Friday 2 October, 2009   :   9.00AM
Venue:  MGM HIGH SCHOOL, VATUWAQA, SUVA

Chairperson Board of Visitors, Mr Kamlesh Kumar,       
                                                                                                                                                          
Principal,  Mr Abhay Prasad,      
                                                                                                                                                                        
Teachers,

Parents, Students of MGM and RSMS. 

I am honored to be here this morning on Gandhi Day.  I hope to keep this presentation as brief and to the point so you enjoy the morning with other items of greater interest.

You all are probably much more conversant with the life, teachings and philosophy of Mohandas Karam-Chand Gandhi as you have spent significant time in an environment close to his ideologies.  As you grow to adulthood you must learn that the stories as told to you by meaningful individuals, that include parents, teachers, priests, talatalas, chief guests and other knowledgeable individuals has a more significant moral. That moral behind the story is of greater significance then the story itself. It is not the story but the moral that holds the key to make life successful.

Mahatma Gandhi was one of those very successful persons not only in his lifetime but also in the history of mankind. Have you asked yourself the morals behind the stories you may have heard about the person we fondly address as the Mahatma, Gandhi-ji, and Bapuji? His deeds influence on your life, communities, people, society, humanity, those of your ancestors, nationally in Fiji, internationally, on Democracy and Human Rights? Probably not! If not lets journey together on this unfathomed sea.
                
Gandhi was born the fourth son of a farmer in Porbander in Gujarat, India. At school he had difficulty-spelling Kettle as in the container to boil water to make tea. He travelled to distant far off London to study Law, as was the case in those days of the British Raj. The British Empire had grown in those days and absorbing English values were important. His struggled as a foreign student surviving on bare minimum. Some of you some day will travel abroad to experience that too especially at university level.
                
Having attained his graduate status he remained unemployed in India to seek work in South Africa of a Muslim merchant Gandhi left home for his new home of 20 years in British South Africa. There he worked amongst indentured labourers and their kin, the Colored population who had similarly been sent to work the sugar cane fields, mines for the British Empire. His milestone events, which I recall seeing on the movie “Gandhi” was seeing him thrown out literally from a train because he was colored despite being a London, trained and registered lawyer. Being beaten up by white cops and the development of his “Socialism” inspired Farm. The Tolstoy Farm named after his Russian Philosophical Mentor, Leo Tolstoy.

Tolstoy ideas on socialism worked on Gandhi’s  psyche and that which he used to try and rid India of her caste system. However we are still experiencing the caste stigma even in distant places like Fiji where India-Born Indians migrated. Gandhi-ji sent his close friend from his South African days to Fiji.  Rev. Charles Andrews later known as Deenbandoo (Friend of the People) was asked to give Gandhi-ji an insight of the atrocities being dished out to your ancestors in the Girmit era. Rev. Andrews’s memorial stands in Suva-The Deenbandoo Primary School run under the auspices of the Indian Association. That organization was the first and most comprehensive organization to look after the welfare of the migrant population and was also formed by non other the friend sent to Fiji by the Mahatma, The late Honorable A. D. Patel.

Through the sustained efforts of the Mahatma and his friends, India eventually stopped the Indentured labour scheme of “Limited Slavery” to Fiji after the stories of extreme atrocities reached India. Such atrocities as of Kunti in Wainibokasi, Fiji were instrumental in the end of indentured system worldwide. 
Gandhiji’s evolving philosophy was ill understood on the Indian subcontinent. The oneness of the Indian migrant populations through the brotherhood of being a ship mate (Jahaji Bhai) superceded the Secularism, caste-ism, religious divisions that unfortunately still abounds in modern India. This is evident at a possibly more scaled down level in areas like Fiji and other former British territories.   

What the Indian majority understood were the Philosophy of Ahinsa and Satyagraha.

Ahinsa (non violence).

Satyagraha (truth).

All this speaks highly of a person with unbound discipline, energy, dedication, resilience, vision and strategy that took on the might of the British without an army. India had never invaded another country.
                  
For the young students from RSMS,  you are being nurtured under the stewardship of a great Ethnic Fijian Leader of our times (Ratu Sukuna) was an outstanding person in the likes of Mahatma Gandhi.  He also trained as a Lawyer in London, served in the Army with distinction and led his people with eloquence and steadiness as a Chief, forming institutions to project their vanua, culture and heritage.

All of you have the potential of becoming like the mahatma. The question is whether you are on track? Yes, I agree you are young. But the footing and foundations are laid early. Are you on track for greater things in life or are you a rudderless ship adrift in the Pacific Ocean dependent on the whims of the current, tide and destiny? As I stated at the being of this presentation. The moral of the story is much more relevant then the story itself.
                 
God gave you a beautiful mind. He has given you the choice of becoming a valuable citizen of this world. Use that mind and become a thinking person in the likes of the Mahatma. Become responsible for your deeds. Like Gandhi find the truth in your existence. Gandhi lost his life fighting extremism.

Like other great leaders who have been crucified and shot his victory should enlighten your lives. So you must stand up and be counted. You are the future. You are the world of tomorrow. Through you we will see equality and the brotherhood of mankind in your own environment. Through you we will see National integration if you reflect on the Gandhian principles.

Have a thoughtful day.   Let you be inspired.

God bless you all. 

Thank you.

Neil Sharma.

Minister of Health