SA, India celebrate Satyagraha
2 October 2006
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who began a four-day visit to South Africa on Saturday to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi's founding of the Satyagraha philosophy in the country, has described tracing Gandhi's footsteps as a "soul-stirring" experience.
Shortly after his arrival on Saturday, Singh took a train ride from Durban to Pietermaritzburg, simulating the one Gandhi took in 1893, when he was forcefully removed from a whites-only compartment.
This was one of the events that led to the launch on 11 September 1906 of the Satyagraha movement, with Gandhi at the helm, promoting non-violent (or "passive") resistance against apartheid in South Africa and British colonial rule in India.
"Mr Gandhi laid a spiritual foundation," Singh said. "And today we are realising his dream by strengthening relations between India and South Africa."
Accompanied by South African Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and Minister in the Presidency Essop Pahad, Singh then laid a wreath at the Mahatma Gandhi statue in Pietermaritzburg's city centre.
On Sunday, Singh and South African President Thabo Mbeki unveiled a plaque dedicated to registers of unjust laws at Resistance Park on Umbilo Road in Durban, where the South African Indian community began non-violent resistance against anti-Indian laws.
Following the unveiling of the plaque, the two leaders moved to Ohlange Institute, where Singh laid a wreath at the grave of Dr John Dube, the founder of the institute and the first president of the South African Native National Congress.
Dube was known to have had close contact with Gandhi as his neighbour at Phoenix.
The two presidents then moved to the Gandhi Settlement at Phoenix, where they toured the Gandhi home and printing press and met members of the Gandhi family.
Singh told journalists that he was introduced to Gandhi's philosophy by his parents while still a young boy.
"For me this visit is very emotional, and it is a spiritual moment to be in a country that transformed Mahatma," Singh said.
He added that Gandhi would have been proud that India and South Africa shared a common heritage derived to a great degree from his teachings.
Mbeki praised India, saying that the people of that country and South Africa had collaborated in the struggle for liberation for more than 100 years.
"Satyagraha defined a special relationship we have with the Indians," Mbeki said, adding that India was home to many South Africans and "a kind friend" to whom they could always go for assistance.
Mbeki and Singh later addressed the public at Kingsmead-Sahara Stadium in Durban, where a concert featuring a range of African and Indian music wound up the Satyagraha centenary celebrations.
Mbeki told the crowd that, during the Bhambatha uprising in 1906, it was Gandhi who led an ambulance corps to help the wounded Zulu people.
"Over the years the work of Mr Gandhi - expressed through Satyagraha with its unshakable advocacy of respect for honesty, the truth, loyalty to principle, perseverance in the struggle for justice - was to influence generations of brave men and women as they fought for freedom," Mbeki said.
"We are immensely proud that we share with our sister country, India, a common hero, Mahatma Gandhi."
Also addressing the crowd, Singh said South Africa had shown that it was possible to resolve even the bitterest of differences with a spirit of reconciliation.
"You live the life Mahatma died for," Singh said. "On this centenary of Satyagraha, let us all pledge to build the world of Gandhi's dream."
Source: BuaNews
