My father, do not rest (Lucknow, February 1948) SAROJINI NAIDU (1879–1949)

My father, do not rest (Lucknow, February 1948)
SAROJINI NAIDU (1879–1949)

Gandhi’s assassination inspired another great speech, this time by Sarojini

Naidu—the poet, freedom fighter, and the first Indian woman President of

the Congress, serving at the time as the Governor of Uttar Pradesh. It is an

impassioned, near-feverish speech and is striking for the direct comparison

that it makes between Gandhi and Christ. In tone, this fiery speech could

not be more different from Nehru’s restrained address, but both see

Gandhi’s memory as a pledge for the future.

MAIN SPEECH

Like Christ of old on the third day he has risen again in answer to the cry of

his people and the call of the world for the continuance of his guidance, his

love, his service and inspiration. And while we all mourn, those who loved

him, knew him personally, and those to whom his name was but a miracle

and a legend, though we are all full of tears and though we are full of sorrow

on this third day when he has risen from his own ashes, I feel that sorrow is

out of place and tears become a blasphemy. How can he die, who through

his life and conduct and sacrifice, who through his love and courage and

faith has taught the world that the spirit matters, not the flesh, that the

spirit has the power greater than the powers of the combined armies of the

earth, combined armies of the ages? He was small, frail, without money,

without even the full complement of garment to cover his body, not owning

even as much earth as might be held on the point of a needle, how was he

so much stronger than the forces of violence, the might of empires and the

grandeur of embattled forces in the world? Why was it that this little man,

this tiny man, this man with a child’s body, this man so ascetic, living on the

verge of starvation by choice so as to be more in harmony with the life of

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the poor, how was it that he exercised over the entire world, of those who

revered him and who hated him, such power as emperors could never wield?

It was because he did not care for applause; he did not care for censure. He

only cared for the path of righteousness. He cared only for the ideals that he

preached and practised. And the midst of the most terrible disasters caused

by violence and greed of men, when the abuse of the world was heaped up

like dead leaves, dead flowers on battlefields, his faith never swerved in his

ideal of non-violence. He believed that though the whole world slaughter

itself and the whole world’s blood be shed, still his non-violence would be

the authentic foundation of the new civilization of the world and he

believed that he who seeks his life shall lose it and he who loses his life shall

find it.

His first fast in 1924 with which I associated was for the cause of Hindu-

Muslim unity. It had the sympathy of the entire nation. His last fast was

also for the cause of Hindu-Muslim unity, but the whole nation was not

with him in that fast. It had grown so divided, it had grown so bitter, it had

grown so full of hate and suspicion, it had grown so untrue towards the

tenets of the various creeds in this country that it was only a section of those

who understood the Mahatma, who realized the meaning of that fast. It

was very evident that the nation was divided in its loyalty to him in the fast.

It was very evident that it was not any community but his that disapproved

so violently and showed its anger and resentment in such a dastardly

fashion. Alas for the Hindu community, that the greatest Hindu of them

and the only Hindu of our age who was so absolutely and unswervingly true

to the doctrine, to the ideals, the philosophy of Hinduism should have been

slain by the hand of a Hindu! at indeed, that indeed is almost the epitaph

of the Hindu faith that the hand of a Hindu in the name of Hindu rights

and a Hindu world should sacrifice the noblest of them all. But it does not

matter. It is a personal grief, that is, loss, day in and day out; year in and

year out, for many of us who cannot forget, because for more than 30 years

some of us have been so closely associated with him that our lives and his

life were an integral part of one another. Some of us are indeed dead to the

faith; some of us indeed have had vivisection performed on us by his death,

because fibres of our being, because our muscles, veins and heart and blood

were all intertwined with his life.

