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House of Commons Celebrates 150th Birth Anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.

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House of Commons Celebrates 150th Birth Anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.

“Gandhism has even more relevance in this age, and Gandhi will inspire generations of individuals fighting for goodness of the society,” said UK’s Labour Party MP Virendra Sharma while addressing the Global Indian Summit.

You are the one who have excelled in your respective fields and India is proud of you,” said Virendra Sharma, the Member of Parliament from Ealing Southall at a ceremony organized in the United Kingdom, while addressing the Indian achievers who have made a place for themselves in their respective professions and are keeping the Indian flag high in the global arena.

 

The Achievers World in association with NRI Welfare Society, UK Chapter, organized the event on October 11, 2019. The summit this year commemorated India’s Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi on his 150th birth anniversary. Top business and corporate leaders and professionals from across the world participated in it.

 

Amidst a highly elite gathering in British Parliament, the House of Commons, London, the Mahatma Gandhi Samman and Brand Impact Awards were presented. The Achievers Awards are given to Indians creating wonders with their Midas touch globally. The aim is to felicitate Indians creating a name for themselves and the country in different walks of life which paves the way towards developing new friendships and global partnerships.

 

Remembering the Mahatma, his ideologies and principles, Sharma said: Mahatma Gandhi’s ideology is universal and will remain always relevant. “His ideology on vegetarianism, self-governance, self-reliance, cleanliness, etc. is a solution to almost all the problems of the modern times.” Gandhism today is alive and active outside India. In fact, today there is hardly any country in the world where some activities are not going on along the Gandhian lines. In short, there is a global nonviolent awakening and awareness after Gandhi,” he said. “The name of Mahatma Gandhi transcends the bounds of race, religion and nation-states, and has emerged as the prophetic voice of the 21st century.” “Today, Gandhi is remembered for his passionate adherence to the practice of non-violence and his supreme humanism, in every corner of the world. In fact, from the Dalai Lama to Desmond Tutu and from Martin Luther King to Nelson Mandela, many world leaders were inspired by Mahatma Gandhi, in different ways.”

Sharma gave the examples of former US President Barack Obama and Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi, how they are inspired by the Mahatma’s thoughts. While Obama had said that the Mahatma embodies the kind of transformational change that can be made when ordinary people come together to do extraordinary things, Indian leader Jawaharlal Nehru had described Gandhi as “A powerful current of fresh air…like a beam of light.”

 

Sharma quoted Winston Churchill who in an address to the Council of the West Essex Unionist Association on February 23, 1931, had said: “It is alarming and also nauseating to see Mr Gandhi, an Inner Temple lawyer, now become a seditious fakir of a type well known in the East, striding half-naked up the steps of the Viceregal Palace, while he is still organizing and conducting a defiant campaign of civil disobedience, to parley on equal terms with the representative of the King-Emperor.” To this Gandhi had replied: “Dear Prime Minister, you are reported to have a desire to crush the simple ‘Naked Fakir’ as you are said to have described me. I have been long trying to be a ‘Fakir’ and that naked — a more difficult task. I, therefore, regard the expression as a compliment though unintended.”

 

The Indian origin Member of House of Commons, Sharma, said: “Whether it is Joan Baez, the American folk singer, or Cesar Chavez, the American social activist, or Joanna Macy, the environmental activist, or Mubarak Awad, the non-violent Palestine leader, Gandhi has inspired and will continue to inspire many political, social and religious leaders all over the world.”

 

“If we say that the 21st century is the century of the common man, then we see that Gandhism has even more relevance in this age, and Gandhi will inspire generations of individuals fighting for goodness of the society.” He concluded his speech quoting Albert Einstein on the Mahatma: “Generations to come, it may well be, will scarce believe that such a man as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth”.

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