London, Sept.28 : To mark the 138th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of the Nation, the Indian High Commission in London will release a book titled "Mahatma Gandhi: Images and Ideas for Non-Violence" by Vijay Rana.

The book is a remarkable collection of the images of Mahatma Gandhi’s statues, murals, graffiti, wall paintings, posters and puppets. Every photograph is accompanied by Gandhi’s words of wisdom on issues like non-violence, peace, religious harmony, social equality, rural development, economic liberation of the poor and women’s and animal rights.

Edited by the London based Indian broadcast journalist and the editor of NRIfm.com, Vijay Rana, the book demonstrates how Mahatma Gandhi is virtually being worshiped around the world and it also presents the entire spectrum of Gandhian thought.

The United Nations has decided to observe October 2, as the UN International Day of Non-Violence.

The book shows how Mahatma Gandhi’s images and ideas are inspiring people from all over the world to raise their voice against the scourge of war and violence. In many of the anti-war protests in the US, Gandhi's portraits, puppets and placards are now prominently displayed.

Many of these images have a remarkable story to tell. The book has two photographs of the peaceful civil resistance of the villagers of Bel’in in the West Bank. Carrying the photographs of Gandhi and Mandela they took out peaceful protests and sit-in on every Friday and finally winning a rare victory, when the Israeli Supreme Court ordered the government to reroute the electric barrier - a small victory of Gandhian methods of non-violence in the violence ridden West Bank.

In the Black Valley, Ireland, we find a simple monument of black stone, inscribed with the words of Mahatma Gandhi: "How men can feel themselves honoured by the humiliation of their fellow beings." Erected in 1994, the monument reminds us of those millions of people who died of hunger in the Great Irish Famine, 1845-49.

When the victims of Hurricane Mitch in Nicaragua began to reconstruct their destroyed village, they sought inspiration from Mahatma Gandhi by painting a huge mural of him on the very first wall they erected. In a crime-ridden part of Granada, Spain, an unknown graffiti artist drew a smiling portrait of Mahatma Gandhi on a village wall as if asking people to shun violence. That’s how the image of Gandhi is being used in various parts of the world.

It took more than three years, thousands of e-mails and hundreds of phone calls to collect these remarkable photographs from around the world. These photographers, many of them amateurs, had a genuine reverence for Gandhi and were kind enough to permit the use their remarkable images.