Page:Report on the Memorial Meeting for Mahatma Gandhi.djvu/21

 history as the leader who embodies for the world the ideal of human brotherhood, of respect for individual conscience, of supreme self-sacrifice in support of right.

“Gandhi’s triumph did not end when India was free. On the day of its independence, he won anew perhaps a greater triumph. The first government of free India endorsed his principles and declared that the policy of hundreds of millions of human beings would be based upon his faith.

“They said, on that fateful day, ‘We have proclaimed that we, as a nation and people, stand for world peace and cooperation amongst nations. We stand for democracy. The method of democracy is to find peaceful solutions for all problems.’ That is the way of a free people. By violence and hatred, no problem is solved.

“I like to remember the nobility of that government program — full of meaning, not for India only, but for Asia as well. On that same day, the first Prime Minister of liberated India said that on that historical day, the freedom of India meant much to Indians, but it also meant much to Asia and the world. We can see, as we look around the continent of Asia, how true it is. It stands at the crossroads of history as few continents have ever stood before.

“As we observed a moment of silence at the beginning of this meeting, I seemed to hear in my imagination the fatal shot that ended the life of Mahatma Gandhi. I seemed to see his dying agony. I seemed to hear the broken words of forgiveness to his assassin. I seemed to feel the great enigma of the years that are to come. Will it take the faith of Gandhi as its guide? I believe it will, and that on his memory, his deeds, his miracles, his faith, will be built for centuries to come the fraternity and the happiness of millions of his fellow men.”