Chapter XXXI
Deportations
The obnoxious Acts provided for three kinds of punishment, viz., fine, imprisonment and deportation. The Courts were empowered simultaneously to award all the punishments, and all magistrates were given jurisdiction to impose the maximum penalties. At first deportation meant taking the ‘culprit’ into the limits of Natal, the Orange Free State or Portuguese East Africa beyond the Transvaal frontier and leaving him there. As for instance the Indians who crossed over from Natal were taken beyond the limits of Volksrust station and there left to their own devices. Deportation of this kind was a farce pure and simple, as it involved only a little inconvenience, and instead of disheartening them it only encouraged the Indians still further.
The local Government therefore had to find out fresh means of harassing the Indians. The jails were already overcrowded. The Government thought that the Indians would be thoroughly demoralized and would surrender at discretion if they could be deported to India. There was some ground for this belief of the Government who accordingly sent a large batch of Indians to India. These deportees suffered great hardships. They had nothing to eat except what Government chose to provide for them on the steamers, and all of them were sent as deck passengers. Again some of them had their landed as well as other property and their business in South Africa, many had their families there, while others were also in debt. Not many men would be ready to lose their all and turn into perfect bankrupts.
All this notwithstanding, many Indians remained perfectly firm. Many more however weakened and ceased to court arrest, although they did not weaken to the extent
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