Mr. Tushar Gandhi

Mr. Tushar Gandhi (b.17th January 1960) is the great-grandson of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the Mahatma. Tushar is a socio-political activist of peace issues, who also heads the Mahatma Gandhi Foundation.

In 2000, he was instrumental to initiate the “Mahatma of the World Wide Web project” with the help of the Non Resident Indians of the TIE group of USA, an association of Silicon Valley Billionaries of Indian origins. Tushar was also appointed to a sub committee of the Gandhi Smriti and Darshan Samiti by the Prime Minister of India.

In 2001, Tushar was invited by the NGO “Peace Initiatives”, to join a group of journalists and social activists to visit the strife torn Kashmir, to interact with the leaders of the separatist “Hurriyat Conference”, the police and the Chief Minister of Jammu & Kashmir with the aim to explore the possibility of achieving peace through development and economic programmes

A noted Gandhian himself, he has been involved with the US based NGO “Seeds for Peace” which works with children from various strife torn regions of the world, at their camp in Maine.

In 2002, Tushar was invited to London by EMMA, a minorities cultural organization, to receive the Immortal Legends award on behalf of his great-grandfather, Mahatma Gandhi. In the autumn of 2002, Tushar was invited by the Lord Mayor of London to participate and speak at a seminar organized under the auspices of the Black History Month celebrated by the GLA. Tushar also spoke at the Inner Temple Society on “Human Rights post September 11: The Role of the Judiciaty”. Along with Ms. Yolanda King, daughter of Dr. Martin Luther King jr.; Ms. Zindzi Mandela, daughter of Nelson Mandela; Ms. Attallah Shahbazz, daughter of Malcom X; and Mr. Gamal Nkurmah, son of Kwame Nkurmah, Tushar was the main speaker at the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Lecture at the Nehru Centre in London.

A member of the Indian National Congress, Tushar has been active in protesting against religious fundamentalism and fanaticism of any kind. The Mahatma Gandhi Foundation has helped in establishing peace through mutually dependent relationships between religious communities by partnering with local groups.

In 2005, to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the famous Dandi March (Salt Satyagraha) undertaken by Mahatma Gandhi in 1930, in defiance of the Salt monopoly of the British rule, Tushar organized a walk for Peace, Justice and Freedom. The 241 miles (385.6 KM) long walk was completed along with over 600 marchers from India, Pakistan and all over the world.

In April 2005, the Mahatma Gandhi Foundation and Tushar were awarded the first Mahatma Mahaveer Award by the TIMES Foundation in recognition of his work in promoting the ideals of Mahatma Gandhi.

Tushar strives to create one of India’s biggest electronic archive on the World Wide Web to help Bridge the digital divide that threatens to widen the economic and developmental gap between the “Have Too Much” and the “Have Nothing” segments of the Indian population; and to provide educational, healthcare and employment opportunities to the economically weaker and rural sections of India.

Besides doing a cameo as himself in the Bollywood flick ‘Hey Ram’ based on the life of the Mahatma, Tushar has also written a chapter for a book on the importance of Country Level Domain Names on the internet. He has long been crusading popularize the India specific Country code top level domain in on the World Wide Web.

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