Trinidad and Tobago marks Gandhi's death anniversary

Mahatma Gandhi's life showed that it was possible to change society without firing a gun, said Alderman Junia Regrello, Mayor of San Fernando city here, as he opened a photographic exhibition to mark the Father of the Indian Nation's death anniversary.

The exhibition, "The Life And Times of Mahatma Gandhi", was organised by the Mahatma Gandhi Institute for Cultural Co-operation and the Indian High Commission, in collaboration with the San Fernando City Corporation at the City Hall on Monday evening.

"We are here to celebrate the life of a man who made a significant contribution to the Commonwealth of Nations in particular. His mannerism, his attitude, his approach to politics, without picking a gun, without firing a bullet, he transformed India and transformed the Commonwealth of Nations, and he triggered off a string of Independence across the Commonwealth countries that followed," Regrello said.

Gandhi is of the same ilk as Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela, both of whom preached non-violence as a force for change, he added.

Indian High Commissioner Bishwadip Dey said: "Gandhi becomes much more relevant when his teachings of truth, non-violence and co-existence come in when you practice non-violence, when you practice truth, when you practice peace, there can be no crime situation."

Scores of people turned up to view the exhibition, including officials of the Indian High Commission.

The observance of Gandhi's birth and death has become an annual ritual in Trinidad and Tobago, particularly when more than 44 per cent of the population form the Indian diaspora whose forefathers hailed from what is now Uttar Pradesh and Bihar between 1845 and 1917 to work in the sugar and cocoa plantations.

(Paras Ramoutar can be contacted at paras_ramautar@yahoo.com)

--IANS

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