Mohandas_Karamchand_Gandhi #Sri_Lanka

#Mohandas_Karamchand_Gandhi 

#Sri_Lanka 

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Daily News  mourned the loss of Mahatma Gandhi 31. 1. 1948                                                                                   30 January 1948  five months had passed since India had achieved her hard won independence, and less than a week since an official constitution came into force. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the internationally acknowledged symbol of the Indian freedom struggle was on his way for prayer meeting scheduled for the evening. He was suddenly approached by a 35-year-old man named Nathuram Godse – a prominent member of the Hindu Mahasabha. He bent down in salutation in front of Gandhi before pulling out his revolver and shooting him thrice on the chest. Two hours later, Gandhi was declared dead, leaving the newly born nation mourning the loss of a father figure.

While the news of Gandhi’s assassination sent shockwaves across the country, nations across the globe were hardly insulated from this report. The Mahatma was revered almost as a demi-God in his country. However, internationally as well he had made a mark that very few Indians before him had achieved. Gandhi’s foremost priority in India was his fight for freedom from British rule. Internationally, however, he came to acquire a reputation for much more than nationalism. He was the symbol of peace and truth that leaders across the world found inspirational. To some he was the “apostle of nonviolence” while to others his fight against colonialism went above the regular politics of nationalism.

Gandhi did not just represent India’s nationalist pride, but clearly he was a world phenomenon as is evident from the urgency with which newspapers across the globe reported his death. A day after his assassination, Mahatma Gandhi featured across the front page of practically every major newspaper of the world as the symbol of loss that India would find hard to recover from.                      Mahatma Gandhi the 'Father of India,' paid a historic visit to Ceylon in 1927. On his first and only visit to the island, he was invited to Chilaw by the famed freedom fighters of Sri Lanka, Charles Edgar Corea and his brother Victor Corea. In addition to Chilaw, Mahatma Gandhi had visited Colombo, Kandy, Galle, Jaffna, Nuwara Eliya, Matale, Badulla, Bandarawela, Hatton and Point Pedro during his three-week-long visit to Sri Lanka and made many speeches to Sri Lankan audiences. During his stay in Ceylon he also visited the schools established by the Buddhist Theosophical Society in Ceylon namely Ananda College in Colombo, Mahinda College in Galle and Dharmaraja College in Kandy.