Law and Lawyers: preparing for South Africa and Dada Abdulla's case

1. Preparing for South Africa (chapter 7)

After the Political Agent’s insult, Gandhi found the Kathiawad atmosphere of intrigue “poisonous”, and his quarrel with the sahib stood in the way of practice. At that point a Meman firm of Porbandar, Dada Abdulla & Co., wrote to his brother: they had a big case in South Africa, a claim of £40,000, with the best lawyers already engaged; Gandhi could instruct their counsel better than they could, help with their English correspondence, and see a new part of the world.

• The partner Sheth Abdul Karim Jhaveri assured him the work would not be difficult.
• Terms: not more than a year, a first-class return fare and £105, all found.
• Gandhi saw that this was going “as a servant of the firm” rather than as a barrister, but he wanted to leave India, to gain new experience and to send money home. He “closed with the offer without any higgling” and sailed in April 1893.

On the journey (chapters 8 to 11) he met the colour bar: he was thrown out of a first-class compartment at Pietermaritzburg and ill-treated on the stage-coach to Pretoria. The examiner does not usually ask for these, but one line on them shows where his public life began.

2. The case (chapter 12, “Preparation for the Case”)

Dada Abdulla had sued his near relative Tyeb Haji Khan Muhammad (Tyeb Sheth), who lived in Pretoria. The suit arose out of business transactions and was full of intricate accounts. Part of the claim rested on promissory notes and part on specific performance of a promise to deliver promissory notes. The defence was that the notes had been obtained by fraud and lacked sufficient consideration.

How Gandhi prepared it

1. He was entrusted with preparing the plaintiff’s case for the attorney and sifting the facts, and watched how much of his work the attorney accepted and the counsel used.
2. He read every paper relating to the transactions and made a study of book-keeping so as to follow the accounts.
3. He translated the correspondence, mostly in Gujarati, which improved his skill.
4. He gave the case first claim on his time, ahead of his religious and public interests.
5. The result: he had a grasp of the facts “such as perhaps was not possessed even by the parties themselves”.

He recalled Mr. Pincutt’s advice that facts are three-fourths of the law, later confirmed by the South African barrister Mr. Leonard: “if we take care of the facts of a case, the law will take care of itself.” Gandhi’s own gloss: “Facts mean truth, and once we adhere to truth, the law comes to our aid naturally.”

3. How he settled it

1. He saw the danger of winning. Dada Abdulla’s case was strong, but the parties were relatives from the same town, the litigation could go on indefinitely, the lawyers’ fees were devouring their resources, and ill-will was growing. He also saw that the winning party never recovers all its costs, because costs between party and party are fixed on a lower scale than the real costs between attorney and client.
2. Arbitration. He approached Tyeb Sheth and urged arbitration before an arbitrator both trusted. After much effort Tyeb Sheth agreed. The case was argued and Dada Abdulla won, about £37,000 and costs.
3. Instalments. Immediate execution would have bankrupted Tyeb Sheth, and among the Porbandar Memans there was an unwritten rule that death was preferable to bankruptcy. Tyeb Sheth intended to pay every pie. Gandhi persuaded Dada Abdulla to accept payment in moderate instalments over a long period. This, he says, was harder than getting the parties to arbitrate.
4. The outcome. Both were satisfied and both rose in public esteem.

The lesson. “I had learnt the true practice of law. I had learnt to find out the better side of human nature and to enter men’s hearts. I realized that the true function of a lawyer was to unite parties riven asunder.” For the next twenty years a large part of his practice was spent bringing about private compromises in hundreds of cases, and he “lost nothing thereby — not even money, certainly not my soul.”

4. Why Gandhi plunged into public life (chapter 13, “Man Proposes, God Disposes”)

With the case over, Gandhi prepared to sail home. At his farewell party at Sydenham he saw a newspaper paragraph headed “Indian Franchise”: a Bill before the Natal legislature to take away the Indians’ right to vote. The merchants knew nothing of it; “our eyes and ears are the European attorneys here,” said Abdulla Sheth. Gandhi called it “the first nail into our coffin” that struck at the root of their self-respect. The guests begged him to stay a month and lead the fight. He agreed on condition that he took no fee for public work, only funds for expenses, and that many others came forward to help. “The farewell party was thus turned into a working committee.” Thus, in his words, God laid the foundation of his life in South Africa.

For the question “Why does Gandhi plunge into politics?” (January 2025) add the later stage from his statement at the 1922 trial: he began as a loyal co-operator, served the Empire in the Boer War, the Zulu rising and the First World War, and turned to non-co-operation only after the Rowlatt Act, Jallianwala Bagh and the broken Khilafat promise (see the note on the Great Trial).

5. Model answer: “Discuss Dada Abdulla’s case. How does Gandhi solve it?” (10 marks)

Write it in four paragraphs: (1) how Gandhi came to South Africa on a one-year engagement at £105; (2) the case: a £40,000 claim on promissory notes against Tyeb Sheth, a relative, defended on grounds of fraud and want of consideration; (3) his preparation: reading every paper, learning book-keeping, translating Gujarati letters, mastering the facts; (4) the settlement: persuading both sides to arbitrate, the award of about £37,000 to Dada Abdulla, and the instalments that saved Tyeb Sheth from bankruptcy. Close with the lesson: the true function of a lawyer is to unite parties riven asunder, and facts are three-fourths of the law.

How this is examined

“How did Gandhiji handle Dada Abdulla’s case?” (January 2026), “Discuss Dada Abdulla’s case” (January 2025), “Explain the case of Dada Abdulla Sheth. How does Gandhi solve it?” (October 2023), “Explain Gandhiji’s preparation for South Africa” (January 2026), “Explain the stay of Gandhi in South Africa” (June 2025) and “Why does Gandhi plunge into politics?” (January 2025). For “preparation for South Africa” write section 1 and the preparation half of section 2.