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Known for its digital innovations, South African Tourism has launched its latest offering: a website featuring Gandhi Inspired Tourist Attractions that encourages tourists to follow in the footsteps of the father of passive resistance.

The new website, which can be viewed at www.southafrica.net/gandhi, looks at the many roles that Gandhi played during his South African sojourn – from lawyer through to campaigner, ambulanceman in the Anglo-Boer War, petitioner, friend and celebrity.

It also directs users to 13 Gandhi-related attractions throughout the country, such as Constitution Hill in Johannesburg, where Gandhi was once imprisoned, and the Phoenix Settlement near Durban, where a newspaper he founded, the Indian Opinion, was published for many years.

A highlight is video featuring Ela Gandhi, daughter of Gandhi’s second son, Manilal, who talks about her famous grandfather at Phoenix where she grew up.

This year marks 100 years since Gandhi left South Africa for India, after a 21-year sojourn in this country. He arrived in 1893 as a young lawyer in his early 20s and left an emerging world leader in 1914, ready to take up the cudgels against British rule in India.

The launch of Gandhi Inspired Tourist Attractions took place on October 16 at Satyagraha House in Orchards, Johannesburg, where Gandhi lived for a brief period with his friend and supporter Hermann Kallenbach.

Indian Acting High Commissioner to South Africa, T Armstrong Changsan, author of Gandhi's Johannesburg: Birthplace of Satyagraha, Eric Itzkin; and South African Tourism Chief Executive Officer, Thulani Nzima, were in attendance.

Changsan expressed gratitude that South Africa was finally telling the Gandhi story and said the Indian government was working to upgrade several sites of significance, including the Pietermaritzburg Station where Gandhi was famously evicted from a train.

There were also plans to create a Garden of Remembrance at Tolstoy Farm near Lenasia outside Johannesburg where Gandhi and Kallenbach established a settlement.

Itzkin, who wrote the book detailing all the sites of historical significance associated with Gandhi in Johannesburg, said it was often remarked that: “India gave us Mohandas, and South Africa gave back the Mahatma (great soul).”

Itzkin added: “We are fortunate in this country to walk in the footsteps of the giants of non-violence.”
Although the story of Gandhi’s role in Indian independence is well known, people are not fully aware of the full extent of his influence in South Africa and that his story goes way beyond the famous incident of being ejected from a train in Pietermaritzburg.

Although Gandhi was never to return to these shores again after 1914, the many lessons he learnt here through his satyagraha (truth-force) campaigns against discriminatory legislation against Indians had a profound bearing on his political trajectory. These campaigns also influenced the passive resistance anti-apartheid campaigns of the ANC in the 1950s and 1960s.

In his address, Nzima said this initiative followed the launch of a Madiba tourism map (www.southafrica.net/mandela) earlier this year (a project also developed by Flow Communications). Nzima said he hoped the Gandhi site would be yet another way of attracting visitors to South Africa, as people all over the world wished to follow in the footsteps of these two great leaders.

“The Gandhi project was a deeply enriching process for us,” says Tara Turkington, CEO of Flow Communications. It was fascinating to uncover the Gandhi story and to bring together beautiful design, photography, video and web capabilities into one package that will hopefully inspire many tourists to follow in Gandhi’s footsteps.”

Flow is one of South Africa’s leading communications and digital agencies and the company responsible for the site.
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