Good afternoon!
There are but few great men, who make an indelible impression on history.
Men whose memories last not months, years or decades; but are canonized for centuries, millennia, perhaps, even, for ever.
Today we gather to celebrate the life of one of these great giants.
He was, most simply, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi; born in British India on October 2, 1869.
A small, simple man. But a man whose towering ideals and profound wisdom changed the world.
He was driven by a burning desire to quell the flame of injustice that was British colonialism.
But his stuff was made of peace, calm and serenity.
Perhaps it was this inner calm that led Tagore to add the preface to his name: ‘Mahatma’, the ‘great soul’.
Gandhi’s struggle started when he was in his twenties, working as an expatriate lawyer in South Africa.
South Africa then, like India, was a British colony.
And it was a personal experience living South Africa, which made Gandhi question the political system under which he was living.
Gandhi was, one day, travelling by train in a first class carriage, when a ticket inspector demanded that he vacate his seat and move on into third class.
Gandhi protested that he had a first class ticket. But the inspector was unmoved and threw him off the train at the next station.
Gandhi was not thrown out of the train because he was inappropriately dressed at the time – in those days the London-educated Gandhi sported fine suits and smart, slick hair.
He was removed from a first class train carriage because he was an Indian. And under British colonial rule, Indians were considered second-class citizens.
Being thrown off a train, just for being Indian, made Gandhi reflect on the racism, exploitation and injustice that lay at the heart of British imperialism.
He felt something had to be done. And so he became a political activist, encouraging Indians to resist racist and unjust laws.
Gandhi mobilized people into a mass movement for change.
He protested against laws that banned Indians in South Africa from voting.
And he launched a campaign against the mass registration of Indians by the British authorities.
It was during this period in South Africa that Gandhi devised his strategy of non-violent resistance.
He called on his fellow Indians to disobey the British authorities and, rather than resort to violence, peacefully accept the inevitable punishments.
Gandhi’s activism inspired Indians to break the law en mass.
Indians went on strike when striking was officially banned. His supporters refused to register and many burned their registration cards.
Thousands were arrested, imprisoned and beaten.
Gandhi himself was arrested on numerous occasions.
Despite the intimidation, oppression and violence meted out by the authorities, Gandhi insisted on non-violent means.
The authorities managed to repress the unarmed Indian protestors.
But using violence against peaceful protestors caused a public outcry, embarrassing the British authorities.
The British, worried about the damage being done to their reputation, compromised with Gandhi and allowed Indians in South Africa greater freedoms.
This early victory convinced Gandhi of the power of non-violent resistance.
Gandhi’s most famous protests were to come later, when he launched a mass campaign to remove the British from India.
But it was in South Africa, during his early years, that he developed the principles of non-violent, civil disobedience.
When Gandhi returned from South Africa to India in 1915, he already had at his disposal a non-violent toolkit, which would ultimately win India its freedom from British rule, thirty-two years later.
Gandhi gave so much to India.
His legacy is the free, democratic and independent India we see today; rising to take its place as one of the world’s greatest powers.
The title of this lecture, however, is whether Gandhi remains relevant to today’s world.
I would argue that Gandhi remains as relevant today as he was in during his lifetime.
Moreover, I would stress, his significance applies not just to India but to people all around the world.
Gandhi’s legacy of non-violent resistance has inspired millions to break their own chains of oppression.
From the Civil Rights movement in the United States; to the fall of the Iron Curtain in Eastern Europe; to the Maldives, with its very own struggle for democracy.
All these movements borrow from Gandhi.
They borrow the core principle that to bring down the might of an Empire, with all its guns, bombs and tanks, you don’t fight fire with fire.
Total rejection of violence in all its forms is, strangely enough, the best way to combat dictatorship.
By protesting in the most morally righteous manner - through non-violent civil disobedience - the gross injustices that lie at the heart of all authoritarian regimes are exposed.
For example, Gandhi encouraged people to protest against unjust British laws that discriminated against Indians.
