Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveils a statue of Mahatma Gandhi in Brisbane.
Mahatma Gandhi's life is still relevant and holds lessons that can help address two of the world's biggest challenges - terrorism and global warming, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in Brisbane today.
Unveiling a 2.5-m tall statue of the Mahatma at Brisbane's Roma Park, the Prime Minister said non-violence was an "article of faith" for Mahatma Gandhi.
"Today, there are entities using more and more weapons and innocent lives are being lost, this could have been avoided and we could have saved the world from its fallout," he said. "Had the world internalised Gandhi's teachings of Ahimsa, we could have solved many of the problems."
On Mahatma Gandhi's birthday, the Prime Minister had started his "Clean India" campaign and invoked the Father of the Nation several times. Today, the Prime Minister confided, "After becoming Prime Minister, I have spoken about Gandhiji often. But I had always believed in the philosophy and ideologies of the Mahatma, even before I was chief minister of Gujarat".
On 2nd October, "it was not just a person that was not born in Porbandar, but an era was born," he said. "Mahatma Gandhi is as relevant today as he was in his lifetime."
If one looks at Gandhi's life and his teachings, it is possible to find solutions to the problems that the world faces today, the Pime Minister said in presence of a huge crowd of Indian diaspora, Governor of Queensland Paul de Jersey and Brisbane mayor Graham Quirk.
Citing another example, he said the Mahatma believed in having respect for environment. "At the heart of global warming is the philosophy of exploitation," the Prime Minister said. "Mahatma Gandhi was against the exploitation of nature. When Mahatma Gandhi stayed at the Sabarmati Ashram, the river was full of water. Yet even at that time, he scolded people for wasting water."
The Prime Minister had arrived at the programme at the conclusion of the G20 summit, to a rousing welcome by the Indian diaspora. The mayor of Brisbane was also there to greet him.
A tweet from the Prime Minister's office said, "G20 meetings are over. Happy (about) beginning my bilateral visit to Australia with this programme: PM."