Gandhi’s Grandson to Speak on Violence

In response to the North Valley Jewish Community Center shootings in August, Cal State Northridge will host a “Week of Dialogue” featuring a keynote address by the grandson of the late Indian nonviolence advocate Mohandas K. Gandhi.

Arjun Gandhi will deliver a speech at noon Tuesday titled “Understand Race, Overcome Prejudice.” After his talk, Gandhi will be available for a question-and-answer session and book signing.

At 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Gandhi will moderate a panel discussion--”Nonviolence or Nonexistence: Options for the 21st Century”--with several community leaders from the San Fernando Valley.

“The purpose of these events is to try to find teaching and ways of bringing people together after such hate crimes and acts of violence as have occurred recently in the San Fernando Valley,” said Jeanette Mann, special assistant to the president for equity and diversity at Cal State Northridge.

Arjun Gandhi grew up in South Africa, where he used nonviolent tactics to struggle against apartheid. Gandhi spent 18 months with his legendary grandfather in 1946 and has described that time as formative. The author of eight books, Gandhi has worked as a reporter for the Times of India and was one of the organizers of India’s Center for Social Unity, a grass-roots economic initiative for rural Indians.

Gandhi is currently a scholar-in-residence at Christian Brothers University in Memphis, Tenn.

Free tickets for the Tuesday night panel discussion are available at the University Student Union. For more information, call (818) 677-2488.