King Gandhi Wall

 

King Gandhi Wall  By  BIRAD RAJARAM YAJNIK

 

An interactive installation on M K Gandhi and his influence on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Location: Howard University, Washington DC, USA,

Over a 100 years ago (7th June 1893) at a small railway station in South Africa, a simple man the world calls Mahatma Gandhi was racially discriminated for the color of his skin. He spent that night in anger and introspection to create the most powerful weapon known to mankind – SATYAGRAHA (Truth Force). His philosophy of Peace, Truth and Ahimsa (Non-Violence) inspired Dr King to adapt it for the Civil Rights movement in the United States of America.

 

My inspiration to create an interactive image wall in honor of these two great leaders can be attributed to two statements: one by Dr Martin Luther King during his 1959 visit to India – “To other countries I may go as a tourist, but to India I come as a pilgrim”; and the other, “People who see the invisible can achieve the impossible.”  Dr King had the ability to see the invisible. He never had the opportunity to meet Gandhi, but the inspiration he drew from the life and philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi and adapted it for his people is a mark of greatness.

 

It is an honor to install this interactive KING – GANDHI wall at the Howard University in Washington. Students and visitors to this prestigious institution would have the ability to interact with images, QR codes on the wall via their mobile phones, tablets and smart devices to experience sights and sounds from the past. I hope this interaction empowers them with the ability to see the Invisible and aspiration to become the next King and Gandhi. The world today, needs them.

Howard University Press Release

 

Salt, Tea and Civil rights

Time places MKG's Salt Satyagraha, 1930 between Boston Tea Party, 1773 and Civil Rights March on Washington, 1963 by Martin Luther King Jr., among the Top 10 Most Influential Protests in the world.

Britain's centuries-long rule over India was, in many ways, first and foremost a regime of monopolies over commodities like tea, textiles and even salt. Under colonial law, Indians were forbidden to extract and sell their own salt and instead were forced to pay the far higher price of salt processed in and imported from the U.K. In March 1930, Mohandas Gandhi, the charismatic and enigmatic independence leader, embarked on a 24-day march from the city of Ahmedabad to the small seaside town of Dandi, attracting followers along the way. The assembled throngs watched as he and dozens of others dipped into the sea to obtain salt. That act — for which more than 80,000 Indians would be arrested in the coming months — sparked years of mass civil disobedience that came to define both the Indian independence struggle and Gandhi himself. Known as the salt satyagraha — a Sanskrit term loosely meaning "truth-force" — it carried the emotional and moral weight to break an empire.


Original Article from Time Magzine 1930

King, Obama on Gandhi

Video : Obama Dinner with Gandhi

Video : King on Gandhi