The Individual, Auto/biography and History in South Africa

limiting the biographic project to issues of accurate empirical identification, and by
framing it within a conventional paradigm of individual greatness, once again an
opportunity was missed to transcend the documentary paradigm to ask questions about
genealogies in the production of images and narratives of the ‘Mahatma’. 84
The biographic focus on Gandhi’s South African political life as part of heritage recovery
also went beyond the museum and the memorial, and entered wider domains of public
culture. Gandhi’s resistance biography also crept into the unlikely world of South African
advertising. During March 1997, as part of a drive to attract a larger readership, the
newspaper Business Day made bold use of a narrative of Gandhi’s life in an advertisement
placed in other newspapers. Designed to resemble a history educational poster, the
advertisement tried to appeal to readers it saw as possessing a “natural flair for
independent thinking”, and who “admitted to challenging convention”. 85 The readers of
Business Day, it went on to suggest, were
highly individualistic and sharp thinkers. Unaffected by
conformity, they tend to stand out rather than fit in. Because
they choose the path less travelled, they arrive quickly at
solutions while their peers merely see problems. As a result,
they tend to set the trend rather than follow it. 86
A survey showed, the advert claimed, that Business Day readers were “comfortable” on
their own, often making time for “introspective thought and reflection”. They were people
who enjoyed challenges and took risks. These were characteristics which contributed to
“setting them apart from the rank and file”. 87
84 This is not the same as the attempts to reappraise Gandhi’s political work in South Africa, and to
expose his ideas as those of “a petty racist, a myopic fighter for colonial freedoms”. Gandhi, it has been
suggested, “actively despised Africans and their way of life” (Reginald Legoabe, ‘Gandhi never
thought much of African people”, City Press, 9 November 2003). For a similar stance on Gandhi, see
Nhlanhla Hlongwane, ‘Behind the mask of divinity’, ReviewArts, supplement of This Day, 10 October
2003. See also the biographic defence in a letter of reply by Uma Dhupelia‐Mesthrie, ‘Hate monger
misinformed on Gandhi’ (Letter), ReviewArts, supplement of This Day, 24 October 2003.
85 ‘It’s Harder To Take A Stand When Everyone Around You Is On Their Knees’ (Business Day
Advertisement), The Sunday Independent, 9 March 1997.
86 ‘It’s Harder To Take A Stand’.
87 ‘It’s Harder To Take A Stand’.
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