One world, one passport?

As Modi’s speech began to trend this week, the initiative at Birad Rajaram Yajnik’s Peace Truth Ahimsa Museum on Mahatma Gandhi in the city grabbed attention. The “passport” has already found ambassadors in hundreds of international students.

“The World Citizen Passport was announced at the Mandela-Gandhi Youth Summit in South Africa. We had photographed the participating students at the Summit and a personalised passport was handed to them,” he says. “We encourage the students to carry this token on their journey of peace. So, they become ambassadors,” he adds.

After the event abroad, Yajnik came back to the city and further reached out to 600 youngsters at the Harvard Model UN held recently. “The passport is an educational tool. It has a trove of information,” explains Yajnik.

But not everyone can get the passport. It requires a bit of involvement. “The passport holder should also stand for a few qualities such as integrity and perseverance, and must leverage his/her consciousness rightly,” he says.

For this, there are four hour seminars tailored for school students called ‘I am Gandhi’ and an advance programme called ‘Invoking Gandhi’ for adults. One can make a booking with a group (minimum 30 members) by writing to mkg@vqindia.com.

The museum, dedicated to the cause of propagating “oneness” that Gandhi taught, also uses science and technology, such as gene mapping. “What better way to prove that we are all one, than gene mapping,” enthuses Yajnik.

Hoping to make a passport for Modi soon, Yajnik adds, “Imagine a world with 7 billion of these passports. The boundaries and borders are just in our minds.”