Almost 2-month long march kicked off to celebrate Gandhi's birth anniversary

An ambitious countrywide 1,200-km walk in honour of Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela has kicked off here to mark the start of the 150th birth anniversary celebrations of Gandhi, a revered leader both in India and South Africa.

The six-man 'Gandhi@150 to Mandela@100' team plans to walk from Constitutional Hill - where both Gandhi and Mandela were once held as political prisoners when it was the Old Fort jail - to Mvezo in the Eastern Cape Province, where Mandela was born.

The team is led by Nitin Sonawane, who has traversed almost every continent on his bicycle. Joining Sonawane from his hometown of Pune are Yogesh Mathuria, Sangram Patil and Dilip Tambolker.

"We plan to walk an average of 25-km per day until we reach our destination in Mvezo on November 30," Sonawane told PTI on Tuesday as they set off after garlanding a bust of Gandhi next to a permanent exhibition on his life at the Constitution Hill.

"Along the way, we will visit schools, colleges and universities to share our views, as espoused by Gandhi and Mandela, on the importance of non-violence for a peaceful society, hence we are calling our walk the 'Peace Pilgrimage'," said Sonawane.

The other members of the team are Jalandharnath Channole from the Gandhi Ashram and Japanese monk Nippozan Myohoji, who joined the team after being inspired by Sonawane during his walk through Japan.

"We also intend to plant 10,000 seeds of the indigenous syringa tree along the route, which will also take in historical sites related to both great leaders in many cities and towns where they led people in opposing oppression during their times," Sonawane added.

Although local people have on several occasions walked the 700-km route from Johannesburg to Durban, passing through historic Gandhian sites along the way, the current project is first of its kind as there has never been an attempt to retrace Gandhi and Mandela's steps together in this way.

Meanwhile, the Indian High Commission and its Consulate in Johannesburg organised a seminar on Tuesday at the Constitution Hill, the seat of the highest court in the land - the Constitutional Court, to mark the launch of the 150th birth anniversary celebrations for Gandhi.

The court is on the same site which was once, in the apartheid era, a prison where both Gandhi and later Mandela were imprisoned during their resistance to discriminatory laws in South Africa.

Indian Consul General K J Srinivasa told the gathering that a series of major events were being finalised across the country in consultation with the provincial governments to mark the 150th year of Gandhi's birth.

Speaking on the occasion, historian Raymond Suttner said Gandhi "became a non-racialist and cooperated with all population groups."

Supporting this view, veteran activist Prema Naidoo said those who accuse Gandhi of racism "should look beyond his early years, understanding these years as a necessary part of the evolution of a revolutionary to whom we should look for guidance and inspiration in the troubled world today, as his principles will lead the world away from the inequality, discrimination, violence and intolerance".

"The legacies of both Gandhi and Mandela are challenged today, mainly by young people who call Mandela a sell-out and Gandhi a racist," said Shan Balton, Executive Director of the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation, named after the late struggle stalwart who served 26 years in prison, one less than Mandela, as a political prisoner under apartheid.

The Foundation's main aim is to fight racism and discrimination.

"Both these issues need to be responded to, but unfortunately in South Africa, we have shied away from this debate. We have not had public forums or intellectual engagements on these issues. We have run away from it to the point where a statue of Gandhi can be pulled down in Ghana and we remain quiet," Balton said.

Balton said social media posts on the eve of Gandhi's birthday were asking why his statue is still up in the centre of Johannesburg, with some calling for its removal.

"Unless there is an honest and robust discussion about this, those statues will come down, with the people who bring them down not understanding the context within which the accusations that they make of Gandhi being racist are understood," Balton said.

(With inputs from agencies.)