The Mahatma Gandhi Centre for Cultural Co-operation must embark on academic studies on the life, teachings and message of Gandhi as a universal peace-maker.
“His life of selflessness we all know. Although, he preached civil disobedience, he was an advocate of non-violence. He said humanity and its problems could be solved by embracing a policy of love. Laudation to his glory will never cease, the wonderful great Apostle of Peace”.
Thus sang, “Atilla the Hun”, politician, Raymond Quevedo in a calypso entitled Panegyric to Gandhi at his death in 1948. In Trinidad and Tobago, and across the globe then, and now Gandhi’s life, message and philosophy know no bounds, for he commanded international respect, admiration, and love for the principled stand he espoused on peace, non-violence, and respect for all mankind.
Today, January 30, 2023, marks the 75th death anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi who was felled by an assassin’s bullet in his prayer ground in New Delhi. The late Prime Minister Dr Eric Williams, in a radio broadcast marking his 135th birthday, October 2, 1959, commented: “Gandhi freed India by means of a particular method of political revolt, the method of passive resistance of a whole population.”
Dr Williams continued:” Students of history and politics are increasingly inclined to place Gandhi in the great tradition of revolutionists with the men of the French Revolution, with Karl Marx and others, in the sense that he developed a new method of struggle, carried through successfully over a vast area of human activities and has left it as a heritage which has been studied and followed in areas as Ghana, and Montgomery, Alabama.” To this, we must add South Africa with President Nelson Mandela and apartheid.
Gandhi’s death in India, the Caribbean and the world regarded as an international disaster even today, and this will continue for several generations to come.
Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violence must be integrated in the education system worldwide. In fact, Gandhi’s life should be compulsory reading by all students, teachers, civic leaders, politicians and leaders. For, to continue to ignore his thoughts on world peace is to continue to deny mankind the legacy of a continuously peaceful existence. Today, the world hides itself from itself because of the uncontrollable acts of terrorism which always incite bloodbaths, terror and gunshots.
Gandhi gave the world a philosophy of satyagraha defined as non-violence, truth and peace, and love. And this was founded on several moral and ethical pillars: the equality of man, the dignity of the human person, the transcendent nature of the soul of man, the supremacy of the spiritual over the material, the ultimate victory of truth over falsehood, the ultimate defeat of brute force by the all-pervading strength of the inner moral force of man.
is revered in Trinidad and Tobago, probably even more than in his homeland. There are several busts of Gandhi installed across this land, and his thoughts are continuously invoked at regular intervals by religious leaders and politicians.