*Some excerpts of my speech delivered in the function organised by the Saturday Free School, Philadelphia on the occasion to commemorate 75th year of Independence of India 🇮🇳 on 18th August, 2022*.

 *Some excerpts of my speech delivered in the function organised by the Saturday Free School, Philadelphia on the occasion to commemorate 75th year of Independence of India 🇮🇳 on 18th August, 2022 at Mayor's Reception Room, Philadelphia City Hall*.

*Chair: 

*Serafina Harris, SFS*.

 *Dr. Anthony Monteiro, SFS* 

and 

*Ram Mohan Rai, GGF*.

Dear brothers and sisters,

Today I am fortunate to have the opportunity to attend this grand ceremony organized by the Saturday Free School in Philadelphia, a historic city in the USA, on the completion of 75 years of India's independence. On this occasion, on behalf of myself, my wife Krishna Kanta Rai and our organization Gandhi Global Family, I extend my warm greetings to all of you.

Small Gandhi servants like us are trying to do a great job of spreading Mahatma Gandhi's ideas of truth and non-violence to the world. We believe that only Gandhian thought can save entire humanity from its tragedies.

*Mr Ghulam Nabi Azad, President of Gandhi Global Family has sent a special greeting on this occasion, which I would like to read to you. Mr Azad is a very seasoned politician of India who has worked for 40 years of his life by association with the Indian National Congress and especially under the leadership of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. In 1969, the birth centenary year of Mahatma Gandhi, he became a Gandhian as a young peacemaker and has remained firmly dedicated to the same ideas since then*.

Gandhi Global Family was established in the year 2007 by the inspiration of Nirmala Deshpande, the spiritual daughter of Saint Vinoba Bhave, himself trained by the Mahatma, and since then Ghulam Nabi Azad has been providing our organiziation with his leadership.

I am delighted to be here in the 10th year of the founding of the Saturday Free School as a representative of the Gandhi Global Family. The Free School is grounded in the ideas of the world's great social thinker and scholar Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois. It has also been inspired by the works and ideas of Howard Thurman and Martin Luther King Jr. We are happy that Dr. Anthony Monterio, a noted Afro-American thinker and activist, is currently taking this work forward. On behalf of India and its people, we would like to congratulate Dr. Anthony Monterio who has connected hundreds of youth with him over many years. For all these efforts, today we are honoring him with the Mahatma Gandhi Seva Doot Award which is a Lifetime Achievement Award from Gandhi Global Family.

On the coming occasion of the 10th anniversary of the founding of Saturday Free School, we on behalf of the All India Freedom Fighters organization, Gandhi Samarak Nidhi, on whose invitation Dr. Martin Luther King Jr went to India in 1959, Harijan Sevak Sangh which was founded by Mahatma Gandhi in 1932, Women's Initiative for Peace in South, Guild of Service, and the Shaheed Bhagat Singh Foundation, express best wishes.

 *AAGHAZ E DOSTI AWARD to Jahan Choudhry* 

Each year the Gandhi Global Family honors three young people from around the world with the Aaghaz e Dosti, or beginnings of friendship, award, who are working for world peace with the utmost devotion. It is especially for those youth who work for peace and friendship in South Asia through people to people contact.

     A dedicated worker of the Saturday Free School, Jahan Choudhry was selected for the award for the year 2020 but it could not be presented to him due to the Covid lock down. Therefore, today he is being honored with this award in this ceremony.

     Jahan Choudhry is a talented young man who is doing wonderful work for peace and friendship through the Saturday Free School.

******

*Gandhi Life Remarks*

In connection with his legal practice, a lawyer from a city called Porbandar, in the Indian state of Gujarat went to South Africa under a contract. A very simple person, whose only aim was to earn money by working. He saw discriminatory atrocities against the native citizens there as well as on fellow Indians and soon the man became a spokesperson not only for his legal clients but also for the entire public. The same man who had gone as barrister MK Gandhi, after 21 years, returned to India as Satyagrahi Mahatma Gandhi.

