When Rajmohan Gandhi, President of Initiatives of Change International, gave a public lecture in Tokyo last week on Japan’s role in the world, the choice of venue – the Ozaki Yukio Memorial Foundation – was highly symbolic.

‘Trust may not succeed in one week, one month or maybe even 10 years, but I think the world should know that there is a grassroots movement for trust in Ukraine.’

Rajmohan Gandhi’s final thoughts for Ukraine were a fitting conclusion for the first ‘Week of Trust’ that was celebrated from Kiev to Crimea on April 19-26. Gandhi and the Voyage of Dialogue and Discovery were special guests in support of the people’s movement led by Foundations for Freedom, the local Initiatives of Change team in Ukraine.

For a country that has experienced years of oppression, like Romania, freedom is not taken for granted.

‘What is freedom?’ probed one student after Rajmohan Gandhi’s address at a university in Baia Mare, a northern Romanian city of 130,000 that was once a major mining centre. Prof Gandhi replied that ‘if the state tells me what to do, I say I will resist. But if my conscience asks me not to do something, I want to obey it. Then I find I have inner freedom.’

The realities of Norway contrast in many ways with the situations in Egypt, Palestine and Israel, which the Gandhi Voyage visited before arriving in Oslo.

As part of their journey to several countries, Prof Rajmohan Gandhi and his wife Usha visited the West Bank and Israel at the beginning of April. Along with Edward Peters they were guests of Dr Mustafa Barghouthi and the Palestinian National Initiative in the West Bank before continuing to Jerusalem for 24 hours.

At the end of a two-week visit to South Africa, Professor Rajmohan Gandhi delivered a Vice-Chancellor's Open lecture at the University of Cape Town, calling for 'a coalition of conscience' within countries and across the world to confront 'the real enemies... of hate, fear and greed'.

At the age of 16, Rajmohan Gandhi, grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, answered the door one day to receive a message for his father, then editor of the daily Hindustan Times. The message read: ‘Prime Minister of Pakistan, Liaquat Ali Khan, shot. Further details to follow.’ The young Gandhi, keen to impress, retorted: ‘I hope the further news will be that he is dead.’

The visit of Rajmohan and Usha Gandhi was on the invitation of Initiatives of Change, Sri Lanka. The visit, the main purpose of which was to meet friends from the past and in relatively small groups, those who could help in building bridges between the many groups, who over the years had allowed barriers to arise and divisions of mistrust to be created. The visit had as its theme, ‘ Onward with Truth and Integrity for Justice and Peace. ’

The Gandhis were met on arrival at 2230 hrs, at the VIP lounge of the Bandaranaike International Airport by Ms. Rohini de Mel and Hiran Fernando.

Rajmohan Gandhi strongly advised against labelling all Pakistanis as terrorists and shared his three-point mantra for India to become a world power, one of which was that people in the country should stop stereotyping on the basis of religion. He was speaking at a lecture organised on the 50th death anniversary of Gandhi's close aide J.C. Kumarappa, who died at Jan 30, 1960.