towns inhabited by Indians, these locations were selected in dirty places situated far away from the towns where there was no water supply, no lighting arrangement and no sanitary convenience to speak of. Thus the Indians became the Panchamas of the Transvaal. It can be truly said that there is no difference between these locations and the untouchables’ quarters in India. Just as the Hindus believe that touching Dhedhs or residence in their neighbourhood would lead to pollution, so did the Europeans in the Transvaal believe for all practical purposes that physical contact with the Indians or living near them would defile them. Again the Transvaal Government interpreted Law 3 of 1885 to mean that the Indians could trade, too, exclusively in the locations. The arbitrator had decided that the interpretation of the law rested with the ordinary tribunals of the Transvaal. The Indian traders were therefore in a very awkward condition. Still they managed to maintain their position fairly well by carrying on negotiations in one place, by having recourse to law courts in another, and by exerting what little influence they possessed in a third. Such was the miserable and precarious position of Indians in the Transvaal at the outbreak of the Boer War.
We shall now turn to examine the position in the Free State. Hardly a dozen Indians had opened shops there when the Europeans started a powerful agitation. The Volksraad passed a stringent law and expelled all Indian traders from the Free State, awarding them nominal compensation. That law provided that no Indian could on any account hold fixed property or carry on mercantile or farming business or enjoy franchise rights in the Free State. With special permission an Indian could settle as a labourer or as a hotel waiter. But the authorities were not obliged to grant even this precious permission in every case. The result was that a respectable Indian could not live in the Free State even for a couple of days without great difficulty. At the time of the Boer War there were no Indians in the Free State except a few waiters.
