BANGALORE: The October issue of the monthly magazine FIFA World carries an article about how the Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi, used football during his early years in South Africa to spread his ideas of social justice and equality. The article is authored by David Ruiz of Durban.
“Gandhi already knew football well from the time he spent in England completing his law studies. He was an early advocate of football’s ability to inspire hope and instil discipline,” Bongani Sithole, official guide of the Phoenix Settlement which Gandhiji founded in Durban, has been quoted as saying in the article.
“Gandhi observed the popular appeal of football and decided to use his own passion for the sport as a tool to raise people’s awareness of the need to take non-violent action to achieve equal rights and integration in society. As an undisputed leader of non-violent resistance to the apartheid regime of the time, Gandhi helped establish three football clubs in Durban, Pretoria and Johannesburg and all of which were given the same name: Passive Resisters Soccer Club,” says David. Pictures of Gandhi with members of the team are seen at Durban’s Old Court House Museum. Some even have him delivering speeches at pitchside.
“What fascinated Gandhi in particular was the notion he had of football’s nobility. It was one of his greatest personal passions and one if the ways in which he was able to find spiritual peace. He believed that the game had enormous potential to promote team work and appreciated football’s ability to draw large crowds,” Poobalan Govindasamy, President of the South African Indoor Football Association, has been quoted as saying.
“It was Gandhi and his contemporaries who did more than anyone else to involve non-whites in structured sporting activities. In 1903, with Gandhi’s support came the founding of the South African Association of Hindu Football. It paved the way for the later creation of a national federation and leagues in which games could be played regardless of the players’s skin colour,” Govindasamy adds. “After Gandhi left in 1914, his work was taken up by others and the Phoenix Settlement which he founded in Inanda, near Durban, is still in use today,” he adds.
It is ironical that despite Gandhiji’s deep involvement and interest in football, apart from whatever else he liked or did not, India lags way behind in every aspect of the most popular sport on Mother Earth.