Gandhi Finally Laid To Rest in Arabian Sea Ceremony
Mahatma Gandhi’s great-granddaughter today spread his ashes in the Arabian Sea in a ceremony marking the 60th anniversary of the Indian independence leader’s assassination.
Honouring the man still revered as the moral conscience of the nation, Gandhi’s followers had carried his ashes through the streets of Mumbai to the coast, where the procession was met by a platoon of police and assembled local politicians.
The small copper urn, wreathed in garlands of white flowers, was then taken out to sea on a speedboat, pursued by a flotilla of cameramen and reporters.
Nilamben Parikh then poured the contents into the sea, completing a ritual that finally laid India’s secular saint to rest and marked the healing of a generations-old rift among his descendants.
The urn was one of dozens containing Gandhi’s cremated remains that were distributed around India after he was shot dead by a Hindu extremist on January 30 1948 at a prayer meeting in New Delhi. The distribution denied Gandhi the traditional Hindu burial he had wanted but placated the mourning masses of newly independent India.
The ashes spread at sea today had been intended for display at Mumbai’s Mani Bhavan Gandhi museum, having been bequeathed by an Indian businessman in Dubai whose father had been a close friend of Gandhi.
But Gandhi’s family objected to the apparent deification of a relic, saying it could be misused for politicians in search of votes. Instead, the relatives wanted to scatter the ashes at sea, a ceremony also intended to symbolise the healing of a rift between Gandhi and his estranged eldest son, Harilal.
Parikh, an author, is the granddaughter of Harilal, who flirted with Islam but died virtually unnoticed as a penniless alcoholic, having outlived his illustrious father by only a few months.
Flouting Hindu tradition, Harilal did not perform the last rites at the burning pyre of his father, instead letting his two younger brothers take his place. The rancour had started after Gandhi, then fighting colonial rule in South Africa, refused to bend the rules to get Harilal a scholarship so he could go to London to become a barrister.
A film, Gandhi, My Father, released last year, explored the troubled relationship, portraying the leader, whose credo of non-violence ended the British Raj, as an unforgiving patriarch whose ideals shaped a nation often at the expense of his family.
In pouring the recently rediscovered ashes into the warm waters off Mumbai’s Chowpatty beach, Parikh said she had “closed a chapter”.
Gandhi’s great-grandson, Tushar Gandhi, said: “It is important that all members of the family are here. We are all very close and the decision was taken by everyone for Harilal’s children to immerse the ashes.
“The emotional aspect of this is that duties that Harilal should have performed have been completed by his descendants. It is of symbolic importance for us.”
In 1997, Tushar poured what were then believed to be the last ashes of Gandhi into the meeting place of two of Hinduism’s holy rivers, the Ganges and Yamuna. He had found his ancestor’s remains in a bank vault in India and gone to the courts to secure them for the family.
Many other urns are thought to remain in the hands of devotees, including one that is enshrined in an ashram in California and another installed in the palace of the Aga Khan, the head of the Islamic Ismaeli sect, in southern India.
“I have no doubt there are other urns floating around but the family has taken the view that the Mahatma asked for his ashes to be scattered as per Hindu customs. That is what we are trying to do,” said Tushar.
Although Gandhi is still revered - his face can be found on rupee notes and on hoardings exhorting people to do the right thing - the scattering did not attract huge crowds. A few hundred turned up to listen to the speeches and religious songs being played.
Some experts say that Gandhi’s ideas are irrelevant in modern India.
“India today has repudiated everything he stood for,” said Rudrangshu Mukherjee, editor of the Penguin Gandhi Reader.
“He did not want industrialisation, he did not want a strong centralised state, he did not want violence or religious intolerance. Yet this is India today. He is at best an icon, respected but not relevant.”
© Guardian News and Media Limited 2008
May he be free…
A film, Gandhi, My Father,… [portrayed] the leader, … as an unforgiving patriarch whose ideals shaped a nation often at the expense of his family.
This is not new, and is discussed at great length and pain in Ghandi’s autobiography. This makes him all the greater. I note that Christians believe in a god with the same attributes.
[Ghandi] did not want industrialisation, he did not want a strong centralised state, he did not want violence or religious intolerance. Yet this is India today. He is at best an icon, respected but not relevant. - Rudrangshu Mukherjee
What a shame. Why do I get the feeling that India and the world at large would be more at peace had we followed his teachings.
Sigh. But no-one listens to the teachings of Christ, either.
Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violence still influences people all over the world today so he is still relevant dispite the backward actions of governments…SO “Be the change you want to see in the world.”
Ghandi rules.
“Be the change you want to see in the world.”
If we see people with eyes that are not framed by governmnents, mass media or rulers of any kind — we arrive at a different story about people and their lives. Yes, there is darkness — but we also learn there are numbers and numbers of people who “get it” and “live it.” Ruling classes have forever sought to divide people by casting negative framings on humanity. This way, it appears the efforts of goodness are futile — and hopelessness spreads.
If nothing else, Ghandi’s influence on Dr. Martin Luther King had an immense impact on the US.
But sometimes it’s hard to see much progress. Blacks can now sit at the front of the bus, yet they still occupy the lowest economic ranks.
Although I practice non-violence, it would be interesting to peer into an alternate universe where Dr. King’s era instead saw blacks rise up in violent insurrection. My guess is they would now be in a situation closer to Native Americans, in a state of near-genocide.
Anyone that cares enough to examine the roots of manifest destiny in America would need a strong stomach. It is confounding that we walk on sacred ground without any true sense of the suffering that exists to this day and that each and every one share a part.
Gandhi-jis’s message will always be relevant even during periods of momentary insanity such as this one. In the not so distant future, when humans decide to actually live as if life mattered, and sustainability mattered, and each individual mattered, then his gentle remindings and example will again lead us onward towards a culture of the affirmation of life rather than death. all hail his memory!!
http://rupeenews.com/2007/12/25/six-stories-of-mohandas-gandhi-his-failures-sexual-perversion/
myth of Mohandas K. Gandhi debunked. He gets an “F” on South Africa, Salt Match, Non-Violence, and independence
The myth of Mohandas K. Gandhi debunked. He gets an “F” on South Africa, Salt Match, Non-Violence, and independence
Which war did Mohandas Gandhi support. All of them. There wasn’t a war that the prophet of Non-Violence did not support. He was Sergeant Major in the British Army and won a medal for his war duties
Gandhi’s racism. The truth behind the mask. Behold Sergeant Major Gandhi who supported the British during the Boer war, Zulu rebellion. Behold the prophet of peace who worked to stratify the South African society.
Gandhi did not bring the British Empire down.
Gandhi’s letter to his friend Hitler.
The myth of Mohandas K. Gandhi debunked. He gets an “F” on South Africa, Salt Match, Non-Violence, and independence
Which war did Mohandas Gandhi support. All of them. There wasn’t a war that the prophet of Non-Violence did not support. He was Sergeant Major in the British Army and won a medal for his war duties