MAHATMA GANDHI'S GRANDDAUGHTER TOUCHED BY HER GRANDFATHER'S RELIC PRESERVED IN LITHUANIA
At the initiative of the Lithuanian Embassy the Lithuanian group following in the footsteps of the legendary Lithuanian traveler Antanas Poška visited the Gandhi Memorial in New Delhi and met Tara Gandhi Bhattacharjee, the granddaughter of the Indian independence movement leader.
As a part of the commemoration of Antanas Poška's 110th birthday anniversary, a family relic – a khadi cloth presented to Poška by Mahatma Gandhi – was borrowed to the Embassy by Poška's daughter Laimutė Kisielienė. This historical item which was brought to the Gandhi Smriti by the Minister Counselor of the Lithuanian Embassy in India Diana Mickevičienė and the group of Lithuanian travelers, has deeply touched Tara Gandhi.
„I am impressed that the gift of my grandfather is so carefully preserved in Lithuania, thank you for that. I also know about your country's peaceful fight for independence which proves once more that the ideas of Mahatma Gandhi are alive and relevant all over the world. Your freedom is strong, I feel secure about it“- said Tara Gandhi. She also expressed her joy that the family of Antanas Poška resisted the popular tendency to sell relics and transform things that belonged to a famous Indian leader into sellable goods. “Gandhi belongs to the world but we must not sell him“- said she.
The head of Gandhi Memorial was interested in the activities of Antanas Poška in India and his dramatic life as he was sent into exile to the Soviet Gulag. „That a man who was discriminated and humiliated by the system succeeded in saving something that looks like a simple piece of cloth and used to show it to people as a source of inspiration is a wonderful story of human survival and faith. Please, convey to his family my deep esteem and gratitude for their strength and loyalty to the universal values“.
The Lithuanian delegation presented Tara Gandhi with traditional Lithuanian bread and books about Lithuania.
Tara Gandhi thanked the delegation in Lithuanian and wished the members of the expedition an easy and meaningful travel.
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