the 60’th anniversary of his assassination by a Hindu fanatic.
A copper urn containing some of the ashes was opened and the ashes mixed with water and poured into the Arabian Sea by his great-granddaughter Nilamben Parikh in accordance with Hindu rites. “This is a day for deep thought. This day will help us think how to move forward,” Parikh, 75, told reporters.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi – called Mahatma or “Great Soul” – spearheaded a non-violent campaign against the British Raj which finally saw India gain its independence in 1947.
Even as India’s economy booms, creating new wealth, Gandhi is still regarded as the nation’s moral conscience and a rebuke to crass materialism and corruption.
Parikh, along with 10 other family members boarded a boat and travelled about a kilometre out to sea to perform the ritual. The ashes had turned up last year when an urn was sent by Indian businessman Bharat Narayan to Mumbai’s Mani Bhavan museum, where Gandhi had lived while visiting the city and was the focal point of his political activities.