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BOOK REVIEW<br />
Mahatma Gandhi<br />
Images and Ideas<br />
for Non-Violence<br />
Author : Vijay Rana<br />
Price : £ 17.99<br />
Published by NRIfm.com<br />
Available from editor@nrifm.com<br />
www.nrifm.com<br />
"T<br />
he light has gone out of our lives<br />
and there is darkness everywhere."<br />
That is how, on 30 January 1948,<br />
India's first Prime Minister Pt.<br />
Jawaharlal Nehru announced the<br />
assassination of Mahatma Gandhi to a<br />
shocked nation. They are among the<br />
most familiar words of any speech<br />
ever made in India. But in the second<br />
paragraph of the speech, Gandhi's<br />
most favoured disciple made a<br />
prophetic and profound assertion that<br />
we hardly remember today:<br />
"The light has gone out, I said,<br />
and yet I was wrong. The light that has<br />
illumined this country for these many<br />
years will illuminate this country for<br />
52<br />
<strong>Pravasi</strong> <strong>Today</strong> ✦ November <strong>2007</strong><br />
many more years later, that light will<br />
still be seen in this country and the<br />
world will see it and it will give solace<br />
to innumerable hearts."<br />
This book is a testimony to 'that<br />
light' that still brings hope to millions<br />
of lives in many parts of the world<br />
where peace is threatened and<br />
oppression practiced. Almost sixty<br />
years after his death, Gandhi<br />
continues to "give solace to<br />
innumerable hearts".<br />
This book presents a unique<br />
collection of the visuals of Mahatma<br />
Gandhi his statues, murals, graffiti,<br />
wall paintings, puppets and posters by<br />
various photographers. Probably the<br />
first book with colour photographs<br />
relating to Mahatma Gandhi, it has<br />
images from all parts of the world a<br />
Gandhi street in Uruguay, a library<br />
named after him in rural Mexico, a<br />
stencil image in the middle of a street<br />
in Paris, a wall painting in a crime<br />
ridden part of Granada, Spain and a<br />
large poster hanging next to a garbage<br />
dump in Mumbai with the inscription:<br />
"Cleanliness is next to Godliness".<br />
This book aims to record the<br />
noble endeavours of those who resist<br />
authority, oppose injustice and<br />
awaken public opinion around the<br />
world by following the path of<br />
M a h a t m a G a n d h i . T h e s e<br />
photographers provide us valuable<br />
evidence of ordinary people applying<br />
Gandhian methods to confront the<br />
mighty and the powerful in their<br />
regions.<br />
On the fifth anniversary of the<br />
September 11 attacks, a New York<br />
journalist, Sam Meyer, captured the<br />
extraordinary moment of a smiling<br />
portrait of Mahatma Gandhi placed at<br />
Ground Zero a place were thousands<br />
of innocent men and women perished<br />
in the worst terrorist atrocity of recent<br />
times.<br />
In the United States, in almost all<br />
the peace marches against the Iraq
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