Eulogy for Mahatma Gandhi

Eulogy for Mahatma Gandhi

PRESENTATION

Lesson Standards

9.3

9.1(A)

9.1(D)

9.4(E)

9.4(B)

9.4(C)

9.4(G)

9.5(A)

9.4(F)

9.5(E)

9.5(C)

9.5(D)

9.5(G)

9.5(H)

9.9(B)(i)

Language Objective

• I will analyze the eulogy, using appropriate vocabulary and sentence structures to express my ideas clearly.

Learning Intention

• Today, we will explore the eulogy for Mahatma Gandhi by Jawaharlal Nehru to understand its structure, rhetorical devices, and effectiveness in honoring Gandhi's life and legacy.

Success Criteria

By the end of this lesson, students will be able to:

• Identify the main parts of a eulogy.
• Analyze the use of rhetorical devices in a eulogy.
• Evaluate the effectiveness of a eulogy in conveying the significance of an individual's life.

Do Now:

• Reflect on the quote and share your thoughts in the chat
• Consider what this quote means to you and how it might relate to Nehru's eulogy for Gandhi.

Introduction

When Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) was born, India had already been ruled by Great Britain for centuries. While colonial India benefited from mass transportation and communication systems, British rule in India was harsh. Indians endured limited rights and became economically dependent on their British colonizers. Gandhi, however, believed that India should be free, and he worked to unite all Indians to protest British rule without resorting to violence. Thousands of people followed Gandhi’s example, and he became one of India’s foremost leaders. India finally achieved independence in 1947, but Gandhi was assassinated the following year. Jawaharlal Nehru, a reformer who had worked side-by-side with Gandhi and the first prime minister after India became independent, delivered a public eulogy to memorialize his fallen friend.*Watch StudySync Video

Vocabulary

illumine

eminent

divine

desolate

verb to light up; illuminate

adjective highly respected or famous within a particular subject or field

adjective relating to a God or gods

adjective very lonely and sad

adjective full of or involving danger

perilous

Purpose

• This text is a eulogy, or speech given to commemorate the deceased. Nehru's purpose is larger, given that he believes India is in a precarious position after Gandhi’s death.

Language

• Throughout the eulogy, Nehru uses figurative language to describe Gandhi and his influence, which make his points difficult to grasp.
• Select one example of figurative language and identify its literal meaning, such as the description of Gandhi as the sun and his death as the sunset. Examine what ideas this language conveys about how the Indian people feel.

Entry Point

• Gandhi led India’s move for independence from British control in the 1930s and 1940s. He was particularly notable for
• advocating for civil disobedience, or nonviolent protest;
• encouraging a noncooperation movement and boycott of British goods;
• inspiring protestors through rousing speeches;
• influencing the peaceful protests of future movements, including the American civil rights movement, of which Martin Luther King Jr. was a prominent leader.
• It is sadly ironic that Gandhi, an advocate of nonviolent protest, was assassinated by a pro-Hindu extremist, who was later executed. Gandhi encouraged unity and peace between Muslims and Hindus, but at the time of his death, there was political upheaval on the Indian subcontinent because the former British territory was being partitioned into two countries: Pakistan for the Muslims and India for the Hindus.

Who was Gandhi: All You Need to Know

Summary

Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister after India’s independence, begins his eulogy for Gandhi by stating that although the sun has gone from their lives, Gandhi would not have wanted them to feel this way. The time they spent working with him and being led by him has changed and molded all of them, and they still carry the spark of his work within themselves. Therefore, there is no need to put up statues of Gandhi, since he’s enshrined in the hearts of millions. Nehru believes that, rather than try to praise Gandhi, it is better to feel humility. To give him words would be wrong, since what he asked for was work and sacrifice. India faces many perils, the greatest of which might be lack of faith. With Gandhi’s passing, many feel desolate and abandoned. However, for the living, the task remains to carry on the light that Gandhi instilled in all of them by following his example.

A glory has departed and the sun that warmed and brightened our lives has set, and we shiver in the cold and dark. Yet he would not have us feel this way. After all, that glory that we saw for all these years, that man with divine fire, changed us also—and such as we are, we have been molded by him during these years; and out of that divine fire many of us also took a small spark which strengthened and made us work to some extent on the lines that he fashioned. And so if we praise him, our words seem rather small, and if we praise him, to some extent we also praise ourselves. Great men and eminent men have monuments in bronze and marble set up for them, but this man of divine fire managed in his lifetime to become enshrined in millions and millions of hearts so that all of us became somewhat of the stuff that he was made of, though to an infinitely lesser degree. He spread out in this way all over India, not just in palaces, or in select places or in assemblies, but in every hamlet and hut of the lowly and those who suffer. He lives in the hearts of millions and he will live for immemorial ages. What, then, can we say about him except to feel humble on this occasion? To praise him we are not worthy—to praise him whom we could not follow adequately and sufficiently. It is almost doing him an injustice just to pass him by with words when he demanded work and labor and sacrifice from us; in a large measure he made this country, during the last thirty years or more, attain to heights of sacrifice which in that particular domain have never been equaled elsewhere. He succeeded in that. Yet ultimately things happened which no doubt made him suffer tremendously, though his tender face never lost its smile and he never spoke a harsh word to anyone. Yet, he must have suffered—suffered for the failing of this generation whom he had trained, suffered because we went away from the path that he had shown us. And ultimately the hand of a child of his—for he, after all, is as much a child of his as any other Indian—the hand of a child of his struck him down. Long ages afterwards history will judge of this period that we have passed through. It will judge of the successes and the failures—we are too near it to be proper judges and to understand what has

happened and what has not happened. All we know is that there was a glory and that it is no more; all we know is that for the moment there is darkness, not so dark certainly, because when we look into our hearts we still find the living flame which he lighted there. And if those living flames exist, there will not be darkness in this land, and we shall be able, with our effort, remembering him and following his path, to illumine this land again, small as we are, but still with the fire that he instilled into us. He was perhaps the greatest symbol of the India of the past, and may I say, of the India of the future, that we could have had. We stand on this perilous edge of the present, between that past and the future to be, and we face all manner of perils. And the greatest peril is sometimes the lack of faith which comes to us, the sense of frustration that comes to us, the sinking of the heart and of the spirit that comes to us when we see ideals go overboard, when we see the great things that we talked about somehow pass into empty words, and life taking a different course. Yet, I do believe that perhaps this period will pass soon enough. He has gone, and all over India there is a feeling of having been left desolate and forlorn. All of us sense that feeling, and I do not know when we shall be able to get rid of it. And yet together with that feeling there is also a feeling of proud thankfulness that it has been given to us of this generation to be associated with this mighty person. In ages to come, centuries and maybe millennia after us, people will think of this generation when this man of God trod on earth, and will think of us who, however small, could also follow his path and tread the holy ground where his feet had been. Let us be worthy of him.

Thanks