A final sacrifice

January 30, 2023

Seventy-five years ago today, Gandhi’s assassination shocked the world. The United Nations observed a moment of silence for the first time. Commentators noted that, like Jesus, he had been murdered on a Friday. The Nobel Peace Prize for 1948 went unawarded, because, it was explained, there was no suitable living candidate.

India and Pakistan, too, were shocked. The first few months of their independence and the displacement of 14 million people had produced horrific violence across the subcontinent. The trend was so endemic that Gandhi even doubted the efficacy of nonviolence.

After the decades of his life he had willingly given to the struggle, there weren’t many sacrifices that he still could still make. In September 1947, he began a fast to the death; communal violence receded and the sacrifice was declined. In January 1948, he began another, and political machinery whirred into life. With the resolution of a national point of contention between India and Pakistan, and local commitments for establishing peace, he ended his fast on the sixth day; the sacrifice was again declined.

When an explosion at his prayer meeting revealed the presence of a conspiracy to assassinate him, Gandhi made no changes to his routine. His life was a promissory note to his countrymen, and on January 30, 1948, a fellow Hindu cashed the check with three bullets at point blank range. “Hey Ram,” the collapsing Gandhi said — “Oh God,” as it is popularly translated — and died at 5:17 PM. This time, the sacrifice was accepted, and it worked. It shocked people out of apathy, to where they accepted responsibility for the binary choice that every community faces; trend towards peace and justice, or away from it. (MLK would later summarize it as ‘nonviolence or nonexistence.’)

Today concludes the first 30-day Gandhi challenge of 2023; the next one starts February 15 with a fast for peace commemorating one of Gandhi’s students, Cesar Chavez. (Registration opens later this week.) By starting with ourselves and focusing principled nonviolence on the interconnected problems America faces, our individual choices can transform the system. We can be the change we want to see in the world.

If you could wave a magic wand and fix one problem in any part of the world, what would it be?