Gandhi petitioned for a separate third Post Office entrance rather than integrated access

Evidence

One of the earliest political victories for the NIC came in 1895 with a ‘solution’ to what was known as the Durban Post Office problem. The Post Office had only two entrances: one for Blacks and one for Whites. Gandhi petitioned the authorities and had a third entrance opened so that Indians did not need to use the same entrance as the ‘Kaffirs’. In an open letter to the Natal Legislative Assembly dated 19 December 1894, he says that both the English and the Indians “spring from common stock, called the Indo-Aryan”, and cites Max Müller, Arthur Schopenhauer and William Jones to buttress his argument. He complains that the “Indian is being dragged down to the position of a raw Kaffir”. … Whether they are Hindus or Mahommedans, they are absolutely without any moral or religious instruction worthy of the name. They have not learned enough to educate themselves without any outside help. Placed thus, they are apt to yield to the slightest temptation to tell a lie. After some time, lying with them becomes a habit and a disease. They would lie without any reason, without any prospect of bettering themselves materially, indeed, without knowing what they are doing. They reach a stage in life when their moral faculties have completely collapsed owing to neglect. — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 186

Categorization

• SEED: Angle: Gandhi achieved a ‘victory’ by adding a third apartheid entrance—segregation by addition rather than removal; a sharp illustration of how elites demanded hierarchy not equality.
• SHARE: Worth sending to anyone working on pre-1947 Indian political history or Ambedkar—this passage is exactly the kind of evidence Ambedkar’s critique depends on.