Hyderabad: Archbishop Desmond Tutu, South Africa's anti-apartheid icon who won the Nobel Peace Prize for fighting racial discrimination in South Africa, has died. He was 90.
Paying tributes to Tutu, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that he was a guiding light for countless people globally and his emphasis on human dignity and equality will be forever remembered. Modi said: "I am deeply saddened by his demise, and extend my heartfelt condolences to all his admirers. May his soul rest in peace."
Condoling the death of South Africa's Nobel Peace Prize-winning activist, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday said that such great heroes of social justice will always be a "source of inspiration to all of us across the world".
"My condolences on the passing of Archbishop Desmond Tutu. He was a champion of the anti-apartheid movement and a Gandhian," Rahul Gandhi tweeted. "Such great heroes of social justice will always be a source of inspiration to all of us across the world," the former Congress chief said.
Tutu received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 when he was still the Bishop of Johannesburg.
Tutu was saluted by the Nobel Committee for his clear views and his fearless stance, characteristics which had made him a unifying symbol for all African freedom fighters. Attention was once again directed at the nonviolent path to liberation.Despite bloody violations committed against the black population, as in the Sharpeville massacre of 1961 and the Soweto rising in 1976, Tutu adhered to his nonviolent line.
The Nelson Mandela Foundation recalled Tutu's relationship with Mandela after the two first met at a debating competition in the early 1950s until they first met again only before Mandela's release from 27 years as a political prisoner on February 11, 1990. The minority white apartheid government had thwarted all attempts by Tutu to meet Mandela again in the intervening four decades. Mandela's first night as a free man was spent at the home of the Tutus in Bishopscourt, Cape Town.
From then until Mandela passed away in 2013 they were in regular contact and their friendship deepened over time. Tutu had in recent years also been an outspoken critic of the looting of state enterprises in what has been identified at the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture, not sparing the ruling African National Congress of which he had been a proud member all his life.
With inputs from agencies
