• Friday, March 29, 2024

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India should support South Africa’s rebuilding after recent violence: Ela Gandhi

Ela Gandhi (Photo by RAJESH JANTILAL/AFP via Getty Images)

By: Shubham Ghosh

INDIA should back South Africa in its efforts to rebuild the country after the recent violence that rocked the African nation, Ela Gandhi, the granddaughter of Mahatma Gandhi, feels.

Gandhi, an 81-year-old peace activist who was born in South Africa, said in an online seminar which was organised on the occasion of India’s 75th Independence Day recently, that the recent violence that broke out in the Indian area of Phoenix, the big Indian township of Durban, was caused by a few people with criminal intention and they must be brought to book.

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Gandhi was speaking as a delegate from the Indian consulate in Durban, which has a major concentration of people of Indian descent.

“But it doesn’t mean that an entire community or an entire area is racist and is the cause of these few digressions that occurred. As we are building peace, one good thing that has come out of all this is the unity amongst the people,” Gandhi said, adding, “We are all getting together and working together and we are going to build peace in the country. I sincerely hope that the government of India and the people of India will once again help us to build this peace and to build common nation bonds in South Africa where we would not need to call people by different identities (by ethnic origins).”

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She said, “We will all be South Africa citizens and recognised as such.”

Violence broke out between two communities in the township of Phoenix and surrounding areas over social media posts following the violence over the arrest of former South African president Jacob Zuma on July 7.

Jaydeep Sarkar, the Indian high commissioner to South Africa who was present at the event, made an appeal for greater recording of the history of the Indian community in the African nation.

Sarkar told a story on the occasion about South Africa’s late president Nelson Mandela and his role in reconciliation. He spoke about a picture of Mandela with an elderly woman wearing a sari. He said he got to know that the woman was the widow of GR Naidoo who was a photographer at the time when Mandela was arrested. Many of his fellow activists had believed that Naidoo had betrayed by revealing Mandela’s location but the iconic leader never believed that and after coming out of prison, he called Naidoo’s wife.

Mandela was a prisoner for 25 years before he became South Africa’s first democratically elected president in 1994.

Shanil Haricharan, who heads the Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance in Cape Town, said India’s independence had been a turning point in the history of colonialisation across the globe.

Professor Dhiru Soni, director of Durban’s Regent Business School, spoke about some of the achievements of the Indian community in the academic field despite the discrimination of the apartheid era.

The event also saw dance and patriotic songs performed by both the local Indian community and the expatriate. A dance to the music of renowned Indian musician AR Rahman’s song ‘Jai Ho’ was also performed by a Black duo from Sweto, a township of the city of Johannesburg.

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