Your Excellencies, distinguished members of the diplomatic corps, respected Director of the Hopp Ferenc Museum, Deputy Director of Museum of Fine Arts, dear friends of India, ladies and gentlemen — Namaskar and a very warm jó napot kívánok.

We gather this morning in this beautiful garden, in the serene presence of Bapu, to pay our deepest homage to Mahatma Gandhi on the one hundred and fifty-seventh anniversary of his birth. This statue is itself a bond between our two nations: presented by India to Hungary on the centenary of Gandhi's birth, sculpted by Ram V. Sutar, and standing on Andrássy since 1971. For more than half a century, it has been a little piece of India at the heart of Budapest. Each year on the second of October, friends of India and of Hungary come together here, as we have this morning, to lay flowers and to sing Bapu's favourite bhajans. Vaishnav Jan To tells us who a true Vaishnav is — one who feels the pain of others. Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram carried him through long marches and long imprisonments. To hear them sung beside his image, in this garden of Asian art, is a deeply moving experience.

Gandhi was born in Porbandar in 1869, a small town on the Arabian Sea. He died in 1948, having led a subcontinent to freedom without firing a shot. And yet, one hundred and fifty-seven years after his birth, he belongs not to history but to the present. Ours is a world of wars and rumours of wars, of sharpening divisions, of anger travelling at the speed of a keystroke, and of a planet straining under our consumption. In such a world, Gandhi's message is not a relic; it is a roadmap. The United Nations recognised this when it declared this very day, the second of October, the International Day of Non-Violence. He warned us that "the earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not for any man's greed."

Gandhi's peace, however, was never passive. It was never submission. Non-violence, he insisted, is the weapon of the strong, not of the weak. He called non-violence "the first article of my faith and the last article of my creed" — and said he would rather see India resist in arms than accept cowardice. Ahimsa demanded far more courage than violence: to face the lathi without raising a hand, to fill prisons without bitterness, to confront an empire armed with nothing but truth. That is why he named his method satyagraha — the force of truth, the stubbornness of the soul. Peace as Gandhi practised it was moral courage, disciplined into a way of life. It is the same moral courage that inspires a Nagy Imré to fight for the freedom of his people or a captain Smit Macchhar to put his life at risk to save hundreds of other lives.

Friends, one of the joys of serving in Hungary is discovering the warmth with which this country remembers Gandhi. This garden is one proof. Another lies in the south, in Pécs, where in the early 1990s Hungarian citizens established the Gandhi School, the first secondary school for Roma children in Europe, naming it after the Mahatma to honour his non-violent struggle and to remember the Indian roots of the Roma people. It moves me deeply that in this land, parents who never saw India chose Gandhi's name as a promise to their children. Hungarian scholars have translated his writings into this language; Hungarian readers continue to discover him; and in this museum, founded by a great Hungarian traveller of Asia, India's heritage is lovingly kept. India is grateful.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi often says that Bapu's teachings must reach every generation as lived practice, not as ritual. The Swachh Bharat Mission was launched on Gandhi Jayanti in 2014 to realise his dream of a clean India. The revival of khadi and village industries, and the strengthening of panchayats, carry forward his vision of Gram Swaraj — villages governing themselves. And Mission LiFE — Lifestyle for Environment — again launched on Gandhi Jayanti, draws directly on his teaching that the world has enough for everyone's need, but not for anyone's greed.

I thank the Hopp Ferenc Museum and its Director for their friendship and gracious hospitality, the Amrita Sher-Gil Cultural Centre, the artists who gave voice to Bapu's beloved bhajans, my colleagues of the Embassy of India, and every one of you who has come here today to honour his memory.

Gandhi said, "My life is my message." May the values and the path shown by Gandhi ji continue to guide us — here in Hungary, in India, and in every land where truth is sought.

Jai Hind. Köszönöm.