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But, as I say, it would be the act of faithless deserters if we were to yield to

despair. If we were indeed to believe that he is dead, if we were to believe

that all is lost, because he has gone, of what avail would be our love and our

faith? Of what avail would be our loyalty to him if we dare to believe that all

is lost because his body is gone from our midst? Are we not there, his heirs,

his spiritual descendants, the legatees of his great ideals, successors of his

great work? Are we not there to implement that work and enhance it and

enrich and make greater achievements by joint efforts than he could have

made singly? erefore, I say the time is over for private sorrow.

e time is over for beating of breasts and tearing of hair. e time is here

and now when we stand up and say, ‘We take up the challenge!’ to those

who defied Mahatma Gandhi. We are his living symbols. We are his

soldiers. We are the carriers of his banner before an embattled world. Our

banner is truth. Our shield is non-violence. Our sword is a sword of the

spirit that conquers without blood. Let the people of India rise up and wipe

their tears, rise up and still their sobs, rise up and be full of hope and full of

cheer. Let us borrow from him, why borrow, he has handed it to us, the

radiance of his own personality, the glory of his own courage, the

magnificent epic of his character.

Shall we not follow in the footsteps of our master? Shall we not obey the

mandates of our father? Shall not we, his soldiers, carry his battle to

triumph? Shall we not give to the world the completed message of

Mahatma Gandhi? ough his voice will not speak again, have we not a

million, million voices to bear his message to the world, not only to this

world, to our contemporaries, but to the world generation after generation?

Shall sacrifice be in vain? Shall his blood be shed for futile purposes of

mourning? Or, shall we not use that blood as a tilak on our foreheads, the

emblem of his legion of peace-loving soldiers to save the world? Here and

now, here and now, I for one before the world that listens to my quivering

voice pledge myself and you, as I pledged myself more than 30 years ago, to

the service of the undying Mahatma.

What is death? My own father, dying, just before his death with the

premonition of death on him, said: ‘ere is no birth. ere is no death.

ere is only the soul seeking higher and higher stages of truth.’ Mahatma

Gandhi who lived for truth in this world has been translated, though by the

hand of an assassin, to a higher stage of the truth which he sought. Shall we

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not take up his place? Shall not our united strength be strong enough to

preach and practise his great message for the world? I am here one of the

lowliest of his soldiers, but along with me I know that there are his beloved

disciples like Jawaharlal Nehru, and his trusted followers and friends like

Vallabhbhai Patel and Rajendra Babu, who was like St John in the bosom of

Christ, and those others of his associates who at a moment’s notice flew

from all ends of India to make their last homage at his feet. Shall we not all

take up his message and fulfil it? I used to wonder very often during his

many fasts in which I was privileged to serve him, to solace him, to make

him laugh, because he wanted the tonic laughter of his friends—I used to

wonder, supposing he died in Sevagram, supposing he died in Noakhali,

supposing he died in some far off place, how should we reach him?

It is therefore right and appropriate that he died in the city of kings, in the

ancient site of the old Hindu empires, in the site on which was built the

glory of the Moghuls, in this place that he made India’s capital wresting it

from foreign hands, it is right that he died in Delhi; it is right that his

cremation took place in the midst of the dead kings who are buried in

Delhi, for he was the kingliest of all kings. And 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 warriors, who led

armies to battle, was this little man, the bravest, the most triumphant of all.

Delhi is not only today historically the Delhi of seven kingdoms; it has

become the centre and the sanctuary of the greatest revolutionary who

emancipated his enslaved country from foreign bondage and gave to it its

freedom and its flag.

May the soul of my master, my leader, my father rest not in peace, not in

peace, but let his ashes be so dynamically alive that the charred ashes of the

sandalwood, let the powder of his bones be so charged with life and

inspiration that the whole of India will after his death be revitalized into the

reality of freedom.

My father, do not rest. Do not allow us to rest. Keep us to our pledge. Give

us strength to fulfil our promise, your heirs, your descendants, your

stewards, the guardians of your dreams, the fulfillers of India’s destiny. You,

whose life was so powerful, make it so powerful—in your death. Far from

mortality you have passed mortality by in supreme martyrdom in the cause

most dear to you.