International Day of Non-Violence

• 1. Introduction

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  The International Day of Non-Violence falls every year on the 2nd of October, the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi. A single date on the calendar carries two weights: for India, it is Gandhi Jayanti, a national public holiday; for the rest of the world, it is a United Nations-designated occasion to spread the message of non-violence through education and public awareness. What brought these two observances together? And how does an idea passed between a Paris classroom and a Mumbai forum eventually reach the floor of the General Assembly in New York?

• 2. A Classroom Idea Goes Global

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  In January 2004, a Hindi teacher working in Paris with international students brought an idea to the World Social Forum in Mumbai. The proposal was for a formal international day dedicated to non-violence. The person who carried that idea from Paris to Mumbai was Iranian Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi. Ebadi's involvement gave the proposal a platform it could not have earned otherwise. Gradually, leaders within India's Congress Party took notice, drawn in partly by the symbolic resonance of grounding such a day in Gandhi's legacy. The Telegraph of Calcutta covered this moment of the idea finding its footing, under the headline "Ahimsa Finds Teen Voice." Over the next three years, the proposal moved from conference rooms in Mumbai to corridors of power in New Delhi.

• 3. The Resolution That Made It Official

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  A Satyagraha Conference in New Delhi in January 2007 produced the resolution that pushed the idea into the United Nations. Indian National Congress President and Chairperson of the United Progressive Alliance Sonia Gandhi, along with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, both lent their names to a call asking the UN to adopt the observance. On the 15th of June 2007, the United Nations General Assembly acted. Resolution A/RES/61/271 formally established the 2nd of October as the International Day of Non-Violence. The resolution asked every member of the UN system to commemorate the date in "an appropriate manner and disseminate the message of non-violence, including through education and public awareness."

• 4. Gandhi at the United Nations

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  External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stood together in the North Lawn Gardens of the United Nations headquarters in New York to unveil a bust of Mahatma Gandhi. The sculpture, a gift from India to the UN, became the first Gandhi statue installed at the organization's headquarters. The day itself is not a public holiday in most countries, though it is observed around the world in different ways. What observers share is a stated desire for, in the words of the UN resolution, "a culture of peace, tolerance, understanding and non-violence." That a bronze likeness of Gandhi now stands at the heart of the world's primary diplomatic institution suggests the idea that traveled from a Paris classroom to Mumbai in 2004 found a permanent home.