Photo Exhibition on Life of Mahatma Gandhi

Manama : A photo exhibition on the ‘Life of Mahatma Gandhi,’ featuring photographs of various stages of his life, was opened at the Bahrain International Exhibition and Conference Centre here yesterday. 

Chief Executive of the Bahrain Tourism and Exhibitions Authority Shaikh Khalid bin Humood Al Khalifa inaugurated the exhibition in the presence of Indian Ambassador Alok Kumar Sinha  and other dignitaries. 

Gandhi   was the prominent leader of the Indian independence movement in British-ruled India. Employing non-violent civil disobedience, Gandhi led India to independence and inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world.  

Born and raised in a Hindu merchant caste family in coastal Gujarat, Western India, and trained in law at the Inner Temple, London, Gandhi first employed nonviolent civil disobedience as an expatriate lawyer in South Africa, in the resident Indian community’s struggle for civil rights. After his return to India in 1915, he set about organising peasants and urban labourers to protest against excessive land-tax and discrimination. 

Assuming leadership of the Indian National Congress in 1921, Gandhi led nationwide campaigns for easing poverty, expanding women’s rights, building religious and ethnic amity, ending untouchability, but above all for achieving Swaraj or self-rule.

Gandhi famously led Indians in challenging the British-imposed salt tax with the Dandi Salt March in 1930, and later in calling for the British to Quit India in 1942. He was imprisoned for many years, upon many occasions, in both South Africa and India. Gandhi attempted to practise nonviolence and truth in all situations, and advocated that others do the same. 

He lived modestly in a residential community and wore the traditional Indian dhoti and shawl, woven with yarn hand-spun on a charkha (a domestic spinning wheel used chiefly for cotton). He undertook long fasts as a means of social protest.

His birthday, October 2, is commemorated as Gandhi Jayanti, and as the International Day of Nonviolence.

The entry is free for the exhibition. It will open for the public from 10am to 1pm and 4pm to 10pm till October 4.