Arun Manilal Gandhi

Arun Manilal Gandhi (14 April 1934 – 2 May 2023) was a South African-born Indian-American author, socio-political activist and son of Manilal Gandhi, thus a grandson of nationalist leader Mahatma Gandhi.

Arun Manilal Gandhi was born on 14 April 1934, in Durban, to Manilal Gandhi and Sushila Mashruwala.

His father was an editor and his mother was a publisher for the Indian Opinion.

Arun had seen his grandfather Mahatma Gandhi once briefly at age 5 and didn't see him again until 1946 when he lived with Mahatma Gandhi at the Sevagram ashram in India.

Arun returned to the Union of South Africa in 1947, just weeks before his grandfather was assassinated.

While living at Sevagram, Arun had the advantage of education over the illiterate farm families who worked the surrounding fields.

His grandfather urged him to play with the neighboring children after school in order to "learn what it was like to live in poverty", as well as to teach those children what he learned in class each day, which Arun Gandhi later described as "the most creative and enlightening experience for me."

Eventually, crowds of children and their parents started showing up for lessons with the young Gandhi, which taught him compassion and the need to share.

Gandhi criticized the Indian government in an article he wrote after they subsidized a 1982 film based on his grandfather's life with $25 million.

In 1982, when Columbia Pictures released the feature film, Gandhi, based on his grandfather's life, Gandhi wrote an article criticizing the Indian government for subsidizing the film with $25 million, arguing that there were more important things to spend such money on.

Though his article was widely reprinted and celebrated, after attending a special screening of the film, Gandhi included that it accurately conveyed his grandfather's philosophy and legacy (despite its historical inaccuracies), and was so moved by it that he wrote another article retracting the first one.

He immigrated to the United States with his family in 1987 where he studied at the University of Mississippi.

They later moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where they founded a nonviolence institute hosted by the Christian Brothers University.

In 1987, Arun Gandhi moved to the United States along with his wife, Sunanda, to work on a study at the University of Mississippi.

This study examined and contrasted the sorts of prejudices that existed in India, the U.S., and South Africa.

Afterward, they moved to Memphis, Tennessee, and founded the M. K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence hosted by the Christian Brothers University, a Catholic academic institution.

This institute was dedicated to applying the principles of nonviolence at both local and global scales.

As co-founders of the institute, both husband and wife received the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Award "for bringing the legacy of Gandhi to America" which was awarded at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston.

In 1996, he cofounded the Season for Nonviolence as a yearly celebration of the philosophies and lives of Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.

In 2003, Gandhi was one of the signatories to Humanism and Its Aspirations (Humanist Manifesto III).

In August 2004, Gandhi proposed to the Palestinian Parliament a peaceful march of 50,000 refugees across the Jordan River to return to their homeland and said MPs should lead the way.

Gandhi also claimed that the fate of Palestinians is ten times worse than that of blacks in apartheid South Africa.

He asked: "What would happen? Maybe the Israeli army would shoot and kill several. They may kill 100. They may kill 200 men, women and children. And that would shock the world. The world will get up and say, 'What is going on?'."

In late 2007, Gandhi co-taught a course entitled "Gandhi on Personal Leadership and Nonviolence" at Salisbury University in Salisbury, Maryland.

On 12 November 2007, Gandhi gave a lecture for the Salisbury University Center for Conflict Resolution's “One Person Can Make a Difference” Lecture Series, entitled “Nonviolence in the Age of Terrorism”.

In 2007, after the passing of his wife Sunanda Gandhi on 21 February, the institute moved to Rochester, New York, and is currently located on the University of Rochester River Campus.

In late 2008, Gandhi returned to Salisbury University to co-teach a course entitled "The Global Impact of Gandhi".

After January 2008 op-ed in The Washington Post's "On Faith" section where Gandhi said that Israelis talked too much about the Holocaust and were losing world sympathy and that Israel and the U.S. were the biggest contributors to the world-threatening "culture of violence", his ties to Rochester were imperiled.

He claimed that dwelling on the past wouldn't allow them to move forward.

Gandhi apologized by saying he had only meant to say right-wing Likud supporters were part of the problem, but the university did not accept his explanation and informed him that the institute would be closed unless he resigned from it.

Gandhi then quit, making an erroneous prediction that he would be able to return in several months when the furor over his actions died down (he never came back in any capacity before his death in 2023).

Gandhi had given many speeches about nonviolence in many countries.

During his tour to Israel, he urged the Palestinians to resist Israeli occupation peacefully to assure their freedom.

On 12 October 2009 Gandhi visited the Brunton Theatre in Musselburgh to talk to P7's from all over East Lothian in Scotland.

On 11 November 2009 Gandhi visited Chattanooga State Technical Community College in Chattanooga, Tennessee, to speak and spread his message of peace.

On 13 November 2009, Gandhi visited Cleveland State Community College in Cleveland, Tennessee, to speak and spread his message of peace.

On 16 November 2010, Gandhi visited The University of Wyoming in Laramie, Wyoming, to speak and spread his message of peace.

On 2 March 2011, Arun Gandhi spoke at the East West Center on the campus of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawaii.

He spoke about Nonviolence: A Means for Social Change.

In 2017, he published The Gift of Anger: And Other Lessons From My Grandfather Mahatma Gandhi (New York: Gallery Books/Jeter Publishing 2017).