Eight-foot statue of Mahatma Gandhi unveiled in Johannesburg's Tolstoy Farm
Johannesburg (PTI): An eight-foot-tall statue of Mahatma Gandhi has been unveiled at Tolstoy Farm, the commune that he had started during his tenure as a lawyer here in South Africa in the early 20th century.
The larger-than-life clay statue, unveiled on Sunday by the High Commissioner of India, Prabhat Kumar, now joins large busts of Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela, both commissioned by sculptor Jalandharnath Rajaram Channole, from the Sevagram Ashram in India.
“This statue probably resembles Mahatma Gandhi when he left South Africa at that time. We have seen Mahatma Gandhi’s photographs from 1914, and here he is much older. I think it’s a grand tribute to him at Tolstoy Farm, where he lived for five or six years. From 1910 to 1914, he intermittently lived here,” said Kumar as he unveiled the statue.
Kumar recalled that Gandhi’s friend Herman Kallenbach had donated the farm to establish a self-sufficient commune.
“This was because the people from our community here were struggling against the (discriminatory) pass laws and other laws,” he said, referring to the laws that required non-white citizens to carry passbooks for the indigenous Black African community and Astatic registration papers for Indians. Many men and some women voluntarily went to jail with Gandhi to resist these laws.
“They had to also bring up their families and to sustain those families, Kallenbach bought this farm and donated it to Mahatma Gandhi,” Kumar said as he recounted how these families grew fruits and vegetables on Tolstoy Farm with which they sustained themselves.
The envoy said that the same community spirit had to be re-established at Tolstoy Farm as he commended the Mahatma Gandhi Remembrance Organisation (MGRO) and its head, Mohan Hira, for what they had done to revive Tolstoy Farm.
By the 1990s, Tolstoy Farm had been wholly vandalised and left derelict after the last tenants had moved out.
Surrounded by informal settlements, everything was stripped bare, including the iron and wood house that Gandhi had lived in. Only the foundation, hidden by shoulder-height grass, remained.
Hira, now 84, almost single-handedly started a drive to restore Tolstoy Farm. For his efforts, Hira received the Pravasi Bharatiya Award, India’s highest civilian award for Diaspora Indians, in January this year.
“For the last few years, the MGRO has brought the attention of Tolstoy Farm back to all of us and the High Commission (in Pretoria) and the Consulate General (in Johannesburg) will spare no effort in making Tolstoy Farm self-sufficient in future. This will be our task,” Kumar said.
Kumar also appealed to the local community to get involved in and support this venture as he shared how he had been inspired by reading about and hearing from freedom fighters who had been there what Tolstoy Farm was like.
For this statue, Hira brought out Channole, who first did a cycle tour of Gandhian sites in South Africa before spending three weeks at Hira’s residence in the nearby sprawling Indian township of Lenasia, where the white minority apartheid government forcibly resettled Indians from all over Johannesburg for decades.
“It had always been my dream to have a larger-than-life statue of the Mahatma at Tolstoy Farm from the time I first started cutting down the grass surrounding the remains of his house,” Hira said emotionally as the guests gathered in the library that has been built next to the house with support from the Indian government.
The next phase for Tolstoy Farm is to involve the local communities in running empowerment programmes to make them self-sufficient and alleviate poverty, Hira said
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Strict security measures in place in Mumbai for Messi's events at 2 venues Dec 14, say police
Mumbai (PTI): In view of Argentine superstar footballer Lionel Messi's visit to Mumbai on Sunday, the city police are implementing stringent security measures, like not allowing water bottles, metals, coins inside the stadiums and setting up watchtowers to keep an eye on the crowd, officials said.
The police also said taking extra care to avoid any stampede-like situation and to prevent recurrence of the chaotic situation that unfolded in Kolkata during Messi's visit on Saturday as thousands of fans protested inside the Salt Lake stadium here after failing to catch a clear glimpse of the football icon despite paying hefty sums for tickets.
Messi is expected to be present at the Cricket Club of India (Brabourne Stadium) in Mumbai on Sunday for a Padel GOAT Cup event followed by attending a celebrity football match. He is expected to proceed to the Wankhede Stadium for the GOAT India Tour main event around 5 pm.
"In view of Lionel Messi's visit to Mumbai, the police are geared up and have put in place a high level of security arrangements in and around the stadiums located in south Mumbai. Considering the chaos that prevailed in Kolkata and the security breach, we have deployed World Cup-level security arrangements at Brabourne and Wankhede stadiums," an official said.
Expecting heavy crowd near the stadiums during Messi's visit, the city police force has deployed more than 2,000 of its personnel near and around both the venues, he said.
As the Mumbai police have the experience of security 'bandobast' during the victory parade of ICC World Cup-winning Indian team and World Cup final match at the Wankhede Stadium, in which over one lakh cricket fans had gathered, we are prepared to handle a large crowd of fans, he said.
"We are trying to avoid the errors that occurred in the past," the official said.
There is no place to sneak inside the stadiums in Mumbai like the Kolkata stadium, according to him.
The police are also asking the organisers to provide all the required facilities to the fans inside the stadium, so that there will be no chaos, he said, adding the spectators have purchased tickets in the range of Rs 5,000 to 25,000. After paying so much of amount, any spectator expects proper services, while enjoying the event, he said.
The police are expecting 33,000 spectators at the Wankhede Stadium and over 4,000 at Brabourne Stadium. Besides this, more than 30,000 people are expected outside and around the stadiums just to have a glimpse of the football sensation, he said.
The organisers responsible for Messi's India visit recently came to Mumbai to discuss security arrangements. During the meeting, the Mumbai police asked them not to take the event lightly, according to the official.
After those requirements were fulfilled, the final security deployment was chalked out, he said.
Police has the standard procedure of the security arrangements inside the Wankhede Stadium, where people are barred from taking water bottles, metals objects, coins. Police are setting up watch towers near the stadiums and there will be traffic diversions, so that there is maximum space available to stand, according to the official.
Police are also appealing to the spectators to use public transport service for commuting and avoid personal vehicles to reach south Mumbai.
To avoid any stampede-like situation, police are also taking precautionary measures and will stop the fans some distance ahead of the stadium and public announcement systems will be used to guide the crowd. Barricades will be placed at various places to manage the crowd.
In case the crowd swells up beyond expectation, the police will divert people to other grounds and preparations in this regard underway, he said.
Additional police force has been deployed in south Mumbai to tackle any kind of situation, he said.
