Arun Manilal Gandhi

Arun Manilal Gandhi
Gandhi at a memorial service at the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial in Washington, D.C. in 2012
Born	1934 (age 82–83)
Parent(s)	Manilal Gandhi, Sushila Mashruwala

Arun Manilal Gandhi (born 1934) is an Indian-American socio-political activist, and the fifth grandson of Mohandas Gandhi through his second son Manilal. Although he has followed in the footsteps of his grandfather as an activist, he eschews the ascetic lifestyle of his grandfather.

Arun Gandhi grew up on his grandfather's ashram, a small, remote settlement in South Africa. Growing up, Gandhi had the advantage of education over the illiterate farm families who worked the surrounding fields, for which his grandfather urged him to play after school with the neighbor children in order to "learn what it was like to live in poverty", as well as to teach those children what he learned in class each day, which Gandhi saw as "the most creative and enlightening experience for me." Eventually, crowds of children and their parents started showing up for his lessons, which is when Gandhi learned about compassion and the need to share.

Arun Manilal Gandhi considers himself to be a Hindu but expresses universalist views. Gandhi has worked closely with Christian priests and his philosophies are strongly influenced by Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim and Christian concepts. Like his grandfather, he also believes in the concept of 'non-violence' (Ahimsa).

In 1982, when Columbia Pictures released the feature film, Gandhi, based on his grandfather's life, Gandhi wrote an article criticizing the Indian government for subsidizing the film with $25 million, arguing that there were more important things to spend such money on. Though his article was widely reprinted and celebrated, after attending a special screening of the film, Gandhi concluded that it accurately conveyed his grandfather's philosophy and legacy (despite its historical inaccuracies), and was so moved by it that he wrote another article retracting the first one.

In 1987, Arun Gandhi moved to the United States along with his wife, Sunanda, to work on a study at the University of Mississippi. This study examined and contrasted the sorts of prejudices that existed in India, the U.S., and South Africa. Afterward they moved to Memphis, Tennessee and founded the M. K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence hosted by the Christian Brothers University, a Catholic academic institution. This institute was dedicated to applying the principles of nonviolence at both local and global scales. For his work at the Institute, Gandhi was presented with the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Award at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston. In 1996, he cofounded the Season for Nonviolence as a yearly celebration of the philosophies and lives of Mohandas Gandhi and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.