Easten Religion

Gandhi Memorial©

By Amanda Hayden, Sinclair Community College, 3210

After visiting the famous Baha’i temple in Delhi, I decided to attempt a second

place of pilgrimage – the martyrdom place of Mohandes K. Gandhi. Another motorized

rickshaw jostled me through the filthy, chaotic streets, littered with beggars and trash

until we came to a gated entrance. As I got out and entered the gardens, I could hardly

believe my eyes. It was like heaven. A green, bird chirping sanctuary of beautiful

gardens, clean walkways, and for the first time in Delhi so far – no crowds. Unlike the

thousands of visitors at the Baha’i temple, I was only company to a handful of Indians

wandering around, and none of them staring. I knew immediately that I wanted to spend

the rest of the day here. I didn’t care about any of the other pilgrimage sites, this was

where I wanted to be. I wanted to lie down in the gardens and absorb the quietness and

sanctuary. I realized it was the first time since I had been in India that I felt like I could

truly breathe.

I walked around the perimeter, gazing at the white Ashram where Gandhi taught

and lived for the last years of his life. I walked into the room where he slept and made

his simple white robes on his famous spinning wheel, the symbol of the self-sufficiency

of his nonviolent movement, this image which was captured for the infamous TIME

photograph. I stood there in that bare, quiet room, with Gandhi’s spinning wheel only a

few feet away and I felt overwhelmed to be where he had been, to stand where he had

stood against the British oppression. It was as if you could still see him sitting there

peacefully while he spun, spinning not only cloth, but visions of nonviolent non-

cooperation, awakening compassion within the hearts of your oppressors. Outside, I

began walking the path that Gandhi walked each day for meditation. I was silent the

entire time, trying to take it all in. Gandhi was an advocate of the positive effects of

silence, taking a day of silence once a week to reflect and meditate. I now wondered if

this vow was at all influenced by living in the maddening noise of Delhi.

I walked through the painted murals, walls all depicting the stories and events of

Gandhi’s life – his wedding, the Salt March, his time as a lawyer, his many days spent in

jail, etc. The paint was faded and chipping and looked as if it needed a restoration.

While this was Gandhi’s Ashram, you also can’t forget that this is where his life ended.

Here, in this very spot in 1948, he was assassinated by a Hindu fanatic (many Hindus felt

he was a traitor, being too sympathetic to the Muslims). Stone footprints marked the

path he walked each day, lining the grassy edge, but then they just stop in the middle of

the lawn. The exact spot in which he collapsed has a marble marker inscribed in Hindi

with a date and his name "Mahatma" which means “Great Soul.” The combination of the

marker and the footsteps that stop mid stride felt eerie and I felt my heart grow heavy.

After walking through a beautiful mural of his life and achievements, I sat on a

lone bench, wondering if India would be in any better condition if he had lived longer. Or

would it have even made a difference? I watched the sporadic groups of Indians making

their way around the perimeter, most of them school kids and teenagers from upper

classes that looked like they were on field trips. Just like high school fieldtrips in

America, most of the kids did not seem to really care or pay that much attention. They

talked to each other and laughed and walked around the memorial without giving it much

thought at all. Sitting there, I was filled with a mixture of sadness, lingering exhaustion,

and gratefulness to have some peace and crowd-less serenity in this garden. Like the

Baha’i, Gandhi believed all religions were glimpses of the truth, but that all were subject

to human error as well. He didn’t believe in forced conversion to another faith, but in a

Christian becoming a better Christian, a Muslim becoming a better Muslim, etc. He said

that true conversion was in our hearts, not in our religions. He read from the Bhagavad

Gita, the Koran and the New Testament every day, loving the words of Jesus. He felt

reading and understanding all of the religious scriptures of the world was our “sacred

duty” and that Truth was incompatible with violence. This was the basis of his

nonviolent non-cooperation movement which eventually led to the British leaving India,

and which also later inspired the marches and sit ins of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I was in no temple, but sitting there on the bench, hearing the birds sing, watching

the green grass move rhythmically under the low breeze and thinking about the life

Gandhi lived made my eyes well up. I was grateful that, for this afternoon at least, I was

able to find this bit of sanctuary and peace in the middle of the overwhelming madness of

Delhi.

© Copyright 2005, Library of Congress