Gandhi's grandson speaks in push for U.S. Department of Peace

When 300 students from across the nation gathered at Brandeis University Friday to rally for peace and hear the grandson of Mahatma Gandhi speak, they probably were not expecting to be called violent.

Arun Gandhi, 73, demonstrated how everyone, including members of the Student Peace Alliance, a group pushing to create a United States Department of Peace, can be prone to violence.

Instructing the students to make a fist and imagine holding the world's largest diamond, he asked them to turn to a neighbor, who would try to open the fist.

Gandhi let them struggle - they giggled and grunted - before he asked the students, "Did any of you ask them to open the fist?"

He spoke pensively and with a soft smile about the 18 months he spent living with his grandfather, spiritual leader Mohandas Karamchand "Mahatma" Gandhi, and his decision to take up his teachings of peace.

"When I was a teenager it became quite a burden because people have all kinds of expectations for you. … My mother, she gave me a piece of advice. She said if you consider it to be a burden, there's nothing you can do about it. You just have to live with it, and it will become heavier and heavier as you grow older. But if you consider this to be a light that is illuminating the path ahead for you, it will be much easier for you to handle."

Now Gandhi likens his work inspiring young people to that of a dutiful farmer, germinating the seeds of future peacemakers.

"In history you'll see that it is always one person who has tried to make a difference," he told one student who had asked how to combat apathy.

Gandhi opened the alliance's first national conference by stressing the differences between tolerance and respect, the absence of violence and peace.

Students will spend the weekend planning how to gain support for a bill before Congress that would establish a cabinet-level department of peace.

"It's about building the culture of peace on the ground level to work with schools and community violence prevention programs," said Julia Simon-Michel, the alliance's national director. "We try to identify programs that are working and point them out to the government."

U.S. Reps. James McGovern, Edward Markey, and John Olver of Massachusetts are among the bill's 69 co-sponsors in the House.

"It will be a substantive (victory). No country in the world has ever had a department of peace," said Gandhi, who moved to the U.S. because of its world influence. "What I'd like people to realize is that it's not the only step."

"If people here accept non-violence and begin to live it, then the rest of the world will follow."

MetroWest (Mass.) Daily News staff writer Lindsey Parietti can be reached at lindsey.parietti@cnc.com.