Kobad Ghandy was an inspiration, say friends

REVOLUTIONARIES: Advocate Susan Gonsalves with husband Vernon

By: Ketan Ranga Date: 2009-09-24 Place: Mumbai

I met Kobad Ghandy from my early days in college when he was working in Nagpur and I was in Chandrapur.

I met him for the last time in 1993,” says Mumbai advocate Susan Gonzalves, who said they were revolutionaries, working for change in society.

Susan’s husband Vernon, who was also arrested from Mumbai on August 17, 2007, for allegedly being a state committee member of the Naxals. Bandra boy Arun Ferreira was arrested three months before her husband.

Said Susan, “Kobad is a very enlightened and learned person. He is fighting against an unjust system, where a handful of people are getting luxuries, while others suffer. Kobad inspired people like us.”

She added, “The police will never want a change in the society. No one wants a revolution. Hence the person, who is following the revolution or working for it, will be treated in the same manner.”

His Wife Was My Classmate, Says Journo

Freelance journalist Jyoti Punwani, who was Anuradha Ghandy’s classmate at Elphinstone College said, “Anuradha and I studied Sociology.

She was bubbly, vivacious, the belle of the ball. But even then she was involved with the Leftist movement.”

Post college, Punwani worked with both Kobad and Anuradha on a quarterly magazine she edited for the Committee for the Protection of Democratic Rights (CPDR) called Adhikaar Raksha.

The couple then went underground, “I did not know where they were, but they did keep in touch when they came in to Mumbai,” said Punwani.