One of the last remnants of Gandhian idealogy,Nirmala Deshpande died at the age of 79.The noted Gandhian espoused the cause of peace and communal harmony over a period of six decades.She has been conferred with the Padma Vibushan and Rajive Gandhi Sadbavana Award.
Taking the cue from Mahatma, she had gone on a peace march in Orissa following the killing of Christian Missionary Graham Staines in 1999 and again after the communal carnage in Gujarat in the year 2002.
Nirmala Deshpande was born on October, 17, 1929 in Nagpur. She was graduated in M.A Political Science. She plunged in socio and political movements by joining Vinoba Bhave’s historic Bhoodan Movement in 1952 and she had walked a staggering 40,000 Km along with Acharya Vinoba Bhave, during the Boodhan movement. She devoted herself in distributing the lands collected from the Bhoodan movement. to the landless.
Nirmala as Director of the Shanthi Sena Vidyalaya at Kasturbagram, in Indoor, in madhyapradesh, trained and engaged her workers in the peace process who rendered valuable service during the communal tension to restore normality and offer protection to victims.
Her peace march to Punjab in the year 1980, Jammu and Kashmir, to persuade the militants to lay down their arms, her services in Gujarat in the year 2002 in Gujarat during communal violence and above all her mission to Pakistan to ensure peace between the tow countries are laudable achievements.She has headed various organizations and trusts connected with Gandhian idealogy.
She has attended many an international conferences in the abroad.She had been a member of Rajya Sabha in the 1997 for a two year stint and again nominated in the year 2004.
We should observe and emulate such great personalities.
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