Sabarmati Ashram completes 100 years

Sabarmati Ashram completes 100 years

A GRAND celebration was held on Saturday, June 17, 1917, on the centenary of Sabarmati Ashram founded by Mahatma Gandhi. Mahatma’s grandson Gopalkrishna Gandhi, who attended the celebration, said at a time when the country is divided on the lines of religion and caste, Gandhi’s ideas have a special significance.

Two new permanent exhibition galleries on Gandhi’s life - My Life is My Message Gallery and Charkha Gallery - were opened at the Ashram on this occasion. Also, there was a tree plantation programme. Gandhi established the Ashram on June 17, 1917. As he became the leader of the freedom struggle, the Ashram virtually became the movement’s headquarters. It was also from here on 12 March 1930 that Gandhi launched the famous Dandi march and vowed not to return to the Ashram till India gets freedom.

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Historic statue of Mahatma Gandhi unveiled at Britain's Parliament Square

A galaxy of political leaders led by British Prime Minister David Cameron and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley were joined by Bollywood legend Amitabh Bachchan and the Mahatma Gandhi's grandson Gopalkrishna Gandhi at the ceremony to unveil the 9-foot (2.7m) bronze statue of India's Father of the Nation

A historic bronze statue of Mahatma Gandhi was unveiled on Saturday, March 14, 2015 at the Parliament Square, Britain, standing adjacent to iconic leaders like Britain's war-time Prime Minister Winston Churchill and anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela.

A galaxy of political leaders led by British Prime Minister David Cameron and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley were joined by Bollywood legend Amitabh Bachchan and the Mahatma Gandhi's grandson Gopalkrishna Gandhi at the ceremony to unveil the 9-foot statue of India's Father of the Nation.

Gandhi is the first Indian and the only person never to have been in a public office to be honoured with a statue at the Square.

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Newsletter: Not a woman you could cross

Not a woman you could cross

Gopalkrishna Gandhi

Mridula Sarabhai did more than any party for communal harmony and for human rights years before the latter phrase gained currency

It is Women’s Day and memories of certain amazing women swim into one’s thoughts.

To certain people a calling comes most naturally. Mridula Sarabhai, daughter of Mahatma Gandhi’s early collaborators Ambalal Sarabhai and sister of the nuclear scientist Vikram Sarabhai, was meant for the rough life. Born in 1911, she died at age 63 in 1974. She looked the rough role all right. One of the proudest women ever made by God, the most sneeringly contemptuous of cowardice and of ‘safe playing’, Mridula had more of a brave man in her than a woman. Ever in her Pathan salwar-kameez outfit with a man’s collar, she looked like she could pound an adversary on his nose without a moment’s thought. Or shower imprecations on him. And of adversaries she had no dearth.

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Newsletter: WOMEN EXTRAORDINAIRE

WOMEN EXTRAORDINAIRE

The Mahatma - and the Indian Independence movement - lost two determined and courageous women on February 22: Valliamma in 1913 and Kasturba in 1944

‘How can I forget her?’

Mohandas K Gandhi has not said that of any woman. ‘Woman’? ‘Girl’, really, from a Tamil family of indentured labourers working in the Transvaal, South Africa, where MKG had turned, with the turn of the 19th century, from lawyer to protester for the rights of the Indian community, from a barrister clutching a rail ticket no one around honoured to a statesman no one could ignore.

Let me give the reader Gandhi’s own description of the woman he was writing about: “Valliamma R Munuswami Mudaliar was a young girl of Johannesburg only 16 years of age. She was confined to bed when I saw her. As she was a tall girl, her emaciated body was a terrible thing to behold. ‘Valliamma, you do not repent of your having gone to jail?’ I asked. ‘Repent? I am even now ready to go to jail again, if I am arrested’, said Valliamma. ‘But what if it results in your death?’, I pursued. ‘I do not mind it. Who would not love to die for one’s motherland?’ was the reply.”

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