Jul 28, 2024 01:05 PM IST
External affairs minister S Jaishankar arrived in Japan on Sunday to attend a Quad foreign ministers’ meeting on Monday
A bust of Mahatma Gandhi was unveiled in Tokyo’s Edogawa ward on Sunday by external affairs minister S Jaishankar, who described the father of the nation as a global icon whose achievements have far outlived his own times.
Edogawa ward includes the Nishi-Kasai district, which is home to some 3,000 Indians. The area is also known as “Little India”. Jaishankar arrived in Japan on Sunday to attend a Quad foreign ministers’ meeting on Monday.
Edogawa ward and its mayor Takeshi Saito decided to build a relationship with India by having a statue of Mahatma Gandhi at a park that will be named after him.
“In India, we think of…Mahatma Gandhi as the father of our nation, understandably. But for the world, he is actually a global icon,” Jaishankar said at the event held to unveil the bust.
It is important to have the statue in Tokyo because Gandhi’s achievements have far outlived his own times and become more important with the passage of time, and also because Gandhi’s message, through his life and work, is timeless, Jaishankar said.
“What he taught us was important then, it is important even now,” he added.
Noting that Edogawa ward is called Little India, Jaishankar said: “I hope it becomes bigger, but this is a place where the Indian community in Tokyo lives and gathers in large numbers. And I cannot think of a more appropriate occasion and a better way of strengthening bonds between India and Japan than by this event.”
Jaishankar added: “We all know that without Mahatma Gandhi, our independence struggle would perhaps have taken much longer, gone a different direction, who knows.”
“But the independence of India actually decolonised the entire world, it was the starting point of a very momentous event. That when India became free, other parts of Asia became free, Africa became free, Latin America became free.”
India’s progress towards becoming the fifth largest economy and the world’s shift towards multipolarity was all “started as a result of what Gandhiji did in history”, he said.
At a time when the world is seeing so much conflict, tension, polarisation and bloodshed, it is “very important that Gandhiji’s message was that solutions do not come from a battlefield, that no era should be an era of war”, Jaishankar said.
He also held up Gandhi as the “original prophet of sustainable growth”, saying the leader had conveyed an important message about sustainability, climate friendliness and green growth.
Jaishankar added in a post on X that Gandhi’s “achievements continue to inspire us to this day and his message of peace and non-violence is timeless”.
He thanked mayor Takeshi Saito, parliamentary vice minister of foreign affairs Masahiro Komura, member of Parliament Hideo Onishi, and members of the Indian community for joining the event.
