 Thanks, Dean McIntyre, and thanks, Professor Raghav Cha for enabling this interaction in this wonderful place in this absolutely amazing and incredible city. I must say something about having recently retired. I was, as mentioned by Dean McIntyre, I was briefly in the Indian Parliament in the upper house in the Rajya Sabha. At the time came when some of us had completed our term and some of us were being retained for another term, and then Prime Minister made this remark. He said that these titles of MPs, PMs, are temporary titles. The only permanent title is XMP. And so I now have the permanent title of an X Professor at the University of India. Now today I'm speaking about Lincoln and Gandhi. Now, of course, they were separated by space, by time. Gandhi was born 60 years after Lincoln. The two provide a physical contrast as well. With Lincoln standing at 6 foot 4, Gandhi at 5 foot 6. They present contrasting contexts as well. One was the president of a large new nation. The other needed to free an old nation. Yet the two also had obvious similarities. Both were gifted lawyers. Neither was thought good-looking. Sirajini Naidu, the famous poet in India, called Gandhi Mickey Mouse for his large ears. And Lincoln was laughed at not only for his oversized ears, but also for long arms that apparently swung like a pendulum for huge hands and even bigger feet. And for loose shambling gait. For a man of his height, Gandhi too had long arms. Both made fun themselves of their looks. With Lincoln once asking when called a double-faced politician whether he would be wearing his face if he had another to put on. And both made people around them laugh. Both were shoot politicians. Both were often assailed by depression. Both had soaked up texts that meant much to their people, including in Lincoln's case the Bible and Shakespeare. In Gandhi's case the Gita and the Ramayana. And if a 37-year-old Lincoln once challenged a rival politician in Illinois called James Shields to a duel, which was called off at the last minute, a 55-year-old Gandhi wrote in 1924 in his journal Young India, quote, I hate dueling, but it has a romantic side to it. He added I would love to engage in a duel with the big brother, Maulana Shaukat Kalidiz, with the two brothers that he was in an alliance with at the time. When we are both satisfied that there is no chance of unity with our bloodshed and that even we too cannot agree to live in peace, I must then invite the big brother to a duel with me, unquote. Now the greatest obvious similarity between Lincoln and Gandhi is how they died. Both expected to be killed. Both were killed with both assassinations occurring on a Friday. But there are less obvious similarities too. The first of these is the strong self-belief. Well, before he ran for president, Lincoln felt he had something to offer, quote, on the great and durable question of the age for America, namely slavery. And Gandhi often expressed his awareness that his job was to lead his people to independence. In both cases, it was more than vanity. Offering himself for reelection in 1864, Lincoln genuinely thought that he could, quote, better serve the nation in its need and better than any new man, unquote. And that he was fitter than the others available to reunite his bitterly divided people. Gandhi told his close colleague and friend, Taka Kalelkar, in 1932, interesting phraseology, that like a pregnant woman who takes care of herself for the sake of the baby in her womb, he was looking after his own fitness for the sake of the independence he was carrying inside of him. Lincoln and Gandhi are similar also in their physical proximity to violence and war, both aboard blood shed, but were fated to witness lots of it. Lincoln was critical of America's 1846-48 war with Mexico, felt that American greed and mendacity had drawn Mexico into that war, and suspected that the desire for new territories for slavery was part of the American motivation. Despite his grasp of the consequences of violence, Lincoln had to preside over what remains America's bloodiest war to date. Despite a passion against violence and over three decades of presenting an alternative to violence, Gandhi could not prevent the killings of 1947, the year of India's and Pakistan's independence, which took half a million lives. Yet we should recall that neither Lincoln nor Gandhi made the non-accuracy of violence his sole goal. Lincoln cherished the goal of American unity and Gandhi that of Indian independence. Each desire to achieve his goal without using violence and without violence occurring, and Gandhi on his part even said that he would rather not have independence if violence was the only way of getting it. Also again and again he warned that the weak and the disabled in India would be stream-rollered in an India that worshiped violence. But even Gandhi never said that ensuring a violence-free India was his sole goal. That country's freedom was his end and non-violence his sole means. This meant, among other things, that Gandhi refused to be coerced by warnings from British rulers that his campaigns were likely to invite violence. He went to extreme lengths to prevent violence, but did not always suspend his campaigns if violence seemed possible. Sometimes he did, sometimes he did not. Similarly, Lincoln refused to be intimidated by the threat that his positions would cause war. He would do his best to avert war, but something else, the preservation