Shabana Azmi receives International Gandhi Peace Prize

LONDON: Versatile Bollywood actress and social activist Shabana Azmi on Friday depricated as unjust and untrue the tendency of equating Islam with terrorism as she received the prestigious International Gandhi Peace Prize from her hero for many years, British actress Vanessa Redgrave.

Receiving the award at the House of Commons in the presence of a distinguished gathering, Azmi said, "terrorism is being equated with Islam - This is both unjust and untrue. Myths are being perpetuated in the name of religion."

Islam, she said, is not a monolith. "Islam resides in more than 50 countries in the world and takes on the culture of the country in which it resides. So it is tolerant in some, liberal in some, extremist in others."

"The fight today cannot be between the Christian and the Muslim; the fight cannot be between the Hindu and the Muslim- the fight needs to be between ideologies -the ideologies of the liberal versus the ideologies of the extremist. The liberal Muslim, Christian, Hindu on the same side against the extremist Muslim, Christian, Hindu on the
other," Azmi said in her Gandhi Memorial Lecture 'Non-Violence Is Possible'.

Azmi, who was chosen for the award for her work among the disadvantaged women in India, particularly in Mumbai slums, also talked about the communal violence in Gujarat and said victims were still waiting for justice.

Among those present at the function were Indian High Commissioner Kamalesh Sharma and Lord Bhikhu Parekh, Centennial Professor at the London School of Economics.

Azmi said she felt humbled in being linked even in a remote symbolic way with Mahatma Gandhi, whose name the award carries.

"I am truly overwhelmed and humbled to receive the covetous award. My joy on this occasion has been doubled because Vanessa Redgrave, who has been my hero for many years, both as an actress of immeasurable talent and a woman of tremendous courage who has stuck her neck out of for her political convictions and issues of human rights and social justice, has consented to give me the Award," she said.

She described Gandhi as the apostle of love and noted that the Mahatma, however, succumbed to a lethal bullet and his death ironically symbolised what has been the tragic history of non-violence.

"In India, we earned our freedom through non-violent passive resistance taught to us by the Father of the Nation but it is also a chilling fact that the land of his birth, Gujarat witnessed the worst communal violence in the year 2000 and the victims are still awaiting justice," she said.

"Non-violent practitioners have faced mortal blows but the method itself remains immortal; for nonviolence to succeed it has to rise from its death, not once but again and again and yet again."

"Never before has it been so true than the present time, when on the one hand, the world is becoming a global village, on the other the schisms between people and nations are becoming wider."

Azmi said that today, the world suffered from angst and anxiety, probably worse than ever before in human history.

"We have accumulated enough destructive power to annihilate the whole human species."

Azmi said that a theory of clash of civilizations between Islamic world and Christian world is being propagated.

Asking whether there was a way out, she said, "it is at this time that Gandhi becomes more relevant. Human race has a simple choice: either stay the destructive suicidal course or move to a higher order of living with nonviolence. Non-violence is the only moral and rational choice and we have to make it possible."

On plight of women, she said while "it is true that in India, women on one hand are moving from strength to strength, on the other we also have to confront the horrific violence of female foeticide. It is ironic that a country that worships its women as goddesses also devalues its girl child - denies her access to equal opportunity and is even denying her the right to life. We must put an end to this violence now."

Referring to the Iraq war, she said a recent study revealed that over 650,000 people have died in the ongoing war. "Bombing a country into democracy is a case of delusion and self-deception where the leaders ignored the current historical evidence," she said.

Azmi said merely 300 billion dollars would eradicate the extreme poverty in the world, "yet the USA will waste over a trillion dollars in the Iraq war by 2016."

"We have to make Non-violence the norm and not an exception. Or we should have the moral courage like Gandhi to say, 'If I can have nothing to do with the organized violence of the Government, I can have less to do with the unorganized violence of the people. I would prefer to be crushed between the two." There is no alternative but to follow the path shown by Gandhi - the path of social justice, liberty and peace, she said.