Children of Gandhi: another meaningful story that didn't see the light of the day...

"Christ furnished the motivation, Gandhi furnished the method"- Martin Luther King Jr.

Gunjan Sangwan

In the unknown, quaint village of Pelyorinho in Brazil near the city of Salvador de Bahia, on a cobbled, battered old street while passing by the innumerable white washed houses don't be surprised if you chance upon a small placard declaring the name of the street as ' Filhos de Gandhi', Children of Gandhi. If you keep walking you can also spot a church by the same name. Yes, a church with that name that has its own white robe, blue turban clad contingent in the Rio de Jeniro festival!

Even if it sounds incredible at first, it happens to be motivational factor behind a man's tryst with Gandhi, the father of our nation. So much so, that today, the same man, 32-year-old Delhi-based documentary filmmaker Shailendra Uniyal with his friends Janhavi Prasada, an independent documentary filmmaker herself and Anup Sharma, a web designer has created a virtual museum on Gandhi, www.childrenofgandhi.com, which was launched by Archbishop Desmond Tutu in Cape Town on 7 th December.

Targeting the global youth, the project chronicles almost thirty stories of people like Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Martin Luther King Jr., Greenpeace founder Rex Weiler, Kwame Nkrumah, former Prime Minister of Ghana, Former President of Zambia Kenneth Kaunda, showing how it was Gandhi and his philosophies that inspired each of these people and organizations in fighting their battles.

"It is about Mahatma Gandhi's global legacy. The idea took root on a trip to the forests in Peru some three years back. My guide during the expeditions asked me about my native land. He was an uneducated man who hardly spoke English, Spanish being the native language, so when I told him about India he couldn't place it on the map. I then showed him a 100-rupee note and to my utter astonishment he immediately remarked, 'Oh, you're from Gandhi's land.' I was stumped. A man, who doesn't even know the name of his own President, not just knew about Gandhi, but also recognized him. That was when I realize how truly global was the appeal of the father of our nation." Opines Uniyal.

Though initially he thought of making a documentary film, once the stories started unraveling the team realized the true potential of the project. When they did start looking around, what fascinated them was that there was a tale inspired by Gandhi in practically every nook and corner of the globe, right from USA to Argentina, Palestine to Ghana. Also, they wanted the project to a long lasting impact that wouldn't have been possible with a documentary film.

Annotates Prasada, "We wanted to promote peace as a way of life. Documentary films though are interesting don't have the scope that Internet has. That's when we decided to work towards putting together a museum on the Internet. Also he participation of people was possible only through that medium. We've targeted the youth all across the globe in this project as they are the people who matter the most and are influenced the most today."

Although Mahatma Gandhi inspired a whole generation of freedom fighters and thinkers, from Einstein to Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela to Desmond Tutu, truly how global his reach is, we the people of India hardly realize. His relevance in today's world seems to be more than ever before. In India everything has a symbolic importance and it's this notion that the Children of Gandhi is trying to fight. Peace and non-violence for them is not relevant only during war filled, turbulent days, its pertinence gets multi fold especially during the peaceful days. The example of Greenpeace being the best. "In 1971, Rex Weyler, founder of Greenpeace, set sail with a few activists from Vancouver in Canada in a small boat to protest against underground nuclear testing in Alaska. Though their boat was intercepted, the initiative created environmental awareness like never before and Weyler told us how his team follows Gandhi's tactics of staging dramatic yet peaceful protests. It's to show that people would place them in harms way for a principle." Explains Uniyal.

But the path to putting these stories together and getting interviews, their writings et al, was not easy. They faced their bad days when even after innumerable phone calls, emails and personal visits they couldn't get to speak to many of Gandhi's ardent fans and followers. Prasada narrates one such tale. "There was a man in Argentina, Mario Marcelo who has set up this Community Service Bank. A bank that works without money and uses the working hours that people contribute as the currency. Marcelo started the project because of a detailed study of Gandhi's ideas wherein he had called on for a formal economic and social system that depended not on massive scale production, but on production by masses. It took us almost 2 years to track him down and get an interview from him. But in the end, it was all worth it."

The project was launched in Cape Town as the team felt that South Africa had a significant symbolic relevance in making Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi Mahatma Gandhi. "He started his struggle for Nonviolence here and it was in South Africa that he faced his first most brutal discriminations. That was why we wanted it to be launched here." Smiles Uniyal. With a peace workshop to be held on 30 th January 2008 in Delhi that will include children from 30 conflict zones from all over the world, the site will soon be launched in Hindi, French, Spanish, Arabic, Tamil and Telugu too. They also plan to provide schools with Peace kits, a package of these motivational tales with various other write-ups.

Even today if you go to Bilin in Palestine you will find a wall full of Gandhi's graffiti on it, a symbolic wall that the people of this village fought over with the Israeli forces. Each household in this village keeps a picture of Gandhi, as he is their hero.