Arun Gandhi, grandson of Mohandas K. Gandhi, will discuss "Terrorism and Nonviolence—Choices for the Future" at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 26, in the Interfaith Chapel on the University of Rochester's River Campus. His talk will be the first in a year-long series of talks by leading commentators on law and the war on terror and is free and open to the public.
Co-founder, with his wife Sunanda, of the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence at Christian Brothers University in Memphis (http://www.gandhiinstitute.org), Arun Gandhi lectures and leads workshops worldwide on Gandhian nonviolence. Mohandas K. Gandhi practiced passive resistance and promoted nonviolent measures to secure Indian independence from Great Britain and to improve conditions for Indians living in South Africa.
In 2004, Arun Gandhi met with Yasser Arafat and Israeli peace activists. At Arafat's invitation, he spoke to the Palestinian Parliament, where he called upon Palestinians to adopt nonviolence in their struggle against occupation.
Gandhi is author or editor of eight books, including The Forgotten Woman, the story of Mohandas K.Gandhi's wife, which he co-authored with his wife Sunanda, and more recently of the book Legacy of Love, a memoir of his education in nonviolence.
Arun Gandhi was born in South Africa to Gandhi's second son and was raised at Phoenix Farm near Durban, the first of the nonviolent communities established by Gandhi in South Africa and India. In 1946, his parents sent him to India, where he lived for 18 months with his grandfather, who was then leading the campaign for independence from British rule.
At age 23, Arun Gandhi returned to India and became a journalist with the Times of India. Together with his wife and colleagues, he founded the Center for Social Unity, an economic self-help program to alleviate poverty and discrimination among India's poor, an initiative that has now spread to more than 300 Indian villages. In 1987, the Gandhis came to the United States.
The "Law and the 'War on Terror'" is one of 10 projects funded by the Humanities Project, a year-long initiative at the University of Rochester emphasizing the influence and contributions of the humanities to academic and civic life.