AMID THE ENCIRCLING GLOOM....

Amid the encircling gloom....
WHEN THE HEARTHS WENT COLD*(Vijay Times, 30 Jan. 2006)P.N.BENJAMINPrecisely at six o’clock, on January 30, 1948, AllIndia Radio announced: “Mahatma Gandhi wasassassinated in New Delhi at twenty minutes past fivethis afternoon. His assassin was a Hindu.”The Mahatma was shot in the gardens of Birla Mandir,in the presence of about one thousand of his followerswhom he was leading to make his daily eveningdevotions. Dressed, as always, in his khadi dhoti andleaning heavily on a stout walking stick, MahatmaGandhi was only a few feet from the Mandir when theshots were fired. He crumbled instantly, putting hishands to his forehead in the Hindu gesture offorgiveness to his assassin. Three bullets penetratedhis body, one in the upper right thigh, one in theabdomen, and one in the chest.India was plunged into sorrow. All over India the newsspread like wildfire. Minutes later, in Bombay riotingbroke out. In Delhi, in the fast-gathering gloom ofthe night, the news set the people on the march. Theywalked slowly down the avenues and out of the squalidbazzars, converging on Birla House. Thereby thethousands they stood weeping silently, moaning andwailing.Above the vast plains, the fields, the clutteredslums, writhing jungles, the air was crystal clear.The mantle of India’s night, the fine haze of thecow-dung fires burning in a hundred millions hearths,had disappeared. To mourn the Mahatma, those hearthswere cold.From the beautiful mansion to the wretched slums, thepeople wept. Calcutta’s great maidan was almost empty.Through its streets a barefoot sadhu, his face smearedwith ashes walked crying: “The Mahatma is dead. Whencomes another such as he?”There were grave fears, heightened by the savageoutbreaks in Bombay, that without her saint to holdpassions in check, all India might be whirled intostrife.In New Delhi, a heartbroken man found in the depths ofhis sorrow the words that he had despaired of finding.Jawaharlal Nehru’s eyes were filled with tears as hestepped before the microphone of the All India Radio.The words he was about to utter were spontaneous, butthey glowed with unforgettable beauty.“The light has gone out of our lives and there isdarkness everywhere”, he said. (Perhaps, anunconscious imitation of Homer’s: “The sun hasperished out of the heavens”). “The light has goneout, I said, and yet I was wrong. For the light thatshone in this country was no ordinary light”.“In a thousand years”, Nehru predicted, “that lightwill still be seen…the world will see it and it willgive solace to innumerable hearts. For that lightrepresented something more than the immediate present;it represented the living, the eternal truths,reminding us of the right path, drawing us from error,taking this ancient country to freedom.”The light whose disappearance Nehru mourned belongedto the rest of the world, too. Messages of condolencepoured in from every corner of a shocked globe.Mahatma Gandhi’s first political rival, Field MarshalSmuts, sent a simple tribute: “A prince among us haspassed”. At Vatican, the Pope Pius XII paid tribute tothe Mahatma as “an apostle of peace”.It was the irony of fate that one whose life wasdirected against violence should be snuffed out by theforces of violence. “It shows how dangerous it is tobe good”, was George Bernard Shaw’s reaction to thenews of the assassination.“Just an old man in loin cloth in distant India”,commented Louis Fischer. “Yet, when he died, humanitywept”In a moving editorial the New York Times wrote: “…thesaint who will be remembered, not only on the plainsand in the hills of India but all over the world. Hestrove for perfection as other men strive for powerand professions. He pitied those to whom wrong wasdone: the East Indian labourers in South Africa, theuntouchable ‘children of God’ of the lowest caste inIndia, but he schooled himself not to hate thewrongdoer…Now he belongs to the ages”.Appropriately in the vast outpourings of tributes,Indian newspapers themselves produced the mostmemorable testimonial of all. For example, theeditorial page of the Hindustan Times was left blank,ringed by a black border. At its centre was a singleparagraph set in bold face type: “Gandhiji has beenkilled by his own people for whose redemption he live.This second crucifixion in the history of Friday – thesame day Jesus was done to death one thousand ninehundred and fifteen years ago. Father, forgive us”.Godse assassinated Mahatma Gandhi on 30 January 1948and he was tried and executed. But almost everyone,who holds authority now in India, speaks untruths, isa co-assassin with Godse, though not tried andconvicted. Everyone in power who misleads the countryaway from freedom – political, economic, cultural andsocial – for which Gandhiji stood all his life, is anuncovicted abettor of Godse. Every dishonest man,either in business or in government, is a co-assassinwith Godse. Everyone who utilises power for personalor party advantage is a Godse. Everyone who gives orreceives a bribe is an unconvicted Godse. Everyhypocrite in public life puts a knife into Gandhiji’sside.Let us not delude ourselves into self-satisfaction bythe cant of hypocrisy, which is the worst of allcants, as well as most tormenting. Gandhiji was great.Indeed, he was a miracle, but parties and powers thatrule prefer to do without him. We have strayed intothe wrong road and must get back from the slough wehave been led into.“Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom, leadthou us on…”P.N.BENJAMINbenjaminpn@...