Gazette Reminiscences
By Sami El-Shahed
‘Stories must be exceptional enough, or useful enough to justify their telling. This series of Gazette Reminiscences is related by an old Gazetteer; one in whose veins Gazette blood has started to flow as early as 1952, and has continued to strongly and uninterruptedly flow ever since’.
Gazette editorials
International issue (2)
The assassination of Gandhi
MAHATMA Gandhi was the man who led India to independence after a lengthy struggle characterised by non-violence. On the day of the transfer of power, Gandhi did not celebrate independence with the rest of India, but was alone in Calcutta, mourning the partition of India (into India and Pakistan) and working to end violence between Muslims and Hindus.
After India's independence, Gandhi focused on Hindu-Muslim peace and unity. He conducted extensive dialogue with Muslim and Hindu community leaders, working to cool passions. After emotional debates with his life-long colleagues, Hindu, Muslim and Sikh community leaders assured him that they would renounce violence and call for peace.
On January 30, 1948, on his way to a prayer meeting, Gandhi was shot dead by a Hindu radical with links to an extremist Hindu organisation. Commenting editorially on the sad demise of the great Indian leader, The Egyptian Gazette wrote under "Tragedy" on February 21, 1948, saying:
"Not India alone, but the whole world is stricken and punished by the murder Gandhi. The crime, as great as any ever committed, is no isolated incidence: it is the culminating event of the moral insanity that thretens civilised existence. It springs from the evil, shameful doctrine, too widely and readily accepted in many parts of the world, including-unfortunately Egypt-that there is something praiseworthy in killing a man for his opinions or policy.
'We have grown horribly accustomed to political assassination and judicial murder, these twin abominations. Worship of the strong ma, scoffing at the scarcity of human life, neglect of the rights of the individual, the divorce between morality and politics have borne their evil fruit in country after country. Now the man who stood above all others for spiritual values in public life has been killed.
"The events leading to this tragedy are fresh in our minds. We all heaved a sigh of relief when the Mahatma succeeded once more in extracting his authority and stopping the senseless bloodshed in at least a part of India. In doing this he angered the Hindu extremists who resented being obliged to evacuate mosques while Moslems were still in occupation of Hindu temples. They were too small-minded to see the wisdom and greatness of so generous a gesture, and it is a man obsessed by this narrow partnership who has murdered the saint.
On the future of divided India, the Egyptian Gazette went on to say:
"What the future now holds for the two dominions (India and Pakistan) no one can foresee. All that we know for certain is that the influence which offered most hope of peace for the sub-continent has been removed. Everywhere men felt that if there was any prospect of ending the communal strife, it consisted in the light shining from Gandhi's slender figure. That light has been extinguished, and in the resulting darkness fear grips many hearts.
"It is true that a man of Gandhi's mental and moral structure is assured of immortality, and that no assassin's bullet can finally silence his voice; but it sometimes takes decades, even centuries for his teaching to gain a firm hold. There can be no doubt that ultimately mankind will learn the lesson of the superiority of non-violence over empty shouting and shooting; but we may have to pass through deep bitterness before we attain that wisdom. In India itself, there may at present be too much unruly and confused emotion for counsels of sanity to prevail."