By IANS
Kabul : A 103-year-old school here, which was in a shambles and then rebuilt with Indian aid post-2001, celebrated Gandhi Jayanti in a very special manner.
Enthusiastic students of the Habibia School celebrated the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi on Tuesday with a series of programmes with support from the Indian embassy in Kabul.
The auditorium of the school wore a festive look with flags of India and Afghanistan draped over the dais. Students lined up along the entire length of the venue and clapped each visitor for the event.
The day began with the inauguration of a photo exhibition on Gandhi. The historic photos, carefully selected by Gandhi Smriti of India, traced Mahatma Gandhi’s life starting from his birth in Porbander, Gujarat, to his pursuing legal studies in England, formative experiences in South Africa and the freedom movement of India.
The photo exhibition was jointly inaugurated by Indian Ambassador Rakesh Sood, Afghanistan’s Acting Minister of Education Sediq Patman and Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s Advisor on Cultural Affairs Zalmay Hewadmal.
This was followed by the singing of two popular bhajans – “Vaishnav jana to” and “Raghupati Raghava Rajaram” – which were close to the Mahatma’s heart. Each rendition elicited tremendous applause from the gathering.
President Karzai sent a message on the occasion, which was read out by Patman. The president praised Mahatma Gandhi’s fight as a struggle for the whole of humanity and described him as a visionary statesman and true revolutionary.
Acting minister Patman said that the Mahatma’s movement inspired one and all including Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, who led the famous Khuda-e-Kidmatgar movement in the North Western Frontier Province.
Ambassador Sood said that Gandhi’s ideals and principles of non-violence have more relevance in the present day. He spoke about the influence of Mahatma Gandhi over a number of world leaders including Martin Luther King in the US, Nelson Mandela in South Africa and Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, popularly known as ‘Frontier Gandhi’.
The enthusiasm of students for the function was the dominant feature of the programme. More than 300 students took part in an essay writing competition on Mahatma Gandhi.
One of the participants in the essay competition, Haroon, a Class 10 student in the school, symbolised the spirit of the programme, when he wrote, “Gandhiji might be born in India, but he belongs to the entire world”.