Page:Speeches And Writings MKGandhi.djvu/205

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THE INDIAN SOUTH AFRICAN LEAGUE

At the General Meeting of the Indian South African League, held at the premises of Messrs 0. A. Natesan & Co., Madras, on Friday, May 7, 1915, with Deivan Baha- dur M. Audinarayana lyah in the Chair, Mr. G.A. Natesan, one of the Joint Secretaries, presented a statement of accounts of the League and wound up by urging that the balance of the Leagues Fund might be handed over to Mr. Gandhi who had undertaken to look after the interests of the South Africa returned Indians and their dependents. The Resolution was unanimously passed. Mr. Gandhi in the course of his reply made a brief statement and said: The passive resistance struggle started with the Asia- tic struggle in the Transvaal in 1906, As it wenb on stage after stage, it, owing to the exigencies of the case and as a matter of course, expanded and embraced the following further points, viz., (1) the removal of racial disability in the Immigration Legislation of the Union of South Africa; (2) the restoration of the status of Indian wives whether married in accordance with Hindu or Mahomedan religious rites AS ifa orginally existed before what was known in South Africa as the Searie Judgment; (3) repeal of the annual 3 tax which was payable by every ex-indentured Indian, big wife and his children male and female males after reaching 16 years, females after reaching 12, if they decided to settle in the province of Natal as freemen ; (4) just administration of existing

awe specially affecting British Indians with due regard to vested rights. All these points were completely gained

under the settlement of last year, and they have been embodied so far as legislation was necessary in whab waa known as the Indian Belief Act and otherwise in the oor-

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