 

There was no single event that changed M K Gandhi but a whole process in which he was watching the discriminatory atrocities on Indians and black people who were being discriminated against just because of the color of their skin was black. The rulers thought not only that white people were enlightened, but furthermore, because of their superiority, the responsibility of governance fell on them.

 

It was South Africa where Gandhi gathered all the underprivileged people against this powerful class. Non-violence was not a tactic for him, but a part of the way he lived his life. These experiments gave him the direction that the condition of the Indians who are facing racial discrimination while living in slavery of the British Raj is no different from that of black people. When the enemy is the same then the means of struggle with them must also be the same. That is why he united his entire thought and struggle and made it a part of the fight against colonialism and world imperialism.

 

For Mahatmaji, this struggle was now the fight of all the oppressed people and he said that his country needs freedom so that it can serve the world. Following the path of Mahatma Gandhi, during the freedom movement, all our leaders never allowed the struggle to be a part of chauvinism anywhere. In 1936, the great leader of our country, Jawaharlal Nehru, described the ongoing democratic movement in Spain as his struggle. Gurudev Tagore called himself a world citizen and Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose pointed out the extremely oppressive rule of the British Raj.

 

Sardar Bhagat Singh and his companions talked about uniting the people of the world by raising the slogan of 'Inquilab Zindabad' (Long Live Revolution) as well as 'samrajyavad murdabad' (Down with Imperialism).

 

On the night of getting independence, in his first address to the nation, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru said:

“And so we have to labour and to work, and to work hard, to give reality to our dreams. Those

dreams are for India, but they are also for the world, for all the nations and peoples are too closely knit together today for any one of them to imagine that it can live apart. Peace is said to be indivisible, so is freedom, so is prosperity now, and also is disaster in this one world that can no longer be split into isolated fragments.

To the people of India, whose representatives we are, we make an appeal to join us with faith and confidence in this great adventure. This is no time for petty and destructive criticism, no time for ill-will or blaming others. We have to build the noble mansion of free India where all her children may dwell.”

 

Even in the fight of the Afro-American people, India has acted according to this spirit. It is a different matter that Mahatma Gandhi never came to America in support of this movement, but Indian National Congress leaders Lala Lajpat Rai and Sarojini Naidu came to USA and supported the ongoing movement against racism and apartheid. On the other hand, Afro-American leader Dr. Du Bois never went to India, but he did a thorough analysis of the Indian national movement in his articles and dialogues, while also expressing his solidarity. In the year 1935, theologian Howard Thurman came to India with his wife Sue Bailey Thurman and met Mahatma Gandhi and adopted his ideal of non-violence. The historic visit of Martin Luther King Jr. in the year 1959 gave new dimensions to the ongoing movement in his country.

As a leading member of the Non-Aligned Movement, India has always supported the Afro-American movement. The role of former Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi in this history of solidarity cannot be ignored. In fact, we will continue to oppose all forms and tactics of imperialism and neo-colonialism. It was a policy directive issued by Mahatma Gandhi which will not be stopped at any cost.

🙏

Ram Mohan Rai,

Gen Secy., Gandhi Global Family. 

Currently at PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA, USA. 

(Nityanootan broadcast service)

 प्रिय भाइयों और बहनों, 

 आज मेरा सौभाग्य है कि भारत की आजादी के 75 वर्ष पूरे होने पर USA के एक ऐतिहासिक शहर Philadelphia में Saturday Free School द्वारा आयोजित भव्य एवं शालीन समारोह में उपस्थित होने का अवसर मिला है.  इस अवसर पर मैं अपनी, मेरी पत्नी कृष्णा कान्ता राय तथा हमारी organization Gandhi Global Family की ओर से आप सभी का हार्दिक अभिनन्दन करता हूं.

 महात्मा गाँधी के सत्य और अहिंसा के विचारों को दुनियाभर में पहुंचाने का एक बड़ा काम हम जैसे छोटे गांधी सेवक करने का प्रयास कर रहे हैं.  हमारा मानना है कि गांधी विचार ही पूरी मानवता को उसकी त्रासदियों से बचा सकता है.

