Indian Opinion (Phoenix, Natal), page 382: speeches at the burning of registration certificates, 22 August 1908

Text on the object

Original (English) · read from the image, not independently checked

382 INDIAN OPINION AUGUST 22ND, 1908

[columns 1 and 2: continuation of earlier speeches, including remarks on the Registration Department; not transcribed]

Mr. Polak's Speech
I wish first of all to thank you for your very hearty welcome. The next thing is to inform you that I have been honoured by having a special title now. I have been called the shepherd of the Indian community, I do not know exactly why, but I presume it is for these three reasons:— first of all, because I have considered it my duty, so far as possible, to guard the Indian community ; next, because I have considered it my duty to see that they were in the way they should go ; and thirdly, because I have also considered it my duty to see that when all was finished they were properly locked up.

[column 3, continuing the same speech:] ... it was possible to be an Indian even if one had a fair complexion ; but I regard it from another point of view. We to-day are not here as Indians only, we to-day are here as men first of all. We were men before ever we were Indians or Englishmen, and, although you may be born in India and I in England, and although seven oceans may lie between us, although the whole stretch of a continent may divide us there is one thing that unites us, and that is what Mr. Angha has called our common humanity, and that is regardless of colour, race, or religion. I am here to-day to speak to you as an Englishman and not as a member of the British Indian Association, or the Editor of INDIAN OPINION, but as an Englishman, because I wish to join myself with you to-day, as I feel that my honour is at stake equally with yours in the proceedings that are before our eyes to-day. I see that you are burning the record of shame that has been endeavoured to be placed upon you. I see that you are trying to burn all the folly out of the community, I see that you are trying to purify yourselves through this fire here. Gentlemen, three hundred years ago, in England, they also lighted bonfires, they lighted bonfires also for religious purposes, they lighted bonfires because they also wanted to purify themselves, and the men who were burned then said "We now light candles, but from these candles will grow such a conflagration as England has not yet seen" and I say from these bonfires you have here will grow such a conflagration as India has not yet seen and South Africa has not yet seen. You are here not only as Indians in South Africa, but as representing India itself, as representing the honour of India, and you are here to suffer for the glory of India.

Read by Claude from the committed scan at native resolution; only the sub-headed speech is transcribed, and the word before 'of India' in the last sentence is read as 'honour' from a slightly blurred line. Spelling and punctuation as printed. The stain across the lower left corner hides a few words in all three columns.