World ; Nepal's 'Gandhi' keeps Mahatma's legacy alive

2-October-2004


World News, Kathmandu, Mahatma Gandhi never visited Nepal. But 56 years after his death, his vision is alive in the Himalayan kingdom, thanks to a man who has dedicated his life to fighting the caste system and oppression of women.

From an average Nepalese, Tulsi Mehar Shrestha became the "Gandhi of Nepal" thanks to the book "Satyartha Prakash" (The Light of Truth) written by Indian philosopher and reformer Swami Dayanand Saraswati, the founder of the Arya Samaj.

Shrestha's crusade had landed him in trouble in the 1920s with the tyrannical prime minister then ruling Nepal, the powerful Chandra Shumsher Jung Bahadur Rana, who asked him to choose between exile and prison.

Shrestha chose the former, travelling to India where, attracted by the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, he went to the ashram at Sabarmati in Gujarat. He became Gandhi's disciple, learning to spin the charkha, a manually operated spinning wheel, and weave the rough khadi cloth.

In 1923, Gandhi interceded on Shrestha's behalf and asked Chandra Shumsher to allow him to return home.


On coming back to Kathmandu, Shrestha started a small spinning project with the bale of cotton the Mahatma had gifted him and thus started the Shri Tin Chandra Kamdhenu Charkha Pracharak Mahaguthi in Nepal.

Today, 77 years later, popularly known as Mahaguthi, the centre is one of the best known handicraft organisations in Nepal, exporting its products to Europe, the US and Japan.

Shrestha also set up the Tulsi Mehar Mahila Ashram in Manohara, on the route to Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu, for widows, destitute people and abandoned wives.

Today, the ashram has 35 residents, including women whose husbands were killed by Maoist insurgents, and Kamaiyas, women who had worked as bonded labourers.

Besides a roof over their heads, the centre gives them rudimentary education and teaches them livelihood skills.

There are two more ashrams run by Mahaguthi in the Terai plains, where people of Indian origin live.

At the Basaiya Gandhi Ashram on the way to Janakpur and at the centre at Mahendranagar, the trust plans to authorise loans for women to start small schemes for rearing cattle and poultry and making products like candles and incense sticks.

In the Terai region, the trust earlier provided families with charkhas so that they could become self-reliant by producing khadi.

Shrestha died Sep 27, 1978, a year after he received India's Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding in recognition of his service to society.


Shrestha, who never married, used the prize money of Rs.145,000 to start the centre for widows and destitute people.

This year, Mahaguthi plans to commemorate Shrestha's campaign by publishing a book on him, "Tulsi Mehar Smriti Grantha", that will also contain the Gandhian's priceless correspondence with Indian leaders like Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan.

There might be fewer takers in Nepal for the charkha and khadi today but as Timakan Vaidya, vice-chiarman of Mahaguthi, says the Mahatma's teachings -- non-violence, renunciation and austerity -- are still relevant worldwide, especially in Nepal, battered by eight years of Maoist violence that has claimed some 10,000 lives.
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