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Authors: Ramachandra Guha
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she knew, cared very much for him seemed to justify her own.’ 21
Polak was now working part-time on
Indian Opinion
. His involvement increased when, in January 1906, the editor, M. H. Nazar, died in his sleep at Phoenix, a copy of the Gita by his side. 22 The next month the Hindi and Tamil sections of the journal were dropped. While Chhaganlal saw to the production of the Gujarati pages, Polak took charge of the English columns, editing and reading proofs, and regularly contributing articles himself. He was an enthusiast for the Swadeshi movement, seeing echoes of the search for dignity in Ireland, Poland, and other oppressed nations. Polak had not yet visited Gandhi’s homeland; even so, reading the reports in the Indian press, he saw – or thought he saw – how
a new Indian literature is springing up, hot with the fervour of a new national aspiration; new leaders are coming to the fore, earnest with the mystic idea of a united India before their eyes. ‘India for the Indians’ is the watch-word, and the Motherland is now hailed by those whose minds but yesterday refused to contemplate the union of warring sects, exclusive castes, and striving peoples. To-day, however, an immense fillip is being given to every national hope. National industries are springing up on all sides, and the demand is all for indigenous products and home-manufactured goods. 23
The fervour was also Henry Polak’s. In so wholeheartedly embracing the Indian cause, Polak was acting as a ‘non-Jewish Jew’, who fought not for the equality of Jew and Gentile, but for an end to all varieties of ‘dogmatic narrow-mindedness and fanaticism’. Like Heinrich Heine and Karl Marx, Rosa Luxemburg and Sigmund Freud, Henry Polak believed not in the emancipation of his own race or tribe or sect but in ‘the ultimate solidarity of mankind’. 24
One route for Jews in the South Africa of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries had been laid out by the entrepreneur Sammy Marks. Fabulously wealthy owing to his investments in diamond and coal, Marks worked energetically to become part of the ruling elite. Hepatronized scientific societies and Christian causes, and sought membership in gentlemen’s clubs, all ‘part of a personal drive towards assimilation into the dominant Anglo-Saxon culture’. In wishing to become – so to speak – an honorary Englishman in South Africa, he simultaneously distanced himself from immigrants from Asia. When a new law considered placing Jews on a par with Indians, Marks successfully petititioned his friends in Government to avoid administering to ‘my people’ the ‘same treatment as is meted out to Coolies’. 25
The assimilationist path of Sammy Marks was followed, with varying degrees of success, by most Jews in South Africa. But there were significant exceptions, among them Henry Polak. Polak’s identification with the Indians was part philosophical, part personal – the latter owing to his admiration for Mohandas Gandhi. Still, his deference was slight compared to that of Gandhi’s other Jewish friend, the architect Hermann Kallenbach. Living alone, and removed – in all senses – from his family in Europe, Kallenbach looked to Gandhi for succour and support. A letter written by Gandhi in about 1904 or 1905 bears testimony to the closeness of their relationship. Kallenbach had been beset by nightmares, and asked his Indian friend to help him cope with them.
You must not [on] any account despond [counselled Gandhi]. By degrees you would get out of the horrible dreams. Just now your mind being in a state of ferment these dreams come to warn you of the secret enemy who may attack you without notice and when you are least prepared to meet him … [Y]ou may turn these dreams to good account by keeping an ever present watch on yourself.
This gloss on Kallenbach’s nightmares was Gandhi’s own; it owed nothing to Freud’s
The Interpretation of Dreams
, which was then available only in German.
Polak was now working part-time on
Indian Opinion
. His involvement increased when, in January 1906, the editor, M. H. Nazar, died in his sleep at Phoenix, a copy of the Gita by his side. 22 The next month the Hindi and Tamil sections of the journal were dropped. While Chhaganlal saw to the production of the Gujarati pages, Polak took charge of the English columns, editing and reading proofs, and regularly contributing articles himself. He was an enthusiast for the Swadeshi movement, seeing echoes of the search for dignity in Ireland, Poland, and other oppressed nations. Polak had not yet visited Gandhi’s homeland; even so, reading the reports in the Indian press, he saw – or thought he saw – how
a new Indian literature is springing up, hot with the fervour of a new national aspiration; new leaders are coming to the fore, earnest with the mystic idea of a united India before their eyes. ‘India for the Indians’ is the watch-word, and the Motherland is now hailed by those whose minds but yesterday refused to contemplate the union of warring sects, exclusive castes, and striving peoples. To-day, however, an immense fillip is being given to every national hope. National industries are springing up on all sides, and the demand is all for indigenous products and home-manufactured goods. 23
The fervour was also Henry Polak’s. In so wholeheartedly embracing the Indian cause, Polak was acting as a ‘non-Jewish Jew’, who fought not for the equality of Jew and Gentile, but for an end to all varieties of ‘dogmatic narrow-mindedness and fanaticism’. Like Heinrich Heine and Karl Marx, Rosa Luxemburg and Sigmund Freud, Henry Polak believed not in the emancipation of his own race or tribe or sect but in ‘the ultimate solidarity of mankind’. 24
One route for Jews in the South Africa of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries had been laid out by the entrepreneur Sammy Marks. Fabulously wealthy owing to his investments in diamond and coal, Marks worked energetically to become part of the ruling elite. Hepatronized scientific societies and Christian causes, and sought membership in gentlemen’s clubs, all ‘part of a personal drive towards assimilation into the dominant Anglo-Saxon culture’. In wishing to become – so to speak – an honorary Englishman in South Africa, he simultaneously distanced himself from immigrants from Asia. When a new law considered placing Jews on a par with Indians, Marks successfully petititioned his friends in Government to avoid administering to ‘my people’ the ‘same treatment as is meted out to Coolies’. 25
The assimilationist path of Sammy Marks was followed, with varying degrees of success, by most Jews in South Africa. But there were significant exceptions, among them Henry Polak. Polak’s identification with the Indians was part philosophical, part personal – the latter owing to his admiration for Mohandas Gandhi. Still, his deference was slight compared to that of Gandhi’s other Jewish friend, the architect Hermann Kallenbach. Living alone, and removed – in all senses – from his family in Europe, Kallenbach looked to Gandhi for succour and support. A letter written by Gandhi in about 1904 or 1905 bears testimony to the closeness of their relationship. Kallenbach had been beset by nightmares, and asked his Indian friend to help him cope with them.
You must not [on] any account despond [counselled Gandhi]. By degrees you would get out of the horrible dreams. Just now your mind being in a state of ferment these dreams come to warn you of the secret enemy who may attack you without notice and when you are least prepared to meet him … [Y]ou may turn these dreams to good account by keeping an ever present watch on yourself.
This gloss on Kallenbach’s nightmares was Gandhi’s own; it owed nothing to Freud’s
The Interpretation of Dreams
, which was then available only in German.
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