Tag: Mahatma Gandhi

  • ‘His noble principles are globally relevant’: PM Modi pays tribute to Mahatma Gandhi at Raj Ghat

    By ANI

    NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid floral tribute to the father of the nation Mahatma Gandhi on his birth anniversary at Raj Ghat. Paying homage to Mahatma Gandhi on his birth anniversary, PM Modi on Saturday said Bapu’s principles are globally relevant and give strength to millions.

    राष्ट्रपिता महात्मा गांधी को उनकी जन्म-जयंती पर विनम्र श्रद्धांजलि। पूज्य बापू का जीवन और आदर्श देश की हर पीढ़ी को कर्तव्य पथ पर चलने के लिए प्रेरित करता रहेगा।I bow to respected Bapu on Gandhi Jayanti. His noble principles are globally relevant and give strength to millions.
    — Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) October 2, 2021
    “Tributes to the Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi on his birth anniversary. I bow to respected Bapu on Gandhi Jayanti. The life and ideals of Pujya Bapu will continue to inspire every generation of the country to walk on the path of duty. His noble principles are globally relevant and give strength to millions,” he tweeted.

    Born on October 2, 1869, in Porbandar town of Gujarat, Mahatma Gandhi or Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi adopted a non-violent resistance and was at the forefront of the freedom struggle against colonial British rule with utmost patience.

    This led to India finally achieving its independence in 1947. Fondly known as Bapu, his unwavering belief in ‘Swaraj’ (self-governance) and ‘Ahimsa’ (non-violence) won him accolades across the world. Globally, Gandhi’s birth anniversary is celebrated as the International Day of Non-Violence. Several events were held in India and across the world to mark the occasion.

  • Rajnath Singh to unveil first Gandhi statue in Lakshadweep on Saturday

    By Express News Service

    KOCHI: The first-ever statue of Mahatma Gandhi in Lakshadweep will be unveiled by Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh at Kavaratti at an event organised by the island administration to commemorate the 152nd birth anniversary of the Father of the Nation at 6pm on Saturday. 

    Lakshadweep administrator Praful  Khoda Patel will be the chief guest. The administration has organised a three-day fest which will culminate with the unveiling of the statue. The celebrations started with a sand art display at Kavaratti near Mahatma Gandhi Square on Thursday. 

    On Friday, open water swimming and kayaking competitions were held. A tree plantation drive will be held near the children’s park on Saturday. The Save Lakshadweep Forum has decided to cooperate with the unveiling.

    “Though we have decided to continue our protest against the administrator, we will cooperate with the unveiling of the statue. The Lakshadweep district administration had passed a resolution demanding to install a Gandhi statue years ago and the Congress state unit had presented many representations to administrators. We have sought permission to meet Rajnath and will submit a memorandum of demands to him,” said Save Lakshadweep Forum convenor UCK Thangal.

  • ‘No one becomes great by dressing scantily’: UP Speaker takes potshot at Rakhi Sawant

    By PTI

    LUCKNOW: Uttar Pradesh Assembly Speaker Hriday Narayan Dixit Sunday said if one could become great just by dressing scantily, then Bollywood actor “Rakhi Sawant would have become greater than Mahatma Gandhi”, drawing flak from social media users.

    He made the remarks at the ‘prabuddh varg sammelan’ (meeting of intellectuals) organised by the BJP in Bangarmau assembly constituency of Unnao district.

    “In our opinion, no one has become an intellectual by writing a book on any topic.

    If that was the case for so many years, I have read at least 6,000 books,” Dixit said.

    He continued, “Gandhiji used to dress scantily. He used to wrap just a dhoti. The country called him Bapu. If somebody could become great just by taking their clothes off, then Rakhi Sawant would have become greater than Mahatma Gandhi.”

    A video clipping of his speech went viral on social media, following which he put out a series of clarificatory tweets in Hindi.

    “Some friends in social media are showing the clip of a video of my speech with an otherwise meaning. This was the part of my speech at the ‘prabuddh sammelan’ in Unnao, in which the moderator of the ‘sammelan’ introduced me saying that ‘I am an enlightened writer’.”

