Indian Leaders |
© Rajagopalachari © Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru © Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel
© Dr. S. P. Mukharjee Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad © Sarojini Naidu
© Dr. Rajendra Prasad © Dr. S. Radhakrishnan © Sri Aurobindo
© Jayprakash Narayan © G. D. Birla © Devdas Gandhi |
C. Rajagopalachari |
Heir to a great tradition
Bharatmata is writhing in anguish and pain over the loss. No man loved Bharatmata and Indians more than Mahatma Gandhi. Let the tragedy that was enacted in Delhi give the people of India the tune, reason, rhyme and melody for the history of their future. I pray that the history of India might be written with the rhythm and tune of the grief that Bharatmata had felt when Mahatma Gandhi fell.
No one could die a more glorious death than Mahatma Gandhi. He was going to the seat of his prayer to speak to his Rama. He did not die in the bed calling for hot water, doctors or nurses. He did not die after mumbling incoherent words in the sick bed. He died standing, not even sitting down, Rama was too eager to take him even before he could reach the seat of his prayer.
When Socrates died for his views and Christ for his faith, they believed that they would not get another example like that. |
Pandit Jawaharlal
Nehru |
This man of God trod the Earth
Great men and eminent men have monuments in bronze and marble set up for them, but this man of divine fire managed in his life-time to become enmeshed in millions and millions of hearts so that all of us became somewhat of the stuff that he was made of, though to an infinitely lesser degree. He spread out over India not in places only, or in select places, or in assemblies, but in every hamlet and hurt of the lowly and those who suffer. He lives in the hearts of millions of and he will live for immortal ages.
...He has gone, an all over India there is a feeling of having been left desolate and forlorn. All of sense that feeling, and I do not know when we shall be able to get rid of it, and yet together with that feeling there is also a feeling of proud thanksgiving that it has been given to us of this generation to be associated with this mighty person. In ages to come, centuries and many millenniums after us, people will think of this generation when this man of God trod the earth and will think of is who, however small, could also follow his path and probably tread on that holy ground where his feet had been. Let us be worthy of him. Let us always be so. |
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel  |
His supreme sacrifice will quicken our conscience
For even though his mortal frame will turn into ashes tomorrow, at 4.00 pm, Gandhiji's imperishable teachings will abide with us. I even feel that Gandhiji's immortal spirit is still hovering over us and will continue to watch over the nation's destiny in future also. The mad youth who killed him was wrong if he thought thereby he was destroying his noble mission. Perhaps God wanted Gandhiji's mission to fulfill and prosper through his death.
I am sure Gandhiji's supreme sacrifice will wake up the conscience of our countrymen and evoke a higher response in the heart of every Indian. I hope and pray that it may be given to us to complete Gandhiji's mission. At this solemn moment, no one of us can afford to waver or lose his or her heart. Let us all stand united and bravely face the national disaster that has overtaken us. Let us all solemnly pledge ourselves afresh to Gandhiji's teachings and ideals. |
Maulana Abul Kalam
Azad |
Carried burden of humanity on his frail shoulders
Mahatma Gandhi has carried on his frail shoulders a great deal of burden of humanity and now it was for them to stand together and share it. If millions of Indians could divide that burden and carry it successfully, it would be nothing short of a miracle. |
Dr. S. P. Mukharjee |
Undying influence
The light that illuminated our motherland and indeed the world amidst darkness and sorrow has suddenly gone out. The passing away of Mahatma Gandhi is the most stunning blow to that could fall on India. That he who made India free and self-reliant, a friend of and enemy of none, loved and respected by millions, should fall at the hands of an assassin, one of his own community and countrymen, is a matter of deepest shame and tragedy. He is of those whose influence never dies and indeed shines more and more with the passage of time.
The shot of the assessing not only vitally pierced through his mortal body but has grievously struck the very heart of Humanism and India, which could survive only if people resolutely decide to make the pursuit of such methods impossible. |
Mrs. Sarojini Naidu |
Gave his country its freedom and its flag
Mahatma Gandhi, whose frail body was committed to the flames yesterday, is not dead. It was right that the cremation took place in the midst of the dead kings who were buried in Delhi, for he was the kingliest of all kings. It is right also that he who was the Apostle of Peace should have been taken to the cremation ground with all the honours of a great warrior. Far greater than all the warriors who led the armies to battle was this little man, the bravest, the most tried friend of all. Delhi has become the centre and sanctuary of the great revolutionary who emancipated his enslave country from foreign bondage and gave it to its freedom and its flag. |
Dr. Rajendra Prasad |
The liberator of the Hindu Community
Can we ever dream that Gandhiji was bringing harm to the Hindus or to their religion? Was it ever possible that this liberator of the Hindu community and emancipator of the low and downtrodden could even think of doing so? But men with narrow minds and limited vision who do not understand the core of Hindu Dharma thought it otherwise and the present calamity is a direct result of such an outlook. |
Dr. S. Radhakrishnan  |
The lonely symbol of a vanishing past
I am shocked beyond words at this fatal attack on Gandhiji. The incredible, the inconceivable, has happened. That this purest, most elevating, most inspiring man of our age should have suffered by a madman's anger shows that we have not improved since the days of Socrates, who had to drink hemlock, of Jesus, who was put on the cross.
Mahatma Gandhi, the lonely symbol of vanishing past, is no more. We have killed his body but the light in him, which is from the divine flame of Truth and Love, cannot be put out.
When will the world be safe for saints? May the Dominions, may the whole world, learn that if we are not to slide into abyss of violence, cruelty and chaos, there is no other way than that for which Mahatma Gandhi has lived and died. |
Sri Aurobindo  |
The light will burn on
I would have preferred silence in the face of these circumstances that surround us. For, any words we can find fall flat on amid such happenings.
This much, however, I will say, that the light which led us to freedom, though not yet to unity, still burns and will burn on, till it conquers. I believe firmly that a great and united future is the destiny of the nation and its people.
The power that brought us through so much struggle and suffering to freedom will achieve also, through whatever strife or trouble, the aim which so poignantly occupied the thoughts of the fallen leader at the time of his tragic ending : as it brought us freedom, it will bring us unity.
A free and united India will be there, and the mother will gather around her sons and weld them into a single national strength in the life of a great and united people. |
Jayprakash Narayan  |
We must follow the path shown by him
It is not the time to speak as it is an occasion of mourning. Let us weep. Let the nation weep and wipe off from its soul the stain of the innocent blood of the greatest man the world has ever produced. We must follow the path shown by Mahatma Gandhi. He came to Delhi with a specific mission, either to do or die. He did a lot and in the end he laid down his life for what he wished to do. Let us now accomplish the sacred task that has been left undone by him. |
G. D. Birla |
Warrior, prophet and saint
Seldom, I think, human history records of one individual was at once a warrior, a prophet and a saint and yet deeply humble and intensely human.
It is this quality of all-embracing human warmth which stands out most prominent in his character. |
Devdas Gandhi  |
I had long ceased to look upon him as my father
During the past few months that he was in Delhi it was the privilege of my three year old boy to be lovingly fondled by Bapu. I was a complete back number and once recently had told me that he missed Bapu more than me whenever he failed to turn up at Birla house. The little urchin now draws renewed tears from our eyes when he pouts his lips in imitation of the way his grandfather greeted him. And yet Gandhiji's interest in the narrow domestic circle was of the meagerest, and I had long ceased to look upon him as my father in any possessive sense. He was to me a saint as much as to any of you and I feel and see the void exactly as you do.
I, therefore, view the disaster with the detachment of one living in the north pole and having ties neither of blood nor of race with the Great One of whose loss we are as yet but dimly aware. |
