Gandhi honoured 150 years after birth

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This article was published 02/10/2019 (2353 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Many students demonstrate — witness last week’s climate change demonstrations in Winnipeg and around the world — but they didn’t receive coaching in non-violent protests from Mahatma Gandhi.

Krishnamurti Dakshinamurti, the president of the Mahatma Gandhi Centre of Canada in Winnipeg, is 90. Back when he was a teenager and studying at the University of Madras, he organized a student protest against British rule of India, when he met with Gandhi in 1946.

“Mahatma Gandhi was travelling in that part of the country and had a meeting with a few of us,” Dakshinamurti said on Wednesday.

“I had about half an hour with him. My impression of Gandhi at that time was he was like a stern schoolmaster. He very clearly pointed out to us, ‘I will disavow you the moment I hear any type of violence against person and property.’

“He said, ‘You have to keep in mind you are a fighter, but in a non-violent way. The moment you use violence is the moment you are no longer part of my freedom movement.’”

Dakshinamurti said that three months later, when he was leading 10,000 students against armed British police, he continued to keep Gandhi’s advice in mind.

“I was forced to face the British with their bayonets drawn. They were really taunting us. All I could think of about was my solemn commitment to Gandhi.”

Dakshinamurti said there was no violence during the four-hour peaceful protest and he credits Gandhi’s counsel for that.

The next year, the British agreed to grant independence to India.

“Many times elsewhere there were minor levels of confrontation and more violence,” he said. “The British were looking for any loophole to demonstrate to the population to use force. Any misstep by us could have ended up in violence, but we listened to him.”

Dakshinamurti said he never saw Gandhi again — he was assassinated in 1948 — but he later met a couple of people who were influenced by him in their own protests: Martin Luther King Jr., for civil rights in the United States, and Nobel laureate Linus Pauling, who was against nuclear-arms testing.

The Mahatma Gandhi Centre of Canada has joined with the Canadian Museum for Human Rights to hold two events to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Gandhi’s birth on Oct. 2, 1869.

The first was a free screening of the movie Gandhi, starring Ben Kingsley, on Wednesday. The second is the centre’s annual gala dinner, tonight at 6 p.m. Tickets cost $75 and can be purchased by contacting Sudhir Kumar at 204-229-8621 or emailing sudhirk48@gmail.com. 

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca