It is almost final: US President Barack Obama will visit Mani Bhavan, the building at Grant Road where Mahatma Gandhi lived during the freedom struggle when he visited the city.
The president is expected to pay homage to the non-violent saint at the heritage structure where Obama’s mentor Dr Martin Luther King stayed for two days 51 years ago.
DNA had first reported on September 20 that Obama is likely to visit Mani Bhavan.
A communique from the US consulate has now confirmed this. After a memorial service at the Taj for the 26/11 martyrs, the president will visit the Gandhi museum. Pointing out how the world’s largest democracies shared interests and values, Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser for strategic communication to the US government, said in Washington on Thursday: “The example of Gandhi is one that has inspired Americans, inspired Afro-Americans, including Dr (Martin Luther) King, and it’s very personally important to the president. So we’re looking forward to visiting the Gandhi museum to underscore those shared experiences and shared values.”
Meghshyam Ajgaonkar, executive secretary of Mani Bhavan Gandhi Sangrahalaya, told DNA, “While we are certain he is coming, there has been no official formal communication on this to Mani Bhavan from the US consulate. As a gift, we will give him Gandhiji’s autobiography, The Story of My Experiments with Truth, and requested him to sign in the visitors’ diary with a comment.” When asked for more, he said, “That’s all that is decided for now.”
Martin Luther King’s son Martin Luther King III had visited Mani Bhavan in February 2009 during his visit to India. He, too, had spent some time in the same room in Mani Bhavan where his father had stayed for two days.
Before finalising this venue, security teams that surveyed it had taken photographs and maps of the two-storey structure on the Laburnum Road Gamdevi. Police officers from the state CID accompanied the US security personnel on their reccee.
Obama has repeatedly said he had always looked up to Mahatma Gandhi as an inspiration. “He embodies the kind of transformational change that can be made when ordinary people come together to do extraordinary things. That is why his portraits hang in my Senate office,” he had said two years ago during the presidential poll campaign.
