Indian community honours Lange and Birch

Jogal Bhatt, 8, helped by Shanti Patel, marks David Lange with a traditional red dot, or tilak, at the ceremony yesterday. Picture / Greg Bowker

In failing health and confined to a wheelchair, former Prime Minister David Lange still managed to raise a chuckle from his audience at a ceremony in Auckland yesterday.

The 62-year-old, undergoing regular dialysis treatment for an incurable blood disease and unable to walk, has been made an honorary member of the Indian community along with former Finance Minister in the Bolger Government Sir William Birch.

It is the first time the New Zealand Indian community has conferred the honour on anyone of non-Indian descent.

Mr Lange traced his affection for Indian culture back to his boyhood in Otahuhu when his mother decreed he could not go to the movies because of the immorality he might see there.

She then checked out Indian movies playing at the Gandhi Hall in Papakura and decided the 7-year-old would come to no harm.

"You didn't see drinking or kissing or such-like. All they did was bore you to death for 3 1/2 hours," Mr Lange quipped, to appreciative laughter from the audience of about 150 members of the New Zealand Indian Central Association.

Speakers at the event in the Mahatma Gandhi Centre paid homage to the two men.

Mr Lange was praised for reopening the New Zealand High Commission in New Delhi after he became Prime Minister in 1984 and Sir William for helping Indian constituents in his Franklin electorate.

Sir William paid tribute to the Indian community's "great attitude" to politics, as shown by association past-president Ganges Singh.

"When National was in office, he wore a blue turban and if Labour, he would wear a red one." A garland of flowers was placed round the neck of both men and their foreheads adorned with the traditional "tilak" or red dot, which marks the brain as the seat of all wisdom and mental concentration in Hindu culture.

The association, founded in 1926, has 17 branches nationwide. President Ashokbhai Gaiwala said yesterday's ceremony was "unique because we are doing this to non-Indians".