A pugilist, cricket and art lover, sultan of anti-apartheid movement, a true Gandhian and an indomitable freedom fighter Nelson Mandela breathed his last on Dec 5, 2013 at the ripe age of 95, leaving the people over the world to mourn his sad demise. He was a real harbinger of freedom in African subcontinent in particular and the world in general. Born in a small village of South Africa, he rose to the presidentship of his motherland and becoming a Nobel Laureate were some of his extraordinary achievements which are rarely achieved by a man in his life-time.
He held high the anti-apartheid flag and never surrendered to the cruel colonial rulers till he was alive. For this lofty cause, he had to undergo untold trials and tribulations. To pass 27 years of his priceless youth in little cell is a sacrifice for which, the generations of coming freedom lovers will not forget him. He was closeted in a prison cell of the Robben Island for as long as 18 years. When finally he was released in 1990, the world took a sigh of relief. The grateful countrymen chose him as the first President. Mahatma Gandhi was the first person on the South African land who launched a serious movement against the outrages of the colonial rulers. As such, Mandela’s success brought a special cause for happiness in India. Accordingly, later on, India awarded the Desh Ratna, which is the highest civil award of the country and the first to a foreigner.
In one more sense, South Africa, under his leadership imbibed a lesson from India. Mahatma Gandhi, Pt Nehru, Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel did not permit their countrymen to be revengeful towards the Englishmen, who had subjected the people to extremely inhuman treatments. All the institutions, laid down by them were allowed to run as usual. As a result, India kept on modernizing herself through education and technology. South Africans also adopted the same tolerance towards the rulers who practiced apartheid. This pragmatic approach paved the way for the development of this new democratic country. Education continued to improve the public thinking. Mandela encouraged the South Africans to adopt everything good, introduced by the colonial regime.
We may recall how the politicians in London used to Humiliate Mahatma Gandhi by naming him as a half-naked ‘faqir’. They refused to talk to an uncivilized man in loin cloth. Winston Churchill had said about Gandhi, “ He has all the virtues that I dislike and all vices I admire”. Gandhi never bowed down to their supercilious whims and stuck to his own guns. Nobody should wonder over this typical racial temperament. They have not produced a greater man like Gandhi and still managed to deny him the Nobel Prize. However some other greatmen like Martin Luther King II, Nelson Mandela and Barack Obama oblisingly admitted to have been inspired by Gandhi, but all of them are black. Among the white, only Einstein had said that Gandhi was so great that hundred years hence, people will not believe that a man of bones and flesh like him ever walked on this earth. Mandela had this realization. May his soul rest in peace!
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