NELSON MANDELA'S UMBILICAL BOND WITH MAHATMA GANDHI

Nelson Mandela was, in many ways, during his lifetime, a practitioner of Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy of Satyagraha or Truth Force, passive resistance and Ahimsa or non-violence.

- AMB MANJU SETH (RETD)*

Mandela referred to Gandhiji as his role model and was inspired by Gandhiji to lead South Africa’s journey to independence, and was some times referred to as the ‘Gandhi of South Africa’. While Mandela and Gandhiji never met both were linked by a passion to end oppression and bring about change and took up the cause of their respective colonised countries and their subjugated people, inspiring them to resist oppression. Gandhiji’s philosophy and approach left an indelible mark on Mandela and it shaped his sociopolitical journey in South Africa. Though we cannot really compare Mandela and Gandhiji, some of the similarities in the two leaders include Gandhiji’s emphasis on moral power being a force to reckon with and Mandela too believing in the power of moral uprightness; both were lawyers who spent time in jail in Johannesburg’s Old Fort prison (Gandhiji in 1906 and Mandela in 1962). It is said that it was during Mandela’s prison term of 27 years in the Robben Island prison, where the room was full of books of Gandhiji and other classics, spent in meditation and reflection, that the bitterness left his soul. Mandela and Gandhiji shared the conviction that all suppressed people, whatever their religion, ethnicity or caste must stand together against their oppressors.