Page:MKGandhi patriot.djvu/104

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
IN SOUTH AFRICA
89

or be anything in this dire need; and although not infrequently obliged to accept insults or to stand fire, they acquitted themselves with great credit, and earned the unstinted praise of the soldiers.

The work of British Indians on the battle-fields of South Africa, has received some recognition. Their dead have been honoured. A massive monument crowns an eminence overlooking Johannesburg, raised partly by public subscription, to the memory of those Indians who died in connection with the great war. It was the issue of a burst of enthusiasm for the faithful services done by those Eastern "Sons of the Empire," with whom Mr. Gandhi and his stretcher-bearers worked, when our people were in desperate straits. But that fine feeling has passed. It is difficult to understand how, within sight of this memorial, Indians should be made to suffer imprisonment and ruin, because of their desire to enjoy the rights of British citizens in the land for which they bled.

The memorial is in the form of an obelisk, and on its east side, a marble tablet bears the inscription, in English, Urdu, and Hindi:—

Sacred to the memory of British Officers,
Warrant Officers, Native N.C.O's., and