by A. J. PHILIP
The chairman of the institute, Dr George Mathew, who has an ambitious plan up his sleeve to celebrate the 20th anniversary of South Africa’s independence next year, had one simple question to ask Morule: “When you say independence, what do you mean? Independence from whom?”
Who could have answered that question better than Morule, who was a jail mate of Nelson Mandela on Robbin Island? “South Africa got its independence from Britain in 1934 and from the white minority in 1994”.
As the High Commissioner took the podium to inaugurate the programme, a collage of pictures of three Ms — Mohandas, Mandela and Martin — with the headline, “When the saints go marching out” provided him a fitting backdrop. The institute could not have claimed originality for clubbing the three — a living legend and two martyrs of the 20th century.
Over a decade ago, while visiting the colossal Statue of Liberty on Liberty Island in the middle of New York Harbour, I saw pictures of the three leaders appearing one after the other on a huge electronic screen. Alongside each picture was a quotation. I do not remember the quotations attributed to Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King, Jr. but the one against Gandhi said, “An eye for eye will make everyone blind”.
As Morule, who served as a Mayor, before being picked up for a diplomatic assignment, was speaking on South Africa’s democratic experience, I was visualising his life on Robbin Island, where Mandela spent 27 long years.
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