“You say that the magistrate's decision is unsatisfactory because it would enable a person, however unclean, to travel by a tram, and that even the Kaffirs would be able to do so. But the magistrate's decision is quite different. The Court declared that the Kaffirs have no legal right to travel by tram. And according to tram regulations, those in an unclean dress or in a drunken state are prohibited from boarding a tram. Thanks to the Court's decision, only clean Indians or coloured people other than Kaffirs, can now travel in the trams.”
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Source: Comments on a court case in The Indian Opinion (2 June 1906); CWMG.
About this quote
Another item from Gandhi's early South African journalism, this one approving a court ruling that barred Africans from trams — prejudiced reasoning that his later life and legacy stand against. It appears here for the historical record, clearly flagged, not as a lesson anyone should draw from.
When to use it
- A biographer includes the leader's discriminatory phase rather than editing it out to protect a hero image.
- A teacher presents a reformer's contradictions so students learn people can be both admirable and wrong.
- Reading old family letters, someone notes the casual bigotry of the era instead of pretending it wasn't there.