    “I took this point forward saying that no one becomes an intellectual by writing some books. Mahatma Gandhi used to dress scantily. The country called him ‘Bapu’. But, that does not mean Rakhi Sawant will become a Gandhi-ji,” Dixit said.

    “Friends, take my speech in the right context,” he said.

  • Nehru used to wear ‘Gandhi topi’ not the Mahatma: BJP leader; Congress fumes

    By PTI

    AHMEDABAD: Newly-appointed Gujarat BJP organisational general secretary Ratnakar has claimed that Mahatma Gandhi had never worn the cap which is named after him but Jawaharlal Nehru used to wear it, the remarks defended by Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel who on Monday said though the cap is famously known as “Gandhi Topi” no one had seen the Father of the Nation wearing it.

    “No one has ever found a photo in which Gandhiji can be seen wearing that Gandhi cap. Even I have never seen such a photo. Thus, what Ratnakarji said is true. Though the cap is known as ‘Gandhi Topi’, probably no one has ever seen a photo in which Gandhiji can be seen wearing a Gandhi cap,” Patel told reporters in Gandhinagar.

    Ratnakar, who was recently appointed as the new organisational general secretary of the Gujarat BJP, tweeted on Sunday asking why the cap is called “Gandhi Topi” when it was worn by Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister, and not by Mahatma Gandhi himself.

    He had shared a photo of Nehru wearing the cap juxtaposed with Gandhiji’s photo without a cap.

    Reacting sharply, Gujarat Congress said the people who never participated in the freedom struggle and sided with Britishers are now pointing fingers at freedom fighters and India’s first Prime Minister.

    “People who used to salute the British hat are passing such comments on freedom fighters and India’s first PM after coming to Gandhi-Sardar’s Gujarat.

    These people used to work for the Britishers and never participated in the freedom struggle.

    Same people are now desperate to change the history,” said Gujarat Congress Spokesperson, Manish Doshi.

  • V Kalyanam, Mahatma Gandhi’s former personal secretary dies at 99

    By PTI
    CHENNAI: Mahatma Gandhi’s former personal secretary V Kalyanam died here on Tuesday, his daughter said.

    Kalyanam (99) died due to old age related ailments, his younger daughter Nalini said.

    He was Gandhi’s personal secretary from 1943 to 1948, when the Mahatma was assassinated.

    Kalyanam had earlier shocked the country by claiming Mahatma Gandhi did not utter the words ‘Hey Ram’ when he was assassinated 73 years ago, but later said he had been then misquoted.

    “I never said Gandhiji did not say ‘Hey Ram’ at all. What I had said was I did not hear him saying ‘Hey Ram’,” he had told PTI earlier.

    He said he “could not hear anything due to the commotion after the incident”.

  • Mahatma Gandhi’s statue damaged by vandals in Madhya Pradesh

    By PTI
    MANDSAUR: Unidentified miscreants vandalized a statue of Mahatma Gandhi on a school campus in Madhya Pradesh’s Mandsaur district, police said on Wednesday.

    The incident took place on Tuesday night at the Government Higher Secondary School at Gujarbardia, said Additional Superintendent of Police Amit Verma.

    Afzalpur Police Station in-charge O P Tantwar said a case has been registered on the school principal’s complaint, and probe is on.

  • Gandhians recall Bapu’s visit to PMCH in 1947, appeal to not demolish heritage buildings

    By PTI
    PATNA: Three months before India’s independence, Mahatma Gandhi had visited the Patna Medical College and Hospital for an appendicitis surgery of his grand-niece Manu, and so worried Bapu was that he sat next to her, wearing a surgical mask and watched the entire procedure in the operation theatre.

    Seventy-five years later, Gandhian scholars and his admirers are now concerned over the fate of the over 100-year-old Bankipore General Hospital building in which the operation took place on May 15, 1947, and other heritage structures of the PMCH — Bihar and Odisha’s first medical college — which are set to be demolished as part of a mega redevelopment project.

    The state government’s move has upset a large number of alumni members, heritage lovers and scholars, who have already appealed to not dismantle these iconic structures and “restore and preserve some of the key landmark buildings for the posterity”.

