‘Mahatma has something for every challenge facing world’

There were over a thousand delegates, representing 90 countries and 122 organisations, to assist the Congress to search for its soul and its own “ism”. If chairperson Sonia Gandhi had her say on day one with broadsides on inequality, globalisation and the need to protect those who needed it the most, the valedictory address saw Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in his South Commission mode, calling for an alternative lifestyle and harking back to “Gandhism” as the only lasting answer to today’s problems.

Former president of Zambia Kenneth Kaunda was there on the dais, as Bishop Desmond Tutu, in a charming speech spoke of “Uboontu” — a word “very difficult to translate, but it captures the essence of what it is to be human” — as something that Gandhi played on and turned into a strength. He also spoke of the “choice between non-violence and non-existence” being on offer.

South African freedom fighter Ahmed Kathrada, who had spent 12 years with Nelson Mandela in prison, read the Declaration at the end. If former president of South Africa Mandela in his video message yesterday spoke of the irony of 9/11 being the day Mohandas Karamchand launched his big idea of Satyagraha, Kenneth Kaunda did not hesitate in drawing parallel between terror and the ready fodder that an “unjust world” provides, on which only Gandhian remedies are likely to work.

Those on the stage may have been waxing eloquent from their respective points of view, but the audience also represented the support and the fascination that the Mahatma continues to exercise across continents.

Mahdi Agha Alikhani, general-secretary of the Youth Party of Iran, was there representing his party, which as he proudly puts it has “one 33-year-old member in the Iranian National Assembly”. A party with 2000 members, they fight elections in Iran and are supporters for Khatemi — a daunting task in Iran today. “Gandhi is familiar to all those students doing Politics, International and Asian studies. Of a total of 70 million Iranians, 40 million are below the age of 30. Gandhian philosophy is what will help the young find their way out of the war-torn society of today. It teaches us patience, and you know, the film on Gandhi was shown by state Iranian TV thrice last year,” says Alikhani.

A representative of the Palas Athena, an NGO in Brazil, Lia Diskin works with delinquents, and says they organised “155 activities across prisons for delinquents in Brazil between 14 and 18 years of age, and in 8 of those activities, we spoke of Gandhi, showed films, documentaries about another way of life”. Snapping her fingers, she says, “Forget the nuclear bombs, we have many other challenges in the world like environmental disaster, poverty and terrorism. Gandhi has something for all. Look at his central message of respect for living beings and not violating the earth. Did you know that years before it became fashionable, Gandhi used to write on the back of used letter-paper and envelopes, as he was conscious of the fact that each paper took a tree off and each tree took at least five years to make it?”

The Satyagraha party had star-participants from the immediate neighbourhood too like Asma Jehangir, leading human rights activist from Pakistan, apart from Badshah Khan’s grandson Afsandar Wali Khan. “It was very inspiring. This is what we need to resurrect. Look, the governments have tried to ensure that we don’t get to celebrate each other’s leaders. But our children do read and know about Gandhi. I myself is a fan of Gandhi and the mullahs back home took me on when I said that first, but many appreciated it too…,” said Asma.

The conference mooted an “institutional mechanism” — a Global Civil Society Forum — as a Satyagraha clinic of sorts for problems ailing the world. A mechanism with eminent representatives that would, in Sonia Gandhi’s words, “seek to offer solutions in keeping with the principle of Satyagraha”.