Saint or statesman? In India Madiba walked his own path

Mail & Guardian

5 hours ago

Prisoner-turned-president: Nelson Mandela's life and South Africa's struggle for freedom bore similarities to India's independence from the British
colonial yoke and Mahatma Gandhi's role in its transition to a democracy: Photo: File
As South Africa and the world observed International Mandela Day on 18 July, my thoughts returned to Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela — the man, the myth, the miracle. A moment etched in my professional and personal memory is how, during his 1995 state visit to India, Madiba diplomatically declined India's subtle efforts to canonise him as a 'saint' in the moral tradition of Mahatma Gandhi.
I was among the South African media corps travelling with Mandela — one of his earliest diplomatic journeys as South Africa's first democratically elected president. It was a trip rich in symbolism and sentiment, coinciding with India's own Independence Day on 15 August — the day in 1947 when it broke free from British colonial rule.
On that humid day in New Delhi, Mandela stood alongside the then prime minister, PV Narasimha Rao, at the Red Fort, attending the flag-hoisting ceremonies, parades and patriotic festivities. He listened attentively as Rao addressed a nation of more than one billion people. India, with its traditions, freedom struggle credentials and global democratic stature, was welcoming in many ways a kindred spirit.
But the Indian media, swept up in the aura of Mandela — prisoner-turned-president, peacemaker-turned-legend — began to invoke saintly comparisons with Gandhi, their own apostle of peace and nonviolence. Gandhi, after all, had lived and worked in South Africa for two formative decades, where he pioneered the nonviolent resistance movement known as satyagraha.
Mandela, who studied Gandhi's writings while incarcerated on Robben Island, had long acknowledged the influence of satyagraha on the ANC's strategy. After his release, as he navigated the treacherous road from armed resistance to reconciliation, it was Gandhi's legacy that offered a moral framework for South Africa's negotiated transition.
Yet Mandela, ever the realist and self-effacing statesman, politely stopped short of accepting the spiritual elevation that Indian commentators — and some officials — seemed eager to offer.
'I am no saint,' he said during a press conference in Ahmedabad, where he paid homage at Gandhi's ashram. 'Unless you think of a saint as a sinner who keeps on trying.'
The most memorable moment of the visit came when Mandela stood at Gandhi's ancestral home in Gujarat and said: 'You gave us Mohandas; we returned him to you as Mahatma.'
It was a moment of diplomatic poetry and historical reflection. Gandhi had come to South Africa as a young lawyer, and it was there — facing institutional racism, fighting for the dignity of Indian indentured workers and learning the discipline of protest — that he was spiritually and politically transformed. When he returned to India in 1915, he was no longer just Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. He had become the Mahatma, the 'Great Soul'.
Mandela's acknowledgment of Gandhi's South African apprenticeship was more than a tribute, it was a recognition of the moral traffic between the two nations. India, in turn, had supported the ANC since its banning in the 1950s, offering the party a semi-diplomatic mission in New Delhi, well before the world fully rallied behind the anti-apartheid cause.
India was the first country to cut trade and diplomatic ties with apartheid South Africa. Long before Mandela became a global symbol, Indian leaders such as Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi had extended solidarity to Oliver Tambo, Yusuf Dadoo and other leaders of South Africa's exiled liberation movement. India had even raised apartheid as a crime against humanity at the United Nations in the 1950s — a bold act of principled diplomacy.
But in 1995, amid the adulation and symbolism, Mandela pushed back — gently but firmly — against the idea that he was Gandhi's reincarnation. In the sweltering heat of Ahmedabad, cradled in the philosophies of satyagraha, Mandela was met with reverence. Yet behind the protocol and pageantry, Indian officials quietly suggested that although they honoured Mandela, they saw him as his own man, not merely a disciple of Gandhi.
This was not disrespect — far from it. It was a nuanced diplomatic gesture to honour Madiba's unique path, to recognise that although Gandhi's influence loomed large, Mandela had carved his own legacy. Unlike Gandhi's unwavering nonviolence, Mandela had once led uMkhonto weSizwe, the ANC's armed wing, in a strategic turn toward sabotage and resistance. He had walked a harder path — from armed revolutionary to peacemaker, from political prisoner to president.
And he was human. Three marriages. Twenty-seven years behind bars. Flaws and scars. That was Madiba. Gandhi too, was no flawless saint. He too was complex and controversial. But in the theatre of international diplomacy, India's reluctance to canonise Mandela was a tribute in itself: to let him be a statesman, a father of his nation, without forcing him into another's shadow.
The visit to India stirred echoes of another assignment I had undertaken — retracing Mandela's final moments as a free man before his 1962 capture by apartheid police. Disguised as a chauffeur, he was travelling near Howick in KwaZulu-Natal when he was intercepted — allegedly tipped off by a CIA operative stationed at the US consulate in Durban. That arrest would lead to the Rivonia Trial, life imprisonment and nearly three decades of silence.
Now, in 1995, that same man stood in the Red Fort, feted by the Indian state and embraced by the Indian people. It was a powerful metaphor: from hunted fugitive to honoured guest, from revolutionary to revered elder. His journey mirrored Gandhi's, but it was also distinctly his own.
This year marks 30 years since that unforgettable state visit. Mandela's presence in India was not just about diplomacy, it was about kinship. The emotional bond between the Indian National Congress and the ANC, forged in the fires of colonialism, apartheid and exile, had matured into state-to-state relations between proud democracies.
Madiba's gratitude was evident. He often said India was the first place where he felt the ANC was treated as a government-in-waiting. He knew that South Africa's freedom was not only the result of domestic struggle, but also of international solidarity. And India had been there — early, steadfast and unapologetically committed.
Mandela died in 2013, bearing 250 global honours including the Nobel Peace Prize. But during that 1995 visit to India, he left behind something more lasting: a diplomatic legacy rooted in shared values, mutual respect and an understanding that true heroes don't seek canonisation.
Saint or not, Mandela walked his own path.
Marlan Padayachee is a veteran political, foreign and diplomatic correspondent from South Africa's transition to democracy. He is a freelance journalist, photographer and researcher.