A recent interview I gave to Cameron Conaway at the Good Men Project.
Man-to-Man with Arun Gandhi, Grandson of Mahatma Gandhi – Part 1
Arun Gandhi became his own man despite and thanks to shouldering his grandfather’s legacy.
I dialed Arun’s cell from Skype on my laptop. The first ring reinforced how different the times of today must 
be compared to 67 years ago when he was living in India with his grandfather Mahatma Gandhi. The second ring reinforced the similarities: the wars, the conflicts and the ongoing need for peace. He answered on the third; his voice a bridge.
Arun Gandhi was born in 1934 and is the fifth grandson of Mahatma Gandhi. For over thirty years he worked as a journalist for the Times of India and in recent years he’s had a regular blog for The Washington Post. He is the co-founder of The M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence and in recent years has become one of the world’s most sought-after speakers on practical peacebuilding and the original teachings of his grandfather. In 2008 he founded the Gandhi Worldwide Education Institute. As noble as his work has been, it hasn’t been without controversy. In 2008 he came under harsh scrutiny and later apologized for a Washington Post article in which he was accused of insinuating that the Jews and Israel are “the biggest players” in a global culture of violence.
Still, Arun is a man who has managed to become his own man, who has experienced his own traumas in childhood and as an adult, who continues to use his grandfather’s teachings and the time they spent together as a personal compass. He now works daily to combat the multifaceted scourge of poverty in India. [Read more…]