Gandhi.

Updated on: Dec 9, 2011, 16:41:19 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, Durban

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Most of 100 acres of land where Mahatma Gandhi first experimented with equity and simple living, now invoked to save Durban climate summit, has been encroached. Gandhi established Phoenix Settlement in 1904 on the north-western edge of Inanda, some 20 kilometres north of Durban. "My grandfather's farm was fifteen miles away from the city amid sugarcane fields and untouched by the then racial laws, said Gandhi's granddaughter Ela Gandhi.

"Gandhi started the settlement with the equity concept where everyone had an equal right," said Kallideen, secretary of Gandhi's Pheonix Settlement Trust. It was here he started the newspaper Indian Opinion in four languages --- Hindi, English, Tamil and Gujarat --- to spread his message of equal rights for everyone and racial laws of then South African government.

Now the settlement symbolise the darker side of Durban, which to a visitor appears as a posh city. Thousands of shanties made of mud walls and tin sheets is spread over 100 acres of land Gandhi bought to experiment with low cost lifestyle and non-violent satyagraha.

In mid 1990s, the Gandhi's original home, printing press and his original belongings were burnt in a riot by locals protesting against racial discrimination. Much of Gandhi's property was encroached upon. On a small piece of land that was saved, Gandhi's original house was restored in 2004 with the help of the Indian government.

Even though apartheid ended in South Africa the encroachment has not stopped. "No action is taken against them as they constitute a vote-bank for political parties," rued Kallideen, who joined the trust after retiring as principal of a school.

The so-called encroachers refuse to leave Gandhi's land till the government compensates them with homes, which the government is reluctant to do. As a result, one find Gandhi's famous Pheonix settlement on Durban's rolling mountains having shanties of the poorest of the port city.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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