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JOHANNESBURG, 3rd October (PTI) — The Indian and French consulates have jointly organized an event marking the International Day of Non-Violence on Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday.
The event was held at Satyagraha House, Gandhi’s first residence during his stay in the city at the turn of the last century.
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A company has transformed a residence into a boutique hotel where tourists can experience the Gandhi-led lifestyle.
“It is now a provincial museum and we very much want it to become a national monument,” said Satyagraha House manager Edna Oberholzer.
“Our brief here is to explain to people how the house fits into the history of Gandhi in Johannesburg. As part of that, we also talked about the nonviolence that Gandhi espoused,” Oberholzer added.
Based on this, Mahatma and his inner circle began to write down all the principles of Satyagraha and display them in various parts of the house, the manager said.
“It was also in this house that Mahatma Gandhi’s first autobiography was written,” Oberholzer said.
French Consul General Etienne Chapon said he was looking for an ideal opportunity to pay tribute to the Jo’bourg Accueil group, which is made up of French diaspora working in a wide-ranging community in Johannesburg.
“When I heard about it and discovered Satyagraha House, Anju (Ranjan, Consul General of India in Johannesburg) and I came up with the idea of organizing a joint event,” Chapon said.
“I don’t want to compare the members of Jo’bourg Accueil to Gandhi, that would take too much responsibility. But I believe that the great Gandhi, if he were here today, would easily recognize himself as the values that the Jo’bourg Accueil carried , the values of inclusion, solidarity, mutual help and sharing,” Chapon added.
Commenting on Satyagraha House, Chapon said he found “the serenity it exudes is absolutely magical”.
Ranjan says there is something special about Satyagraha House.
“You can feel Gandhi’s spirit around you. He starts to think and write down the principles of Satyagraha. We can say that this is the birthplace of Satyagraha and the Tolstoy farm is Satyagraha’s laboratory,” Ranjan said.
Tolstoy Farm was a self-sufficient commune founded by Gandhi during his stay in the city. After being completely destroyed, the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Organization, led by veteran Gandhi activist Mohan Sheila, is currently restoring it.
Hira requested community support for the project.
Even Nelson Mandela, who became South Africa’s first democratically elected president after serving 27 years in an apartheid white minority government, acknowledged Gandhi’s influence on his own political education, Ranjan said.
“As a result, Gandhi’s views became the guiding principles in the struggle against oppression in South Africa and India. We cannot pay enough respect to what he has done for us and the human race in our two countries,” said Ranjan.
“Many leaders have followed the Gandhi principles, including Martin Luther King Jr. and Barack Obama. Even today, leaders such as French President Emmanuel Macron still consider it important,” Ranjan said.
“Let us follow Gandhi’s path of non-violence and truth and embrace the cultures of other communities so that we can experience ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’ (the world is one family),” she concluded.
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from the Syndicated News feed, the body of the content may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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