Remembering Nelson Mandela on his birth Centenary and the influence of MK Gandhi over him.
On the 18th of July 1918 was born a leader in the small village of South Africa and his name was Nelson Mandela, who got incarcerated for almost three decades on the charges of pioneering the struggle against the oppressive policy of apartheid the minority whites against the blacks, and when he got released from the jail in 1990, he went on to become the first black president of South Africa in 1994.
The man with such indomitable spirit to fight for the justice of his countrymen was none other than ‘Nelson Mandela’. On the occasion of his birth centenary, it’s very important that we follow onto his footsteps and don’t let die the spirit within us to fight for the marginalized and deprived sections of the society.
Nelson Mandela, who died in 2013, was the leader of the African National Congress which fought against the apartheid in South Africa. He was influenced the leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. It was his selfless struggle for the abolition of apartheid and to establish the equality between whites and blacks which gathered him the support from across the world.
Nelson Mandela was impressed the Mahatma Gandhi’s principle of ‘Truth and non-violence’, to which he tried to adhere during his struggle against apartheid, which earned him the title of ‘Gandhi of Africa’.
At the inaugural ceremony of Gandhi Memorial in South Africa in 1993, he had said that the Mahatma is an inseparable part of the African history of movement against the racist in South Africa where he left an indelible influence of his unflinching determination in defiance of the wrong, in support of the right and in pursuit of justice for the non-white, through his philosophy of truth and nonviolence.
After he got released from jail in 1990, Government of India conferred him with the ‘Bharat Ratna’ (India’s highest civilian award) for his anti-apartheid efforts, thus he became the first non- Indian recipient of Bharat Ratna.
Currently, I am pursuing B.A(H) Political science from Satyawati College, Delhi University.
I like public speaking, writing and reading in my leisure.
