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The State Department’s point person for South Asia, an Indian-American, is conditioned by the history of her family in the independence struggle against the British Raj and Gandhi’s civil disobedience movement. United States Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs Nisha Desai Biswal, in an emotional speech in California, recounted the experiences of her grandparents in Gujarat during India’s independence movement when they also went to jail for civil disobedience.
Delivering the 33rd Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Lecture at the University of California, San Diego, May 14, Biswal praised this year’s recipients of the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Scholarships, and the San Diego Indian American Society which has been honoring exceptional students at this event for 33 years, the longest-running scholarships that honor Gandhi in the U.S.
Prior to launching into a foreign policy speech on U.S.-India bilateral relations, Biswal offered an emotional account of her 1998 visit to India where she recorded the oral history of her grandparents, during a visit “to reconnect with the land of my birth,” she said. She came to know if the economic hardships they faced, and the barriers they crossed to engage in a love marriage at a time when it was almost unheard of, she notd.
“My grandparents took such joy in recounting their courtship on the banks of the lake where they met while washing their clothes – a love marriage at a time when such unions were unfathomable,” Biswal noted.
But the stories that had the greatest impact on her she said, “were the heady years leading to India’s independence, when they would drop what they were doing to participate in a march or protest in support of the great men of India – Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel.”
When she asked her grandparents what they were most proud of from their long and remarkable lives, “Both said that they were proudest of the time that they spent in jail, locked-up because for civil disobedience. They told me that they had never felt as connected to their country as when they were imprisoned for fighting for a cause larger than themselves – for India’s independence,” Biswal said.
That interaction with her grandparents, Biswal said, “I took with me a deeper understanding and connection to the sacrifices that prior generations had made for their nation, and a determination to make my own contribution to my country.”
“What I learned on that trip, two decades ago, is what has brought me to where I am right now, standing here, delivering this Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Lecture to a group of bright, ambitious students who will no doubt make their own great contributions,” Biswal said.
She went on to dwell on the life of Mahatma Gandhi, who a little over one hundred years ago, returned to India and changed the course of history and the fate of a nation. “Today, we still experience the impact of his life and teachings, and we see the inspiration of his legacy not just among leaders in civil society, politics, and religion, but even technology,” Biswal said, speaking in the heart of Silicon Valley. One of the great American leaders of the technology revolution, Steve Jobs, she recounted, considered Gandhi as their choice for Person of the Century, who, “ “showed us the way out of the destructive side of our human nature,” Jobs said.
The last 70 years, Biswal noted, had been decades of unprecedented growth and prosperity particularly in the Asia-Pacific region where President Obama’s policy of “U.S. Rebalance to Asia,” stems from and recognizes that that the security and prosperity of the United States will increasingly be shaped by the security and prosperity of Asia.
“And nowhere is that more evident than in India.” She went on to reiterate the shared ideals, opportunities and challenges facing the two democracies.
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