By employing non-violent means, Gandhi ensured that the end was always lose-lose for the aggressor.
When Gandhi’s supporters broke the law and the British didn’t respond, British authority was undermined because people were breaking the law and getting away with it.
But if the British authorities cracked down against the protestors, the brutality and illegitimacy of British colonialism was exposed for all to see.
Non-violent democrats in the Maldives employed the same, simple logic.
For instance, four years ago, freedom of assembly here was banned. If more than a handful of people gathered on the street, the government could legally arrest them.
When democracy activists openly broke these laws and staged peaceful protests, the government was placed in a lose-lose situation: when the government ignored the protestors, the ban on freedom of assembly was undermined.
But when the government cracked down on peaceful protestors and went for mass arrests it lost its legitimacy, because it was obvious the government did not rule by consent but by intimidation.
In the Maldives, as in Gandhi’s India, peaceful political activism forced the authoritarian regime to reform and, finally, quit.
And in both countries, it was the democracy protestors’ use of non-violence that ensured their victory.
Gandhi knew that employing violent means for ostensibly good ends, leads to the corruption of the cause.
As he said: “I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.”
Gandhi pioneered the use of peace as the most effective weapon in the battle against injustice and oppression.
Gandhi may have led the life of a simple man; but he was also an extremely accomplished political operator.
He knew that non-violent protest was a greater weapon than the combined arsenal of the entire British Empire armoury.
Along with non-violence, another measure of Gandhi’s strength was his ability to forgive his tormentors.
Gandhi harboured no hatred towards his enemies.
As he said during his ‘Quit India’ speech:
“I feel myself to be a greater friend of the British now than ever before. One reason is that they are, today, in distress. My very friendship, therefore, demands that I should try to save them from their mistakes.”
Again, Gandhi’s wisdom does not just apply to 1940s India.
The ability to move forward and not dwell on history is just as important today.
In the Maldives, it is crucial that we acknowledge the injustices of the past.
We must not ignore the fact that many people were tortured and suffered very badly during the past thirty years.
I understand, from my own personal experiences, how difficult it is to forgive.
It is especially difficult to forgive people who refuse to say sorry for the hurt they have caused.
But at the same time, I don’t believe that retribution, or going for a witch-hunt, will make us anymore happier.
I think we need to find a way of coming to terms with the past.
But I think it is equally important to move forward without rancour, without resentment or retribution.
As Gandhi so eloquently reminds us: ‘an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.’
The principles for which Gandhi stood also apply to the greatest threat facing the modern world: climate change.
The Maldives is a small country.
We emit less than 0.1% of global greenhouse gasses.
The Maldives has played no part in causing this climate crisis.
And yet, we stand to lose the most from global warming and rising seas.
It would be so easy for us to point the finger of blame at Western nations for causing the climate crisis.
It would be so easy for us to refuse to help solve a problem we did nothing to create.
However, the problem with this line of thinking is that it will definitely make ‘the whole world blind.’
Unless every country on Earth agrees to cut carbon pollution, all of us will suffer as temperatures rise.
On the most important issue of our time, we must not allow the blame game to endanger a planet-saving deal at Copenhagen.
The Maldives has announced plans to become the world’s first carbon neutral country.
We do this not because we can solve global warming on our own.
We do this because we hope to lead by example.
If the Maldives can become carbon neutral, bigger countries might follow.
By doing the right thing and showing the way, we can make a far bigger impact than blaming others for causing the problem.
To quote Gandhi: ‘Be the change you wish to see in the world.’
Peace, forgiveness and leading by example. This is the legacy of Mahatma Gandhi.
A legacy as true and as relevant in today’s world, as it was in the world Gandhi lived.
Allow me to end with the words of another of India’s great giants: Jawaharlal Nehru.
Nehru made these remarks shortly after Gandhi’s shot:
“Great and eminent men have monuments in bronze and marble, but this man managed, in his life-time, to become enshrined in millions and millions of hearts, so that all of us became somewhat of the stuff of which he was made.”
Thank you.