    Manu Gandhi, in whose arms Mahatma Gandhi had collapsed after falling to bullets of an assassin on January 30, 1948, in Delhi’s Birla House, was his dutiful companion in the crusade for Independence and a chronicler of his life.

    “Seen, always by Bapu’s side, whom she considered as her ‘mother’, Manu had come along with Gandhi to Bihar several times. Together they had come to Patna again after visiting parts of Bengal post the communal riots. Manu had a tremendous pain in her stomach and she was taken to the PMCH for appendicitis operation,” said octogenarian Razi Ahmad, director of the Gandhi Sanghralaya in Patna.

    References to this medical operation, are there in Mahatma Gandhi’s own chronicles and diaries of Manu Gandhi, translated from Gujarati a few years ago, who was a very young freedom fighter herself, standing literally by her grandfather and even went to jail with him, he said.

    Ahmad, 82, an avowed Gandhian, said, he was “shocked” that instead of preserving the old buildings, that too when Gandhi’s legacy is attached to it, the government has planned to raze the heritage structures which were built as part of the evolution of this famed medical institution, and asked “if there could be a smart city without Gandhi’s legacy at its core”.

    “The old Bankipore station in Patna where Gandhi had arrived via a train on the way to Champaran in 1917, is gone. Sikander Manzil, where he had stayed during his first visit to Patna that year, is practically demolished. Now the PMCH building. What do centenary and anniversary celebrations mean, if we cannot preserve the actual, tangible legacy of Gandhi,” he rued.

    A Annamalai, director of Delhi-based National Gandhi Museum, said in his diary that on May 15, 1947, Gandhi who was in Patna then, noted: “Manu has a severe stomach-ache, she also had vomiting and is running temperature. I therefore called in the doctors who examined her. Manu’s complaint was diagnosed as appendicitis. I had her removed to the hospital immediately. She will be operated upon at night”.

    The Mahatma, who had already lost his wife Kasturba in Pune, a few years ago, goes on to describe in his diary. “I had put on a surgical mask and watched the whole operation”.

    “Gandhiji insisted to be present in the OT and doctors eventually obliged him. He sat next to the operation table, in his trademark ‘dhoti’ and a mask on his face. Unfortunately, not many people know about this episode. The Bihar government should preserve this legacy of Gandhi by preserving the PMCH’s old hospital building. Demolishing it would be loss of an institutional heritage and Bapu’s legacy,” Annamalai said.

    Annamalai, who authored, ‘Gandhi’s Experiment with Health’ for Indian Journal of Medical Research in 2019 to mark his 150th anniversary, said Mahatma Gandhi himself was operated for appendicitis in January 1924 at Sassoon Hospital in Pune, under a hurricane lamp, as there was a power outage.

    That old OT is now a memorial, and Patna should also save this historic building, he said.

    “He was a part of the Natal Indian Ambulance Corps in South Africa during the Second Boer War and so, he had a fair understanding of medical care. At PMCH, during Manu’s surgery, he wanted to actually see the operation. Isn’t it a fascinating story of Gandhi as a man of science,” Annamalai said.

    According to his diary entry, part of the Collected Works of Gandhi, on May 16, 1947, he wrote to Jaisukhlal Gandhi: “My pride has been humbled,” said a senior official of the Gandhi Smriti, situated in Birla House, where he spent the last 144 days of his life.

    He also appealed to the Bihar government to preserve and celebrate this architectural and cultural legacy, and not raze the hospital building and other heritage structures of the PMCH.

    The institution, originally christened as the Prince of Wales Medical College, was established in 1925.

    It was renamed to PMCH, a few years after Independence.

    The college had evolved out of the Temple Medical School, set up in 1874 in Patna.

    The double-storied old Bankipore General Hospital, more than a century-old, is endowed with a huge staircase and a Brirtish-era lift, and houses the old Hathwa Ward and Guzri Ward.

    It is fronted with a handsome structure with tall, magnificent Doric pillars on two sides.

