WANGANUI INDIANS CELEBRATE MAHATMA GANDHI’S BIRTHDAY

Wanganui Chronicle, 3 October 1947, Page 4

WANGANUI INDIANS CELEBRATE MAHATMA GANDHI’S BIRTHDAY

The 79th birthday of Mahatma Gandhi, by Indian reckoning, and the 78th by the European method of calculation, was remembered by the Indian community in Wanganui yesterday, when shops controlled by them were closed for the day. One of the members of the Wanganui Indian community said that Mahatma Gandhi was as deeply revered by Indians in New Zealand as by the millions with whom he was in more direct contact. His life of simple austerity and his devotion to the highest ideals had inspired millions of Indians, added the spokesman. Mahatma Gandhi was born on Oc tober 2 1869. and educated in India and London. Called to the Bar in 1891 he practised as a barrister and attorney in South Africa. He led the passive resistance campaign in South Africa, entering into a settlement with General Smuts in 1914. During the 1914-18 war he conducted a recruiting campaign He returned Io India am. inaugurated the Satyapaha movement, lie was elected President of the Indian National Congress in 1924. He has figured in several fasts and episodes in Indian life in the past 17 years His most recent, fast was aimed at ending disorders among his own people after the separate States ot India and Pakistan had been proclaimed, and the British began their withdrawn) from India.