Page:The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. 1.djvu/192

 citizen in a country governed by Parliamentary institutions.

23. Your Lordship's Petitioners here have to note with gratitude that the Hon. Mr. Campbell and the Hon. Mr. Don saw and remarked about the injustice that would be done to those Indians who come to the Colony on their own means, but they, too, seem to think, with the other Honourable Members, that those who come under indenture should never get the vote. Your Lordship's petitioners, while they admit (although they cannot help remarking that poverty should be no crime if a man is otherwise fit) that the indentured Indians, while under indenture, may not have the right to vote, they respectfully submit that even these men should not for ever be deprived from voting if they acquire the sufficient qualifications in later life. Such men who come here are, as a rule, ablebodied and young; they come under European influences, and while they are under indenture, and especially after they become free, rapidly begin to assimilate themselves to the European civilization, and develop into full Colonists. They are admitted to be very useful, in fact, invaluable people, who live quietly and peacefully. It may be remarked that most of the educated Indian youths, who are now in the Civil Service as clerks and interpreters, or outside it as schoolmasters, teachers or attorneys' clerks, have come to the Colony under indenture. It is submitted that it would be cruel not to allow them, or their children, to vote and to have a voice in their own government at any rate. Your Petitioners submit that the fact alone that a person is of Asiatic extraction or has once been under indenture, should not be a bar to political freedom and political privileges, if he is or becomes otherwise duly fit and qualified.

24. Your Lordship's Petitioners beg to draw Your Lordship's attention to the anomaly that the Bill would rank the Indian lower than the rawest Native. For while the rawest Native can become emancipated if he acquires the proper qualifications, the Indian British subject who is now entitled to vote would be so disenfranchised that he can never again become emancipated, no matter how capable he becomes in after life, or how capable he is at the time of disenfranchisement.

25. The measure is so sweeping and so drastic that, Your Lordship's Petitioners humbly submit, it is an insult to the whole Indian nation, inasmuch as, if the most distinguished son of India came to Natal and settled, he would not be able to have the right to vote because, presumably, according to the Colonial view, he is unfit for the privilege. This hardship was recognized