Great memories of great heroes
STAMP and coin collectors in South Africa and India have welcomed the launch of commemorative items linked to the 125th anniversary of Mohandas Gandhi’s arrival in colonial Natal.
Deputy International Relations and Cooperation Minister Luwellyn Landers and India’s External Affairs Minister, Sushma Swaraj, unveiled the memorabilia at the Pietermaritzburg railway station during her recent fiveday visit.
A special booklet containing two postage stamps are set in a hard-cover binding, accompanied by a brief historic explanation and a first day cover (a limited edition envelope with a stamp or set postmarked on the day of issue).
One of the stamps celebrates Oliver Reginald Tambo and the other Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay.
We celebrated the centenary of Tambo’s birth last year. He wanted to be a medical doctor but no tertiary medical institution would register students of colour at the time.
In 1943 Tambo was elected secretary of the ANC Youth League. He became the president of the ANC in 1967 after the death of Chief Albert Luthuli and is remembered as a Struggle hero.
Upadhyay was the co-founder of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh and a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh thinker.
Born in 1916 in
Chandrabhan, he said India, as an independent nation, could not rely on Westernised concepts like communism, individualism and democracy.
Upadhyay was responsible for the conception of the political philosophy of integral humanism.
Over the past two years, India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, has named public institutions, stations and a road in Delhi after Upadhyay.
Also unveiled was a commemorative coin of
Gandhi, set in a box, with a book of quotes from influential personalities about his impact in bringing peace to the 21st century.
Gandhi’s 21 activist years in South Africa and the history of Indian indenture cements a firm relationship between the two countries.
Gandhi came to South Africa as a young lawyer at the age of 23 and after being thrown off a train in Pietermaritzburg, began his transition to Mahatma.
He was the father of Satyagraha, a form of nonviolent resistance, and famously led India’s people to resist the British-imposed salt tax.