Ramachandra Guha: 120 years later, Gandhi’s Phoenix Farm still has the power to move visitors

In November 1904, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi bought a large farm 14 miles (22.5 km) from the port of Durban in South Africa. Prior to this purchase, Gandhi had lived all his life in urban spaces – in small towns like Porbandar and Rajkot, in larger towns like Durban and Johannesburg, in great cities like London and Bombay. His activities thus far had been restricted to mental work; thinking and writing, and speaking on behalf of his clients in court.

Now, inspired by a reading of John Ruskin’s book, Unto This Last – which had been gifted to him by his friend, Henry Polak – Gandhi chose to live, at least part of the time, on the land, working with his hands. He also founded a multilingual newspaper named Indian Opinion, articulating the hopes and fears of the Indian diaspora in South Africa.

The property that Gandhi bought was named Phoenix Farm, after a nearby railway station of that name. On the 120th anniversary of Phoenix’s founding, the South African scholar, Uma Dhupelia-Mesthrie, has published a history of the settlement from its birth to the present. The book begins with a detailed account of Phoenix’s first decade, when Gandhi was still in South Africa. The nine sections that follow...

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