Paras Ra­moutar

A se­ries of cul­tur­al ac­tiv­i­ties was held yes­ter­day (Mar­tyr­dom Day, Jan­u­ary 30) to mark the as­sas­si­na­tion of Ma­hat­ma Gand­hi, fa­ther of the In­di­an na­tion. There was a flo­ral trib­ute at the stat­ue of Gand­hi at Kew Place by In­di­an High Com­mis­sion­er, Shri Malay Mishra, and Min­is­ter of In­for­ma­tion, Neil Parsan­lal. A sim­i­lar trib­ute was paid at the stat­ue of Gand­hi by Mishra at Gand­hi Vil­lage, Debe, fol­lowed by de­vo­tion­al songs.

The rel­e­vance of the virtues and achieve­ments of Gand­hi to the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go can­not be un­der­stat­ed.

His wide­ly ac­knowl­edged demon­stra­tion of the su­pe­ri­or­i­ty of non-vi­o­lence over vi­o­lence as the pre­ferred op­tion for solv­ing hu­man prob­lems and al­le­vi­at­ing so­cial con­flicts can cer­tain­ly bring us, as cit­i­zens of a mul­ti-cul­tur­al so­ci­ety, clos­er to our col­lec­tive goal of a safe and peace­ful co-ex­is­tence. He was al­so an ecol­o­gist to the core, sim­pli­fy­ing his own needs and ad­vo­cat­ing a lifestyle which would not drain the earth's re­sources but be self-sus­tain­ing. Gand­hi ad­vo­cat­ed de­vel­op­ment with a hu­man face and spoke of the pow­er of truth. He be­lieved in the equal­i­ty of man and the su­prema­cy of of all re­li­gions. He deeply cher­ished free­dom. His was a pil­grim on his quest for truth.

?Com­mis­sion­er: Sec­tion pro­posed for Na­tion­al Li­brary

?The In­di­an High Com­mis­sion has pro­posed that a Gand­hi sec­tion be es­tab­lished at the Na­tion­al Li­brary in Port-of-Spain. "The High Com­mis­sion is will­ing to pro­vide ad­di­tion­al books, doc­u­men­taries, pa­pers to en­richen the li­brary on the works, phi­los­o­phy and writ­ings of Gand­hi," ac­cord­ing to In­di­an High Com­mis­sion­er Shri Malay Mishra at the pre­sen­ta­tion of more than 100 books to Min­is­ter of In­for­ma­tion Neil Parsan­lal, yes­ter­day, at the Na­tion­al Li­brary. Mishra was mark­ing the 62nd death an­niver­sary of Ma­hat­ma Gand­hi. He was as­sas­si­nat­ed on Jan­u­ary 30, 1948, on his way to prayer by a young Hin­du rad­i­cal. Mishra said the col­lec­tion rep­re­sent­ed not on­ly ideas, but a sum­ma­tion of ideas on Gand­hi's view of al­most every sub­ject in the world.

Parsan­lal spoke of the high re­gard the world main­tains for Gand­hi, a sim­ple lawyer who led the In­di­an peo­ple to free­dom. Parsan­lal added, "His works are em­u­la­to­ry from which all can draw lessons." Parsan­lal spoke of the pres­ence of the peo­ple of In­di­an ori­gins who came here 165 years ago, start­ing from 1845 to 1917. "Gand­hi's works in In­dia has had a tremen­dous im­pact on the In­di­an peo­ple and for young politi­cians every­where. He unit­ed the peo­ples of In­dia," he said. Gand­hi's life has in­flu­enced many peo­ple; Mar­tin Luther King Jr looked to Gand­hi as an ex­am­ple to bring about change for African Amer­i­cans in the Unit­ed States. (PR)