MAHATMA GANDHI: India plans to buy his Africa home

GANDHI JI IN 1906

India’s coal ministry says it plans to buy a house in South Africa where independence hero Mahatma Gandhi lived. The building would be turned into a memorial, officials said. The house was put up for sale in July after the owner said she failed to find an institution interested in preserving the building’s legacy.

Gandhi is thought to have lived there for three years from 1907 – when he began to formulate his philosophy of non-violent resistance. He lived in South Africa for 21 years, working as a lawyer and activist.
He fought for the right of Indians in the country to be treated as citizens – a feat he eventually achieved before returning to his homeland.

“I came to know through newspapers that the house of Mahatma Gandhi in Johannesburg, where he spent some years, is up for sale,” the Press Trust of India quoted India’s Minister of State for Coal Sriprakash Jaiswal as saying. “The coal ministry intends to purchase the house and build a memorial on it,” he said.
The minister said directions had been given to the officials of the ministry to purchase the house “at any cost”.

Mr Jaiswal said he would visit South Africa along with the officials of the government-owned company Coal India Limited later this month to finalise the deal.
The minister said if any other person or Indian organisation offered to purchase the house to turn it into a memorial to Gandhi, Coal India would back out.

Mahatma Gandhi is revered as the father of the Indian nation and correspondents say the coal minister’s offer to buy the house appears to be an emotional response.