Lessons Learned from The Mahatma

When I was last in Delhi several years ago I took the opportunity to visit the home of Nehru - a large mansion with extensive gardens but not ornate and, in its way, quite simple for an International Statesman. I was amazed to see his almost austere metal bed with his bedside table and his watch laid out as if he had just stepped out for a minute.  A long corridor of books shelves linked the bedroom  to his office, with its boomerang shaped desk and cordite telephones, from where he ran the world’s largest democracy. The impression I took was of a relatively simple lifestyle of a great intellect and not much in the way of luxury when you compare him to his British counterparts or Princes in their States.  

I then took a short walk to the place where Ghandi last resided. This is now also a museum and I walked into his last room. A glass case displayed his remaining possessions – his sandals, a spoon, his staff and his famous spectacles. This was a manwith  a really simple austere life and he made Nehru’s home look almost luxurious in comparison. 

To the right of the glass case was a French window and as I walked though I noticed a set of raised and painted cement footsteps. These led out to the garden and round towards a Hindu shrine. They then suddenly stop before reaching the shrine. This was the place that The Mahatma was gunned down and the cement footsteps represented his last journey. 

Today mark the anniversary of the assassination in 1948 of Mohandas Gandhi. The lessons he taught of non violent change are still as relevant today as they were then. Others, notably Dr Martin Luther King, have taken those and emulated him and in Kings’ case also given their lives so that men and women alike could like free and as equals. 

Gandhi was never awarded the Nobel Peace Prize – it isn’t awarded posthumously – but I do wonder if in this instance they shouldn’t make a special case.