{"id":4923,"date":"2013-12-16T08:58:45","date_gmt":"2013-12-16T00:58:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/ela-gandhi-draft\/"},"modified":"2022-12-07T13:07:00","modified_gmt":"2022-12-07T05:07:00","slug":"ela-gandhi-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/ela-gandhi-draft\/","title":{"rendered":"Gandhi&#8217;s grandaughter remembers Mandela at Curtin"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Discrimination and oppression existed in all forms; races were segregated, social classes were divided and extreme poverty was the norm for the majority, this was life in the Apartheid period in South Africa.<\/p>\n<p>This unrest sparked an uprising.<\/p>\n<p>Ms Ela Gandhi, granddaughter of peace activist Mohandas \u2018Mahatma\u2019 Gandhi, was part of this uprising; she worked alongside Nelson Mandela in the anti-Apartheid movement and continues her activism work today.<\/p>\n<p>Ms Gandhi was in Perth to speak at Â鶹ֱ²¥ for a human rights day event to celebrate the tenth anniversary for the <a href=\"http:\/\/info.humanrights.curtin.edu.au\/\">Curtin Centre for Human Rights Education<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The event included national and international speakers who spoke about human rights issues prevalent in the world today.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cPeople were imprisoned and some of them were even killed by the repressive system.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Ms Gandhi spoke about her theory of active participation by the people in a democracy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat we are seeing is that most people do not take an interest in social issues unless it personally involves them,\u201d Ms Gandhi said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAn educated, informed and interested population can contribute meaningfully to the debate.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In 1975 Ms Gandhi was placed under house arrest for five years and banned from activism for nine years.<\/p>\n<p>She continued her activism work underground, despite having her son killed and friends imprisoned for being politically involved.<\/p>\n<p>She spoke about her experiences as an activist and expressed fond memories of working alongside colleague and friend the late Mr Mandela.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPeople were imprisoned and some of them were even killed by the repressive system,\u201d Ms Gandhi said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was hard to live in that kind of a system, but it was challenging for us to continue the struggle.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ms Gandhi\u2019s relationship with Mr Mandela started when she went to visit him in prison with the United Demographic Front of Delegations before his release in 1990.<\/p>\n<p>Ms Gandhi said when she went to see Mr Mandela she was surprised at how optimistic he was despite being imprisoned.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe told us that love was the key for a democratic government, and it\u2019s only when you learn to love, that you can bring about this change,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0\u201cWe were very influenced by his teachings, he was our hero,<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy grandfather was the same, my son was killed during Apartheid, and I have to think if I am confronted by the perpetrator, I would forgive and extend a hand of friendship so that that person can transform,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Ms Gandhi said she was delighted with the work that had been done at the <a href=\"http:\/\/info.humanrights.curtin.edu.au\/\">Curtin Centre for Human Rights Education<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne of the reasons why I feel the model of the centre works is because it is situated in humanities,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0\u201cIt is the ideal model and should be implemented by other universities.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The event finalised with the audience asking Ms Gandhi questions.<\/p>\n<p>A young girl raised her hand and asked \u201cWhat is it like being Gandhi\u2019s granddaughter?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ms Gandhi laughed and replied, \u201cI feel very privileged to have been born in this family.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I am just a normal person and I started small, it all depends on the passion that you have.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ela Gandhi, granddaughter of Mahatma Gandhi visited Curtin recently. Find out what she had to say on human rights and the death of Nelson Mandela.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4275,"featured_media":454,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_oasis_task_priority":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_research-areas":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"research-areas":[],"class_list":["post-4923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-and-global-community"],"acf":{"post_options":{"":null,"additional_content":{"title":"","content":"","image":false},"related_courses":false,"credits":{"author":{"title":"Jessica Ibacache","url":"#","target":""},"photographer":{"title":"Gaylene Galardi","url":"#","target":""},"media":false},"display_author":true,"banner":{"image":false}}},"featured_image":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/featureimagela-1.jpg","author_meta":{"first_name":"Curtin","last_name":"University","display_name":"Â鶹ֱ²¥"},"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-28 15:11:22","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4275"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4923\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4923"},{"taxonomy":"research-areas","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-areas?post=4923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}