Gandhiji breathed his last in 1948 with ‘Hey Ram’ on his lips. Lord Ram was an influence on Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi since his childhood. As the Mahatma noted in his autobiography, that being of the Vaishnava faith since birth, visiting the temples of Rama and Krishna was his habit. But the temples did not instil faith in the boy Gandhi. He noted, “But what I failed to get there, I obtained from my nurse, an old servant…Rambha, that was her name, suggested as a remedy for this fear, the repetition of Rama-nama (the name, Rama).” It became an infallible remedy for him for the rest of his life. However, the Rama-nama which he refers to is no longer the idol to be found in a temple, nor a recitation as a ritual. Instead, it was something deep within the heart.
Rooted in spirituality
Gandhi brought religion into politics. But his religion had its roots in spirituality. Gandhian scholar Raghavan Iyer notes in his book, The Moral and Political Thought of Mahatma Gandhi, that Gandhi sought to make politics religious and religion practical. In this effort, he built upon a neglected strand of Indian tradition — the path of karma yoga or spiritual realisation through social action. This was action of the kind associated with classical heroes such as Rama and Janaka, and reaffirmed in modern India by Vivekananda and Aurobindo.
