The Past Speaks

Today is Martin Luther King Day in the United States. The amount of material on the internet from other countries about MLK today is a reminder that King was a global rather than simply an American figure. Consider this text, which I have taken from a website in the Indian state of Kerala, which refers to King’s 1959 visit to India.

The legacy of Martin Luther King Jr lives on in India’s inclusiveness, cultural plurality, ethnicities and in the spirit of freedom, members of DilliNet, an online bridge connecting the expatriate community of the capital, said while sharing their India experience.

The members of Dillinet met over the weekend to pay a musical tribute to Martin Luther King, an avowed Gandhian, on his 82nd birth anniversary. King’s birthday, however, is being officially celebrated by the US government Jan 17. Born on Jan 15 in 1929, King, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, was assassinated on April 4, 1968.

Inspired by Gandhi’s ethos of non-violence, King, who led the movement for civil rights, liberties and racial bias in US, visited Mahatma Gandhi’s birthplace in 1959. It deepened his understanding of non-violent resistance. In a radio address made during his final evening in India, King said: “Since being in India, I am more convinced than ever before that the method of non-violent resistance is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for justice.”

King became the youngest recipient to get the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 for his work to end racial segregation. At the time of his death in 1968, he was battling to and poverty and trying to stop the Vietnam war.

King Arrives in India, 1959