Anniversary Remembering a Great Soul By Jill Sinclair
Many memorials have been created to the founder of the Indian nation in the 70 years since his assassination.
O
n 30 January 1948 Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was shot dead in India’s capital. The 78year-old had led his country’s campaign against British rule and lived just long enough to see India gain independence. His assailant was Nathuram Godse, a Hindu extremist, who blamed Gandhi’s religious tolerance for the
violence between Hindus and Muslims that surrounded the British exit. Reflecting national and international shock at the murder, prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru called Gandhi the “greatest man of our age” and said that, “The light has gone out of our lives and there is darkness everywhere…the Father of the Nation is no more”. Born in western India in 1869, Gandhi had trained in London to be a lawyer, then practised in South Africa, where he campaigned for fair treatment of the resident Indian community. It was here that he was first given the honorific title Mahatma – from the Sanskrit for ‘great soul’ – by which he is most commonly known in the West. Once back in his homeland, Gandhi became leader of the movement for Indian independence, and developed a style of non-violent protest and civil disobedience that inspired activists around the world, including Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King Jr, who called Gandhi’s approach the “guiding light” for the civil rights movement in the US. It is remarkable how, 70 years after his death, Gandhi continues to be widely Above: The Gandhi memorial in London’s Tavistock Square. celebrated and memorialised as a saintly figure and symbol of Opposite page: righteous protest against stateAbove: Gandhi at 10 Downing Street in 1931, about to meet the British Prime Minister. sanctioned injustice and Below left: The marble slab in the centre of the sunken memorial garden at Delhi’s Raj Ghat. Below right: The sunken garden at Raj Ghat. (All photos by the author except where indicated.) inhumanity.
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HISTORIC GARDENS Review
Issue 37
