The Mortal becomes Immortal

BY SOBHRAJ GURMUKHDAS MIRCHANDANI
(Advocate, Calcutta)

Man with his burning soul
Has but an hour of breath
To build a ship of truth
In which his soul may sail....
For death takes toll
Of beauty, courage, youth,
Of all but truth.
–John Masefield

A prince and a great man has fallen. All the world like Niobe is in tears. It is indeed a strange irony that he who throughout his life swore by non-violence should have encountered a violent death at the hands of an insane assassin. But God works in His own ways and there is also a wideness in God’s mercy, and so it may be that the ideals and the cause for which Mahatma Gandhi stood would prosper more by his death than otherwise. Millions of people in this country as well as outside India mourn his death as a kind of some personal loss. He has by his life-work more than amply earned his title to immortality. Posterity will sing the paeans of a sweet and saintly life so rich in endeavour and achievement. The myriad-minded master laboured for the public weal for over half a century in more fields than one and touched nothing without embellishing it. His life-work would be a true and abiding monument to him. Even the angels must have bailed him on the other side of the river with the loving greeting of “Well done, thou servant of God”. Like the Prince of Peace he preached the gospel of goodwill and understanding between the different communities inhabiting this vast sub-continent and served a ‘Daridranarayan’ with single-minded devotion. Like St. Paul he can truly claim: “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.” History does not furnish any parallel, or it furnishes a parallel in Buddha alone.

It is true that Gandhiji has passed into eternity but one cannot help thinking of him as if he were alive as much as ever, so unearthly and so angelic he was. And there is something disloyal in the mere thought that he is no more with us. One loves to feel therefore that, through death itself, the Mahatma has passed into the lives of us all. Some such thoughts must be chasing each other in the minds of most of us. The following Persian couplet hits it off beautifully well:

“Do not seek my grave after my death,
As my tomb is in the hearts of the knowing.”

Then why only mourn? If he had been with us today, he would have ruled out mourning in any case. During the last days of his life on this earth, his deepest desire was that we should close up our ranks and stand united to build up the Ram Raj of his dreams. This is exactly what we should do, now that he is gone. His spirit must be guarding and watching over us, and nothing less than that shall make it feel happy and at peace.

There were so many facets to his constructive genius. The Charkha and Harijan work are the greatest and the richest of his gifts to the nation, and these two alone will evoke the undying gratitude of his countrymen. He was also keen on Hindu-Muslim unity and strove hard to weed out communalism. To the friend of the universe it was somewhat disconcerting to see this monster of communalism raising its ugly head all over the country. Probably he sensed some storm was coming and so tried in his inimitable way to avert it during the last days of his life. He has sacrificed his life at that altar. ¹

Gandhiji was a Hindu in the very best sense of the word, but with his Hinduism was beautifully blended that fine eclecticism which made him so tolerant and reverential to other religions of the world. Ram Nam was his talisman and the Gita his inseparable companion. “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him,” was not a murmur of resignation but a song. ‘Hare Ram,’ that swan-song of his, he breathed and wafted through the fragrant air with the last breath of his life.

It is up to us all, and specially those who lived in the shadow of his greatness, to keep close to his ideals and continue the work he has left unfinished. And more. Each one of us should try to weave into his life all that was good and great in him. And thereby shall we prove ourselves worthy of the great inheritance he has left us. Moreover that is the best way to honour and treasure his memory, and that is also the only way to wipe out our shame and atone for the sin that one of his children has committed in cutting short so precious a life.

Mahatma Gandhi has crossed the bar where there is no re-crossing, but he leaves behind a name that shall ring through the corridors of time and future generations will cherish with love and gratitude the memory of one who consistently placed service before self and sacrificed his life for something higher than life. For aeons humanity shall bend and bow in revered and salute the great soul who made it his Dharma to comfort bruised and bleeding hearts and strove to wipe away every tear from every eye.

¹ This brings to one’s mind Rishi Dadhichi, the pure and blameless, who offered his life that the divine weapon, the thunderbolt, might be fashioned out of his bones to smite and exalt righteousness.