Karnataka teacher takes Gandhi workshops to more than 400 colleges

Abida Begum, a senior physical education teacher in Bengaluru, has conducted workshops on Mahatma Gandhi’s life and principles at more than 400 government and private colleges across Karnataka, she said. Begum, who works at the Government First Grade College in T. Dasarahalli, said she had been conducting the sessions without charging students.

Her work began in 2016 after she held a workshop at the college where she worked in Ramanagara. She attributed her interest to her father, Aftab Ahmed Khan, whom she described as a Gandhian. Begum said she believed knowledge should be shared and that word of the first workshop led other colleges to approach her.

By 2026, she said, she had visited colleges in all 31 districts of Karnataka. Her sessions examine Gandhi’s ideas on discipline, punctuality, honesty, self-reliance and non-violence. She said students sometimes question the relevance of Gandhi in an age of artificial intelligence, and she explains how those principles can apply at home, in education and at work.

Begum said workshops also address misinformation about Gandhi circulated on social media. Students discuss such claims, and she recommends books that present information about his life and ideas. She said some students later told her they had made changes in their lives.

She collaborates with the Karnataka Gandhi Smaraka Nidhi, the National Service Scheme and the Youth Empowerment and Sports Department on a seven-day state-level youth camp. The camp covers human values through Gandhian thought, leadership, communication, spinning the charkha and making khadi. Begum also coordinates Karnataka’s Gandhi Vichar Sanskar Pariksha, organised by the Gandhi Research Foundation in Maharashtra.

About 8,000 students registered this year, she said, while 325 cleared the examination. The material does not independently verify those figures.