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Gandhi's Last English Speech
| What is believed to be only one of two recordings of English speeches delivered by Mahatma Gandhi has surfaced in Washington, D.C. The recording of Gandhi’s speech to a group of Asian leaders in New Delhi by journalist Alfred Wagg had been preserved by John Cosgrove, a former president of the National Press Club. Gandhi is reported to have been recorded just twice speaking in English, once in 1930 and the second time in April 1947, nine months before his death on Jan 30, 1948. In the speech, Gandhi says: “If you really want to see India at its best, you have to find it in the Bhangi cottage, in a humble Bhangi home….
“What I want you to understand – if you can – that the message of the East, the message of Asia, is not to be learned through European spectacles, through Western spectacles, not by imitating the tension of the West, the gunpowder of the West, the atom bomb of the West. If you want to give a message again to the West, it must be a message of love; it must be a message of truth…” Gandhi rebukes his audience as they cheer him: “Please, please, please. That will interfere with my speech and that will interfere with your understanding also. I want to capture your hearts, and don’t want to receive your claps. Let your hearts clap in unison with what I am saying, and I think I shall have finished my work.” |
