Bringing Gandhi’s last Satyagraha to life

A rare collection of pictures, letters and newspaper clippings chronicling Mahatma Gandhi’s last fast unto death have been put on display at the Nehru Memorial Museum & Library.

A rare collection of pictures, letters and newspaper clippings chronicling Mahatma Gandhi’s last fast unto death have been put on display at the Nehru Memorial Museum & Library.

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The exhibition titled —The Weapon of Ahimsa: Mahatama Gandhi’s Last Fast gives a glimpse of Gandhi’s last hunger strike to bring peace to a communally charged Delhi, days before he was assassinated.

It highlights his belief that fasting was a spiritual act and served both as a means of genuine self rule and a political tactic.

Divided into 20 panels of text and visual prints, the exhibition depicts the different phases of Gandhi’s five-day fast that began on January 12, 1948.

Apart from the medical bulletins by the doctors attending on him, one photo shows a frail Gandhi being carried to the prayer ground after his fast.
The exhibition also has telegrams and letters written by different religious groups pledging peace and requesting Gandhi to break his fast.

At the extreme end is a small note written by Gandhi on a postcard to Jawaharlal Nehru asking him to end his sympathetic fast. “May you long remain Jawahar the jewel of India,” he wrote.

“This is an excellent opportunity for us to tell the public about the richness of our collections. Our objective was to showcase our vast collection to the scholars,” Prof Mahesh Rangarajan, Director Nehru Memorial Museum and Library told HT.