He had fought for years to prevent the division of India along the lines of religions. But with that division a fact, he fasted for peace amongst the two main peoples of India – Hindus and Muslims – and for trust between the newly independent India and new-born Pakistan. Had he lived, he would have fought to have the man who shot at him, freed. And he would have fought to have trust return, stay and grow.
Gandhi had just begun to dream to work for a new India that may or may not be rich, may or may not be powerful, but which will be fair and just, to its own poor, and to the miserable everywhere. He believed in facing the truths of India, not running away from them, papering them over or pretty-fying them, for, he said “the way of truth is the way to peace”. And peace for him was not a pigeon. Gandhi scorched by his love, he healed by his fire.
We need him in India today more than we ever have. He said there was so much he had left unfinished he would like to be re-born. But he would not want us to be looking out for the re-born Gandhi. In any case, that would be a loser’s way of doing things. India is no loser. India finds herself, from the debris of her mistakes, the ruins of her aspirations. Whenever she has been considered ‘lost’, she has been found by an astonished world, a relieved world, to be as true as she can be to the message of her greatest son, Gautama the Buddha, and to the genius of her immensely wise and even sagacious people, of all faiths and of the other great faith – faith in their striving hands. I have used ‘she’ for India with deliberation for that ‘she’, the woman in India, worshipped in concept but neglected, exploited, abused in reality, is the one of the scorching truths of India.
The fact that London, the capital of the then Imperial Power he dis-engaged India from, raises a statue for him even as India has some of her people contemplate a temple for his assassin, shows that Gandhi’s work for truth in freedom succeeds in the most unbelievable ways.
You were not infallible Mohandas Gandhi, you erred often, as your wife, Kasturba knew more than any other person. But you owned your errors, tried always to be better than your best. Bronzed and hearkening , here, in what is your ‘opposite ground’, you will give heart to those who believe in a world without fear of the bully, fear of the bomb and fear of the blatant lie. You will show us, too, that money cannot buy, nor power suborn the truth.
On behalf of the ‘Gandhi family’, by which I mean not his biological descendants – for he did not elevate family descent – but all those anywhere who fight against the tyranny of bigotry and exploitation, I felicitate Great Britain and Her Majesty’s Government for creating space for this Gandhi statue on this great Square. That large ‘family of Gandhi’s values’ celebrates the fact of his statue taking its place right beside that of his political descendant , Nelson Mandela. On behalf of all present here today and the generations of pedestrians, young and once-young, from all nationalities and customs who will see it, I offer to the master-sculptor of this statue, salutations.
