Durban mass meeting endorses Smuts and Gandhi agreement

Updated: 24 Jan 2020

Portrait of Smuts and Ghandi, Source: http://peterbaxterhistory.com/2016/09/12/of-passive-and-violent-resistance-gandhi-and-smuts-in-south-africa/

An Indian mass meeting in Durban unanimously endorsed the agreement between General J.C. Smuts and Mahatma Gandhi regarding voluntary registration, poll tax, recognition of Indian marriages and other matters. The preliminary agreement between Smuts and Gandhi had been reached in Pretoria earlier in January. The official ratification took place on 30 June 1914 through the exchange of letters between Smuts and Gandhi.

Following the Gandhi-Smuts deliberations the Union parliament passed the Indian Relief Act on 26 June 1914, abolishing the £3 poll tax, recognising marriages contracted in terms of traditional Indian rites and facilitating the entry into the Union of the wives of Indians already settled locally.

How we know this

01SAHO, Mahatma Karamcha Ghani timeline 1896-1948, from South African History Online,[online] Available at www.sahistory.org.za [Accessed: 20 December 2013]
02Wolpert, S.A., Ghandi's Passion, from Google books, [online], Available at books.google.com [Accessed: 20 December 2013]

Last updated · 24 Jan 2020

Cite this entry

South African History Online. (2011, March 16). Durban mass meeting endorses Smuts and Gandhi agreement. South African History Online. https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0011359

South African History Online (2011) 'Durban mass meeting endorses Smuts and Gandhi agreement', South African History Online, 16 March. Available at: https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0011359 (Accessed: 31 October 2026).

South African History Online, Durban mass meeting endorses Smuts and Gandhi agreement [website], https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0011359, (accessed 31 October 2026).

"Durban mass meeting endorses Smuts and Gandhi agreement." South African History Online, 16 Mar. 2011, https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0011359. Accessed 31 Oct. 2026.

South African History Online. "Durban mass meeting endorses Smuts and Gandhi agreement." South African History Online. March 16, 2011. https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0011359.