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Dr. Rajmohan Gandhi reflects on his time at MSU as guest scholar and professor

October 9, 2015
<p>Rajmohan Gandhi, grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, gives a speech on Sept. 30, 2015 at the Kellogg Center.</p>

Rajmohan Gandhi, grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, gives a speech on Sept. 30, 2015 at the Kellogg Center.

Photo by De'jah Darkins | The State News

Dr. Rajmohan Gandhi, the grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, is currently at MSU as a guest scholar and is teaching a class on Southeastern Asian leaders, history, and politics.

When asked to be a guest scholar on campus, Dr. Gandhi “accepted with enthusiasm,” he said. 

Having been to over a dozen other U.S. universities, Dr. Gandhi said “MSU is surely unique in its spaciousness, greenery and graciousness.”

Dr. Gandhi praised MSU’s history and loyal student body for their commitment to the university and country, and said students are also more than willing to study what other viewpoints bring to the table as well as acknowledge qualities in others.

"The students and faculty I met were mentally and in many cases tangibly engaged with the world."

“The students and faculty I met were mentally and in many cases tangibly engaged with the world,” Gandhi said.

Throughout his course this September, the activeness and inclusionary nature of MSU students and faculty has indeed confirmed his impression from when he first arrived in East Lansing.

He said he hopes students taking his course will use this spirit to “recognize the loss from exclusion and the gains from inclusion.”

Dr. Gandhi also delivered a speech Oct. 2 at the Kellogg Center regarding the history of Indian politics after its independence.

Social relations junior Mary Herman was in attendance at the speech and said she enjoyed Dr. Gandhi’s optimism regarding India’s drive to a more democratic society.

“I think that those comments echo what many want in American politics,” Herman said. “His optimistic spirit is inspiring considering all the political pessimism you hear on a daily basis from all over the world.”

As an undeniable expert on South Asian history and politics, Dr. Gandhi expressed the goal of his course at MSU is to reveal the grave implications of exclusion in cultural contexts. Dr. Gandhi sees this as especially evident in his native South Asia.

He has used his careers in writing and bids for political elections to promote his peaceful ideals of equality.

In the years between 1975 and 1977, he said, human rights in a country with one of the world’s largest population took a drastic hit.

Dr. Gandhi was working as a journalist for the Himmat at the time and said he was able to “fight for democracy and help maintain the morale of many others who were similarly fighting,” he said.

More recently, Dr. Gandhi said he has focused on academics and writing books to “identify threats to free speech and minority rights.”

Dr. Gandhi has also posted bids for elections in Indian legislatures, all of which he has lost.

He said the electoral process has taught him a great deal about the complexities of Indian society as well as how to respect, and even come to like, one’s opponent.

He relishes in his experiences and finds that “defeats and failures are only labels for priceless experiences,” and that “honest struggle is the building block of a democratic society, and that, win or lose, ideologies that divide a society have to be challenged.”

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Dr. Gandhi said he feels Americans and Indians can learn a great deal from each other. Indians can learn that problems are made to be fixed in society, and Americans can learn that “deprivation is a great teacher.”

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