Published on October 3, 2010
India has “come of age” and the country is expected to achieve a double digit economic growth in the next couple of years, External Affairs Minister S M Krishna said in London on Saturday.
“India has come of age. In the last few years our growth rate has been above 8 per cent,” said Krishna, who was on his way back to New Delhi from New York after attending the annual UN session.
“Even when there was a global slowdown India registered a 6.5 per cent growth and the country is expected to achieve 9 per cent or more growth next year and in 2012 we can certainly register a double digit growth,” the Minister said at a function to mark the 141st birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.
“Today India is emerging as one of the growing global powers. You can walk with your head held high as an Indian. For this continuous hardwork, not only of our leaders, but the population of 1.2 billion is responsible,” he said.
Paying rich tributes to the Father of the Nation, Krishna described him as one of the greatest human beings who lived and walked on this planet.
“Mahatma Gandhi is remembered not only in India but all over the world because he unleashed powerful reformation that checkmated colonialism and checkmated exploitation that was going on,” he said at the function organised by the India League at Tavestock Square in the heart of the city.
“He was a leader who led millions of people, not only in India but all over the globe -wherever people were subjugated whether in Africa, Latin America or Asia. Mahatma Gandhi was the torchbearer of truth and non-violence,” Krishna said.
Garlanding a bust of the Mahatma, Krishna said Gandhi reminded us that non-violence was the voice of the brave, not of the weak.
“Mahatma Gandhi conquered the mightiest British empire. He did not fire a single bullet but bullets were fired at him,” the Minister said, adding he had the privilege of listening to the Mahatma in 1946 at the Birla Mandir in New Delhi.
Later Gandhiji visited the erstwhile princely state of Mysore “when he stopped at my village where my father was running a high school, middle school and hostel”.
Krishna said Gandhiji was indeed surprised when my father told him that there were two Harijan boys in the hostel.
Krishna underlined the need to cherish the life and achievements of the Father of the Nation and try to implement his teachings.
India’s High Commissioner to the UK Nalin Suri, who was also present at the function, said Gandhiji was not only a great statesman but a man of great foresight.
Paying tributes to the Mahatma, Maneck Dalal, chairman of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, said though Gandhiji was small in physique but enormous as a moral figure.