A year-long celebration of the 150th anniversary of the birth of India’s Mohandas K. Gandhi will be recognized with a celebration Friday morning at Town Hall.
Supervisor Chad A. Lupinacci will co-host the launch the commemoration of Gandhi’s birthday with the Shanti Fund and Sandeep Chakravorty, consul general of India in New York, and will be joined by Town and State officials.
The ceremony gets underway at 11 a.m.
Gandhi, known as Mahatma or “the great-souled one,” was born on Oct. 2, 1869. He began his activism as an Indian immigrant in South Africa in the early 1900s. Following World War I, he became the leading figure in India’s struggle to gain independence from Great Britain.
Imprisoned several times during his pursuit of non-cooperation, Gandhi undertook a number of hunger strikes to protest the oppression of India’s poorest classes, among other injustices. After the partition and the establishment of Pakistan in 1947, he continued to work toward peace between Hindus and Muslims. He was assassinated in 1948 by a fellow Hindu.