Gandhi Finally Laid To Rest in Arabian Sea Ceremony

[babylonsister]

Gandhi Finally Laid To Rest in Arabian Sea Ceremony
by Randeep Ramesh

Mahatma Gandhi’s great-granddaughter today spread his ashes in the Arabian Sea in a ceremony marking the 60th anniversary of the Indian independence leader’s assassination.


Honouring the man still revered as the moral conscience of the nation, Gandhi’s followers had carried his ashes through the streets of Mumbai to the coast, where the procession was met by a platoon of police and assembled local politicians.

The small copper urn, wreathed in garlands of white flowers, was then taken out to sea on a speedboat, pursued by a flotilla of cameramen and reporters.

Nilamben Parikh then poured the contents into the sea, completing a ritual that finally laid India’s secular saint to rest and marked the healing of a generations-old rift among his descendants.

The urn was one of dozens containing Gandhi’s cremated remains that were distributed around India after he was shot dead by a Hindu extremist on January 30 1948 at a prayer meeting in New Delhi. The distribution denied Gandhi the traditional Hindu burial he had wanted but placated the mourning masses of newly independent India.

The ashes spread at sea today had been intended for display at Mumbai’s Mani Bhavan Gandhi museum, having been bequeathed by an Indian businessman in Dubai whose father had been a close friend of Gandhi.

But Gandhi’s family objected to the apparent deification of a relic, saying it could be misused for politicians in search of votes. Instead, the relatives wanted to scatter the ashes at sea, a ceremony also intended to symbolise the healing of a rift between Gandhi and his estranged eldest son, Harilal.

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http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/01/30/6740/

[malaise]

1. Bush showing up at his memorial site

must have been the last straw :D

[babylonsister]

2. Yep; * sullied the ashes. nt