It was more than a touch of irony as a top Republican lawmaker spoke glowingly of Mahatma Gandhi and what an inspiration his satyagraha movement was to the world even as hundreds were being arrested in anti-war civil disobedience protests outside of New York's Madison Square Garden where the Republican National Convention is being held.

Representative Jim Leach, Iowa Republican, the second-most senior GOP legislator on the House International Relations Committee and the chairman of the sub-committee that has jurisdiction over matters pertaining to South Asia, said, "In world affairs, the person who affected change more than anyone else, more effectively than anyone else, was Mahatma Gandhi.

"The idea of satyagraha -- the idea of non-violence -- is a notion of a different way of human behaviour," Leach said at a conference organized on the margins of the GOP convention by the American Jewish Committee to recognize the growing ties between India and Israel and the Jewish American and Indian American communities.

"In many ways, the security of the world, the security of Israel, the security of India depends upon the people in the world using the model of Gandhi to fight for peace and against the scourge of terrorism," he said.

Another influential Republican, Representative Chris Smith of New Jersey, also a member of the International Relations Committee, lauded the AJC's work for human rights.

"The idea of building bonds of solidarity with the Indian community is the way to promote human rights because there is a synergy there. Isolated we make some progress but working in tandem, we can make significant progress," he said.
Smith too referred to Gandhi saying, "It (satyagraha) has inspired us all -- from Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement here and elsewhere for justice on a myriad of issues.

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"Indian Americans should be very proud as I know you are of that legacy because it has certainly inspired the world."
Smith said he would also "always be grateful for what India has done in providing refuge to the Dalai Lama, in providing a place of respite for him as a result of the cruel rape of Tibet by the government of Beijing."