President Mohamed Nasheed has said that Gandhi remains as relevant today as he was during his lifetime. He made this statement in an lecture, entitled “Is Gandhi Relevant Today?”, delivered at the Auditorium of Faculty of Engineering Technology.
The lecture was organised by the High Commission of India in the Maldives in association with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to mark the International Non-Violence Day and the 140th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.
In his lecture, the President said that Gandhi’s legacy of non-violent resistance had 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’ very own struggle for democracy – all these movements borrow from Gandhi,” said the President.
In his lecture, President Nasheed drew parallels between the struggle for democracy in the Maldives and Gandhi’s non-violent resistance against the British rule in India.
The President said that by employing non-violent methods, “Gandhi ensured that the end was always lose-lose for the aggressor”.
He said that non-violent democrats in the Maldives employed the same “logic” during the democratic reform movement in the Maldives.
“In the Maldives, as in Gandhi’s India, peaceful political activism forced the authoritarian regime to reform and finally, quit”, added the President.
Speaking to a packed audience, the President said that Gandhi’s ability to forgive his tormentors was a measure of Gandhi’s strength.
Referring to the Maldives’ own situation, the President said that it was crucial that we acknowledge the injustices of the past. He, however, added he did not believe “retribution, or going for a witch-hunt, will make us happy”.
The President said that Gandhi’s principles also apply to the greatest threat facing the modern world, which, he said, was climate change.
Quoting Gandhi’s statement, ‘be the change you wish to see in the world’, the President said that the Maldives decided to become carbon neutral, with the hope that bigger countries might follow.
Earlier this year the Maldives announced to become the world’s first carbon neutral country.
Concluding his address, the President said that peace, forgiveness and leading by example was the legacy of Mahatma Gandhi and that the legacy was “as true and as relevant in today’s world, as it was in the world Gandhi lived”.
The lecture was attended by senior government officials, parliamentarians, a cross-section of the population, including students, Indians, and the media.
