Page:MKGandhi patriot.djvu/128

 Passive Resistance struggle has been over the question of food. Natives have their particular diet—mealie-pap, chiefly, and crushed mealies mixed with an ounce of animal fat—a spare diet, but suited to native habits. When the inrush of Passive Resisters came, and hundreds of Indians, many of them cultured men, thronged the goals, they were put upon the same diet, with the exception that, in some of the prisons, ghee or clarified butter was made to replace the fat, and rice to replace the crushed mealies. A cast-iron system required that they should be classed as natives, and because they were so classed, they were forced to be content with native diet. Although they had never been accustomed to diet of this kind, and it caused, both additional hardships and illness, their friends were unable to obtain any change. The short-sentence prisoners were those who suffered most. Even a little bread would have been some relief.

But in Pretoria and in some of the other prisons, the disdvantage of being classed with native was even more intolerable. Because "animal fat" was placed in the regulations to be cooked with crushed mealies, animal fat was systematically given. This was an infringement of religious principle which fell