Hume accepts Ghandi peace prize

Nobel Laureate John Hume MEP has received the Mahatma Ghandi Peace Prize in a ceremony in New Delhi, India.

According to the citation, the prize was presented to him for his "outstanding work and contribution to social, economic and political transformation through non-violence and other Ghandian methods".

In accepting the award Mr Hume paid tribute to the former Indian leader and said that India had a "great influence on me and my party". He also compared the political processes of Ireland and India.

"In our small island, as in this great sub-continent, political change was an untidy business," he said. "In Ireland as in India, there were divisions that led to partition and a continuing legacy of pain."

Mr Hume touched on the state of the current peace process in Northern Ireland, suggesting that it would only be complete when it became a state of mind, rather than merely succeeding through the state's "functioning institutions".

"We must aim higher, at a transformation of hearts and a healing process… the point of breakthrough is when we move from denial to the acceptance of compromise."

His speech held much symbolism for the sub-continent, in the light of the recent build-up of military tensions between Pakistan and India over the disputed Kashmir region – which the countries have gone to war over on three occasions since partition in 1946.

Mr Hume said that "people, not territory, have rights" and that difference was the essence of humanity. Referring to the patron of the Peace Prize, Mr Hume said: "Ghandi taught me – and it has been etched in my mind at every turn in my political life - that an eye for an eye leaves us all blind."

In his acceptance speech Mr Hume also praised the institutions of the world's biggest democracy, the freedom of its media and its egalitarian culture. (GMcG)