If there are any Muslim women kidnapped from Pakistan they must be returned in safety and honour even though Pakistan may not do likewise in the case of Hindu and Sikh women.
Acharya J B.Kripalani
Broadcasting, from All-India Radio, Delhi, on February 1,1948 Acharya J B.Kripalani said :
Our hearts today are full and it is difficult for us to say many words on the occasion of this greatest tragedy in our history. Mahatamaji is no more with us in body. But if we will only follow him and work in the light by which he has illuminated our path, he shall be with us always in spirit. His death only proves that the world is not yet ready for his Doctrine of Truth and Ahimsa as applied by him to individual and group life. The way of truth and non-violence is yet the way of martyrdom as it has been throughout history.
His faith in the moral law was most seriously tried by recent events, yet he stood the test. His faith did not falter in the darkest hour of his life. whatever may happen to those who are considered his people there must be no retaliation. There must be no reprisals. There must not be even mental violence. whatever may happen to Hindu and Sikh houses, no Muslim houses vacated through fear and violence must be occupied. Even vacated Muslim villages must remain unoccupied. If there are any Muslim women kidnapped from Pakistan they must be returned in safety and honour even though Pakistan may not do likewise in the case of Hindu and Sikh women.
Gandhiji always held that the rigour of the moral law required that one must magnify one’s own faults and those of ones community and minimise the faults of others and of other communities. It is only thus that the moral law can be truly fulfilled, and then so fulfilled the results must be good. The man and the nation that works in the light of the moral law can never come to grief. Where there is Dharma ultimate victory is assured.
He showed the world that the love of one’s people never can be inconsistent with the love of humanity. He made no distinction between a Hindu or a Muslim or a Sikh, or a member of any other community, or between an Indian and a non-Indian. For him there is only one humanity and one law and that the moral law by which the whole world is bound and united.
It was our great good fortune that such a high and noble personality was born in our midst even in our slavery and degradation.
Today, it is our humiliation and shame that, he, who was spared by his foreign opponents, (enemies he had none) was killed at the hands of one of our own people, the people whom he had served so wisely and well. The man who perpetrated this crime knew not what he was doing. It was not Gandhiji whom he killed. He struck at the Father of the Nation, its very soul. By Mahatmajis departure the country has been orphaned at a time when hie wise and moral counsels were needed the most. He was the one man who made us respectable throughout the world even in our slavery.
He cemented all our internal differences and divisions. To him, we turned in all our difficulties, private and public.
To him, life and death were the same. He always said that he was in the hands of God. For him the body was nothing; the Soul everything; and his soul freed from the shackles of his body pervades the Universe.
Today before us, who called him our master, sand derived from him whatever little merit we possess, the task is to close
our ranks and unite and work in his spirit and bring about the Swaraj of his dreams for which he had only time to lay the best foundations. May his blessings be with us and may God give us strength and honesty of purpose to carry for and his mission which embraced in its wide scope no particular creed, community or country but the whole of humanity,
Bande Mataram
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