In a voice choked with sadness and emotion, two hours after the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi on 30 January 1948, Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru, first Prime Minister of India, while announcing the dastardly act to the nation through All India Radio, inter alia said: “…The light that has illumined this country for these many years will illumine this country for many more years, and a thousand years later, that light will be seen in this country and the world will see it and it will give solace to innumerable hearts…” A little more than seventy-six years ago, Mahatma Gandhi’s life was abruptly terminated.

Surely, he would have never thought that his end would be so unexpected, less than six months after he and the whole band of freedom fighters, many of whom had suffered greatly and sacrificed their lives, had secured India’s freedom from the colonial yoke. Those who sacrifice their life and endure persecution for the benefit of humankind have a very high station in the sight of God. From the very beginning when the Báb, MartyrProphet of the Bahá’i Faith, declared his mission, thousands of followers had to bear the brunt of persecution, several hundred willingly sacrificed their lives. While none of us can fully fathom the mysteries of martyrdom and why so much innocent blood is shed, the history of humankind is replete with soul-stirring episodes of supreme sacrifice, such as that of Jesus Christ and his apostles; Imam Husayn and his entire family, massacred on the plain of Karbala; Guru Tegh Bahadur, who at the urging of his minor son, later Guru Gobind Singh, willingly offered his life, refusing to yield to the diktat of a tyrant, and the assassination of Gandhiji, Father of the Nation.........

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