 गांधी Global Family के अध्यक्ष गुलाम नबी Azad ने इस मौके पर एक विशेष शुभकामना संदेश भेजा है जिसे मैं आपको पढ़ कर सुनाना चाहूँगा.  आजाद India के एक बेहद संजीदा politician है जिन्होंने अपने जीवन के 40 वर्षो तक indian National Congress के साथ जुड़ कर और ख़ास तौर पर प्रधानमंत्री indira gandhi की नेतृत्व में काम किया है.  महात्मा गांधी के जन्म शताब्दी वर्ष 1969 में वे एक young शांति सैनिक के रूप मे गांधी विचार से जुड़े और फिर तब से ही उन्हीं विचारों पर अडिग है. 

   Gandhi Global Family की स्थापना संत विनोबा भावे की आध्यात्मिक पुत्री निर्मला Deshpande की प्रेरणा से सन 2007 में हुई थी और तब से ही गुलाम नबी Azad इस संगठन को अपना नेतृत्व प्रदान कर रहे हैं.

 हमें इस बात की प्रसन्नता है कि Gandhi Global Family के प्रतिनिधि के रूप मे मैं Saturday Free School की स्थापना के 10 वीं वर्षगांठ पर शामिल हुआ हूं.   विश्व के महान सामाजिक चिंतक एवं scholar डॉ Du Boyas के विचार सूत्रों पर यह कार्य कर रहा है और इसे गरिमा दी है हार्वर्ड Thurman  और मार्टिन Luther King Jr के कार्यों एवं विचारों ने.  हमे इस बात की प्रसन्नता है कि वर्तमान मे प्रसिद्ध Afro-American चिंतक dr Anthony Monterio उस काम को आगे बढ़ा रहे हैं. इंडिया और वहां के लोगों की ओर से  हम डॉ Anthony Monterio का भी अभिनन्दन करना चाहेंगे जो अपने साथ सैंकड़ों युवाओ को जोड़े हुए हैं.  उनके इन्हीं तमाम कार्यों के लिए आज हम Gandhi Global Family की ओर से lifetime achievement award से सम्मानित करते हुए महात्मा गांधी सेवा दूत सम्मान से भी अलंकृत कर रहे हैं.

 Saturday Free School के स्थापना  की 10 वीं वर्षगांठ के अवसर पर  हमें  all India Freedom fighters organization,  Gandhi Samarak Nidhi जिसके निमन्त्रण पर 1959 में मार्टिन Luther King Jr India गए थे,  महात्मा गांधी द्वारा 1932 में स्थापित हरिजन सेवक संघ , Women's Initiative For Peace in South,  Guild of Service,  shaheed Bhagat Singh Foundation ने विशेष तौर पर अधिकृत किया है कि इन सभी संगठनो की तरफ से शुभकामनाएं प्रेषित की जाएं.

 Gandhi Global Family प्रतिवर्ष दुनियाभर के ऐसे तीन नवयुवकों को Aaghaz E Dosti award से सम्मानित करती है जो बेहद समर्पण एवं निष्ठा से विश्व शांति के लिए कार्य कर रहे हैं.  विशेष तौर पर उन नौजवानों को जो दक्षिण एशिया में peoples to peoples contact के जरिए अमन और दोस्ती का काम करते है. 

    वर्ष 2020 के अवार्ड के लिए Saturday Free School के कर्मठ कार्यकर्ता Jahan Choudhry का चयन किया गया था परंतु lock down की वज़ह से उन्हें प्रदान नहीं किया जा सकता था.  अतः आज  इस समारोह में उन्हें इस अवार्ड से नवाजा जा रहा है. 

    Jahan Choudhry एक प्रतिभाशाली नवयुवक है जो Saturday Free School के माध्यम से अमन और दोस्ती का अद्भुत कार्य कर रहे हैं.