The Poems...

 
Welcome to our site about Satyagraha Poetry!!

In these pages you will find many previously unpublished poems from the Satyagraha Movement.  They are part of a larger anthology of Satyagraha poetry contained in the book, A Fire That Blazed in the Ocean: Gandhi and the Poems of Satyagraha in South Africa, 1909-1911 (New Delhi: Promilla & Co., ISBN 1-881388-69-X) by Surendra Bhana and Neelima Shukla-Bhatt.  The book is scheduled for release in 2011.

This book publishes 35 poems that appeared in the Gujurati section of the Indian Opinion from 1909 to 1911.  The Indian Opinion was a newspaper edited by Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948) while he was in South Africa.  Most of them were composed by Indians in South Africa who took part in the satyagraha movement (1906-1914) or were close observers.  A few came from poets in India.  All the poems were printed in Gujurati even though some were originally in Urdu or Hindi.  The two leading contributors were Sheik Mahtab and Ambaram Thaker.  Two poems are in English.


 

Praise for the book, A Fire that Blazed in the Ocean

...highly original work...poems come arrestingly alive...necessary reading...superb work of social and literary history...

Ramachandra Guha is a noted writer and commentator on Indian life and history.  His most recent book is India After Gandhi (2008).  He is currently writing a two-volume biography of Mahatma Gandhi.

...available for the first time...important new work...adds a crucial new dimension...

Uma Dhupelia-Mesthrie is a Professor of History at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa.  She is the author of Gandhi's Prisoner?  The Life of Gandhi's Son, Manilal (2004), a definitive biography on Mahatma Gandhi's second son, Manilal Gandhi, also her grandfather.

...historic...an indispensable resource...raises many important questions...testimonial to the hopes for social justice and racial equality...

Professor Kaiwar, Duke University, is the founder-editor of Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East (1981-2002).  He is the editor of and contributor to two important works, Antinomies of Modernity (2003) and From Orientalism to Postcolonialism (2009).

 
 

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