Contact: John Chandler ,
(818) 677-5674 or 677-2130
jchandler@exec.csun.edu

Gandhi's Grandson Keynotes CSUN Week of Dialogue

In response to a request from President Clinton to U.S. college and university presidents, CSUN Interim President Louanne Kennedy had asked campus officials to plan the week of special events. Then the August shootings in the San Fernando Valley by white supremacist Buford Furrow Jr. gave the topics added urgency.

The CSUN special events - part of a national week of college and university activities requested by Clinton for his Initiative for One America - will begin Monday, Oct. 11, with a free screening of the movie "Gandhi" at 8 p.m. in the Shoshone Room of the Satellite Student Union.

Then on Tuesday, Oct. 12, Arun Gandhi will deliver a midday speech at CSUN on "Understand Race, Overcome Prejudice," followed by a question-and-answer session. The speech will be from 12:30 p.m. to 2 p.m. in CSUN's Performing Arts Center, followed by a book-signing period.

The main event in the series will be Tuesday night when Gandhi is scheduled to host a dialogue with San Fernando Valley community and political leaders on "Nonviolence or Nonexistence: Options for the 21st Century." That event will be from 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. in the Grand Salon of CSUN's University Student Union.

Campus officials said free tickets, available from the Associated Students Ticket Office in the University Student Union - (818) 677-2488, are required to attend. A limited number of tickets remain for the Grand Salon, but ample seating is still available in the adjoining Northridge Center where the event will be simulcast.

To close the week, the university will host a Town Hall Meeting on Race and Tolerance for CSUN students, faculty and staff on Wednesday, Oct. 13, from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. in the Grand Salon of the University Student Union. Space is limited and must be reserved by calling Project Community at (818) 677-2393.

The Tuesday night Gandhi dialogue on "Nonviolence or Nonexistence" was scheduled as a follow-up to the Unity Rally that CSUN hosted for several community groups on August 15. Both events respond to the August 10 slaying of postal worker Joseph Ileto and the shootings at the North Valley Jewish Community Center.

"The purpose of these events is to try to find teaching and ways of bringing people together after such hate crimes and acts of violence as have occurred recently in the San Fernando Valley," said Jeanette Mann, special assistant to the president for equity and diversity at CSUN.

Arun Gandhi grew up in apartheid South Africa, enduring attacks from both white and black youths because of the color of his skin. The young Gandhi, filled with hate and humiliation, wanted to fight back. But his parents took him to his famous grandfather, where Arun learned to deal with anger and violence.

The CSUN events are being sponsored by the Office of Interim President Louanne Kennedy, CSUN's Academic Affairs and Student Affairs Divisions, Associated Students, the University Student Union, Project Community and the CSUN President's Advisory Board on Equity and Diversity.

For additional information about the Week of Dialogue events, contact CSUN's Office of Equity and Diversity at (818) 677-2077.

The dialogue week events at CSUN will be followed on Thursday, Oct. 21, by a daylong community summit on "Building Community for the New Millennium" hosted by CSUN's Center for Southern California Studies and some 20 community organizations in the Grand Salon of the University Student Union.

Center Director Matthew Cahn, a professor of political science, plans to gather leaders of community organizations, businesses, non-profit and government agencies and elected officials to plan effective ways to bring local, diverse communities together to improve neighborhoods, schools and workplaces.

For additional information on the community summit, contact Shervin Boloorian, project coordinator for the center, at (818) 677-6518. Priority will be given to summit participants who reserve attendance by Monday, Oct. 11.

Editor's Note: See attached biography of Arun Gandhi.

Biography of Arun Gandhi

Hoping that time with his grandfather would help the 12-year-old Arun control his rage and deal with prejudice through nonviolent means, his parents took him to India to live with "The Mahatma" (or "great soul") in 1946. Arun's stay with his grandfather coincided with the most tumultuous period in India's struggle to free itself from British rule. His grandfather showed Arun firsthand the effects of a national campaign for liberation carried out through both violent and nonviolent means.

For eighteen months, while Gandhi imparted lessons to his grandson, the young man was also witnessing world history unfold before his eyes: this combination set Arun on a course for life. His journey was strengthened by the resolve of his parents Sushila and Manilal, Gandhi's second son, to raise their children according to the principles of nonviolence - including loving discipline (not punishment) shared by child and parent, and lifelong commitment to social progress through nonviolence. Arun's father, Manilal, spent over 14 years in prisons as he was repeatedly jailed for his efforts to change South African apartheid nonviolently. Arun's mother, Sushila, spent fifty-four years at Gandhi's ashram, Phoenix, outside Durban. After the deaths of Gandhi and Manilal, Sushila was the ashram's driving force. She greatly lamented the ashram's physical destruction in 1985 although she asserted the indestructibility of the spirit that had created and sustained the community for over 80 years.

At 23 Arun returned to India and worked as a journalist and reporter for The Times of India. He, his wife Sunanda, and several colleagues started the successful economic initiative, India's Center for Social Unity, whose mission is to alleviate poverty and caste discrimination. The Center's success has now spread to over 300 villages, improving the lives of more than 500,000 rural Indians.

Having written eight books and hundreds of articles, Arun Gandhi is an accomplished author and journalist. He published the Suburban Echo, a weekly, in Bombay from 1985 through 1987. Arun envisioned and edited World "Without Violence: Can Gandhi's Dream Become Reality?", a collection of essays and poetry from noted international scientists, artists, and political and social leaders on the ideals of nonviolence. This popular volume was published in October 1994 for the celebration of the 125th anniversary of Gandhi's birth.

Arun and Sunanda came to the United States in 1987 to compare race issues in the American South, color discrimination in South Africa, and the caste system in India. In October 1991, the Gandhis founded the M. K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence (http://www.cbu.edu/Gandhi/). Its mission is to examine, promote, and apply the principles of nonviolence thought and action through research, workshops, seminars, and community service.

The Institute is located at Christian Brothers University in Memphis, Tennessee, where Arun is also a scholar-in-residence.