    The old operation theatre where Manu Gandhi was operated is located on the first floor.

    Rare, old black and white photos of the May 15, 1947 surgery, showing Gandhi sitting on a chair inside the OT, are preserved in old photo libraries.

    The PMCH website also mentions about Manu Gandhi’s surgery.

    The PMCH Alumni Association had recently appealed to preserve and restore at least the administrative building which houses the Principal’s Office; and the iconic old Bankipore General Hospital Building, whose image had also adorned the postal stamp released on its platinum jubilee in 2000.

  • Bengal assembly polls should be violence-free, says governor Jagdeep Dhankhar

    By PTI
    KOLKATA: West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar on Saturday paid tribute to Mahatma Gandhi on his death anniversary and said that the assembly elections due in April-May should be devoid of violence.

    The Father of the Nation had preached for non-violence and it should be adhered to in the polls, he said.

    “In the coming polls in 2021, we have the opportunity to make it free of bloodshed and violence. The coming polls should not be blood-stained like the 2018 (panchayat) polls. There should be a complete air of non-violence and peace this time,” Dhankhar said.

    He told reporters that he was not speaking from “political considerations”.

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    While politicians will be engaged in politics, his aim is to safeguard the Constitution and save democracy, Dhankhar said after paying homage at the statue of Mahatma Gandhi on Mayo Road in Kolkata.

    “Everyone must follow Gandhiji’s motto of non- violence. He was an ambassador of peace,” he said.

    Reacting to this, West Bengal minister Bratya Basu said, the governor “must have uttered these words keeping in mind that Gandhiji was gunned down by fascist forces on this day. In our state, we will always keep resisting such forces.”

    Mahatma Gandhi was shot dead on this day in 1948 by Nathuram Godse.

    His death anniversary is observed as Martyrs’ Day.

  • Maharashtra governor pays tribute to Mahatma Gandhi on death anniversary

    By PTI
    MUMBAI: Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari on Saturday observed a two-minute silence to mark the 73rd death anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, which is also observed as Martyrs’ Day, an official said.

    The governor offered floral tributes to the portrait of the father of the nation at Raj Bhavan here, the official said.

    January 30 is observed as Martyrs’ Day in memory of those who laid down their lives for India’s independence.

    At Vidhan Bhavan, the state legislature building, officials garlanded the portrait of Mahatma Gandhi, offered tributes and observed a two-minute silence.

    The Mahatma Gandhi Smarak Samiti paid homage at the life-size statue of the Mahatma near Mantralaya, the state secretariat here.

    Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar paid tributes to Mahatma Gandhi at Rahuri in Ahmednagar district.

    Pawar said Gandhiji led the nation during the country’s freedom struggle based on the principles of truth and non-violence.

    “Gandhiji wanted self-sufficient villages. Mahatma Gandhi is not just an individual, but he is also a thought for the welfare of mankind and world.

    The thought is immortal,” he said.

  • India strongly condemns vandalisation of Mahatma Gandhi statue in US

    By ANI
    NEW DELHI: India on Saturday strongly condemned the vandalisation of Mahatma Gandhi’s statue in Davis, California, US.

    In a statement, the Ministry of External Affairs said the Government of India strongly condemns the malicious and despicable act against a universally respected icon of peace and justice.

    A statue of Mahatma Gandhi was vandalised by unknown persons at Central Park in the City of Davis, California. It was a gift to the City of Davis by the Government of India in 2016.

    The Indian embassy has taken up the matter with the US Department of State for a thorough investigation into the incident and appropriate action against those responsible, the statement further said.

    Meanwhile, the Consulate General of India in San Francisco Dr T V Nagendra Prasad has separately taken up the matter with the City of Davis and local law enforcement authorities.

    The Mayor of Davis deeply regretted the incident and informed that they have initiated an investigation, said the statement.

    The US Department of State has conveyed that this act of vandalism is unacceptable and expressed the hope that perpetrators will be brought to justice as quickly as possible.

    Local Indian community organisations have also condemned the act of vandalism.

    January 30 is the 73rd death anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, who led India to its freedom from the British colonial rule.