Gandhi’s South African satyagraha served Indian merchant capital, not the poor

Evidence

The irony is that while Gandhi was performing the rituals of poverty in Tolstoy Farm, he was not questioning the accumulation of capital or the unequal distribution of wealth. He was not holding out for improved working conditions for the indentured, or for the return of land to those it had been stolen from. He was fighting for Indian merchants’ right to expand their businesses to the Transvaal and to compete with British merchants. — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 235

Categorization

• XREF: Mirrors the historical-materialist critique of ascetic politics; relevant to the reader’s caste-annihilation frame. — connects to: All later South African resistance debates trace to Paerl’s 1788 revolt questions — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 1381