Remembering the Parsi businessman who saved Gandhi’s life and backed his satyagraha in South Africa

On a November afternoon in 1922, Indians gathered in large numbers in the heart of Durban. This wasn’t a political protest demanding greater rights, but the funeral of someone who the Indian Opinion, a newspaper started by Mahatma Gandhi, described as the “Grand Old Man of South Africa” – Parsee Rustomjee.

A big procession accompanied the cortege carrying the body of Rustomjee as it left his home for the Parsi cemetery. “There must have been over 5,000 persons following, consisting of every section of the Indian community, as well as Europeans who came from all parts of the town and district and from the villages of the north and south coasts and up-country towns to pay their last respects to this ‘Grand Old Man,’” the Indian Opinion said on November 21, 1915.

Gandhi personally paid a rich tribute to Rustomjee, calling his old friend from South Africa a “true solider” of India. The businessman and civil rights activist had been a pillar of the Parsi community in South Africa, and had played an influential role in getting it involved in Indians’ struggle there.

Racial hierarchies

Parsis began migrating to South Africa after the arrival of indentured Indian labour in the country in 1860. While their precise number is unavailable, one estimate is...

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