New book documents Gandhi's legacy launched in South Africa

A new book on Mahatma Gandhi launched here documents how attempts to remember his sojourn in South Africa were stifled by the apartheid-era minority white government and revived after former president Nelson Mandela acknowledged his role in starting off democracy in the country.

The book was launched on Mahatma Gandhi's 150th birth anniversary.

'150 Years of Celebrating the Mahatma the South African Legacy', by author and journalist Fakir Hassen, is a 160-page coffee table that records how commemorations of Gandhi's activities, including his birth and death anniversaries, were confined to the local Indian community only.

"Honoured across the world with statues, busts, and streets named after him, the apartheid government in South Africa provided absolutely no support, even while his great-grandchildren continued activities at the Phoenix settlement near Durban which Gandhi started during his tenure there.

The Phoenix settlement served as Mahatma Gandhi's home during his stay in South Africa.

"But as the advent of democracy dawned in 1990, a new wave of public acknowledgement of the great leader's role started in South Africa, sparked particularly by comments made by the late President Mandela," Hassen writes in the book.

"Buoyed by this, there have been scores of Gandhian events added during the first quarter century of South Africa's new-found democracy to the few that had been established already, such as the 30-year-old annual Gandhi Walk in Lenasia."