of the American Union, was his paramount aim. In the event, Lincoln and Gandhi, both seen by the world as the symbols of reconciliation, sympathy and justice spent the final years of their lives amidst great violence. The third similarity, largely unnoticed, big about, the third similarity largely unnoticed, lies in the way that to express their vision. Gandhi was not the poet or the artist that Lincoln was. While many in our time including in India are able to recite Lincoln's Gettysburg address, I'm sure 90% of you can. Gandhi's utterances or writings have not attracted, even from Indians, a comparable memorization if we leave out some popular and often inauthentic phrases. For those, now I won't read the Gettysburg address, I everybody here is aware of it, but I would like to sentence from it. He says in it, the world will little note long, long remember what we say here, but you can never forget what they did here. Of course, the opposite was true. Time has proved Lincoln wrong and his 270 or so words are remembered more than the deeds that call for them. We may note that the name Gettysburg does not feature in the speech, which confines itself to an abstract idea. Neither slavery, nor the Union, nor the South, nor America is mentioned in the Gettysburg address. While Lincoln's message may be found along with his art in the Gettysburg address and the equally unforgettable second inaugural, Gandhi when asked to sum up what he stood for simply said, my life is my message. Like his message, Gandhi's art too was expressed in his life. It was reflected in his spinning wheel, in the cotton thread that tied Indian to fellow Indian, in the march to the sea to break the salt law, in the walks in Noakhali and Bihar to protect the weak. Let us look nonetheless at Gandhi's response in 1946, 18 months up, 18 months before his death, when he was asked to describe the independent India he wished to see. In his India, in his India said Gandhi, where in his words the last is equal to the first, or in other words that no one is to be the first and none the last, these are Gandhi's words I'm quoting, several sentences here. Independence must begin at the bottom, thus every village will be a republic. Having full powers in this structure composed of innumerable villages, there will be ever widening, never ascending circles. Life will not be a pyramid with the apex sustained by the bottom, it will be an oceanic circle whose center will be the individual, always ready to perish for the village, the latter ready to perish for the circle of villages, till at last the whole becomes one life composed of individuals, never aggressive in their arrogance but ever humble, sharing the majesty of the oceanic circle. Therefore the uttermost circumference will not wield power to crush the inner circle but will give strength to all within and derive its own strength from it. Continues Gandhi, I may be taunted with the retort that this is all utopian and therefore not worth a single thought. If Euclid's point, though incapable of being drawn by human agency, has an imperishable value, my picture has its own end of quote. A year later, close to India's independence day August 1547, someone in Calcutta asked Gandhi for an answer to uncertainty in one's life. What do you do when you are filled with doubt, when you don't know what charts to make? Gandhi's replies fare me well known. This is what it is. I will give you a talisman. Whenever you are in doubt or when the self becomes too much with you, recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man whom you may have seen and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he gain anything by it? Will it restore him to a control over his own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to swaraj, self-loom, independence for the hungry and spiritually starving millions? Then you will find your doubts and yourself melting away. Now in the first of these passages, Gandhi spells out his vision for India even as Lincoln at Gettysburg spelled out his vision for America. Like Lincoln at Gettysburg, Gandhi paints an abstract and universal if also in his case a geometric picture. On examination the two pictures, Lincoln's and Gandhi's may be found to contain common elements. Taken together the two passages from Gandhi quoted above underline rather like Lincoln's Gettysburg address and the second inaugural, the principle of human equality and the folly in the notion of high and low. President Lincoln used solemn occasions and inaugural, a state of the union address, a dedication of graves, to remind his people that prestige came at a price. Propoting the emancipation of slaves in a state of the union address on 1 December 1862, he famously said, in giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free. Honourable alike in what we give and what we preserve, we shall nobly save or mainly lose the last best hope of earth. Gandhi was never the Indian counterpart of an American president, he was not a prime minister, speaking on Independence Day from the ramparts of the Red Fort. But the national stage travelled to Gandhi whenever he went on a fast and the fasting Gandhi's remarks could be Lincolnesque. That's on 12 January 1948 when Gandhi announced a fast against attacks on minorities in India and Pakistan and asked for a restoration of security for Delhi's threatened Muslims, he also said, the reward will be the regaining of India's dwindling prestige. I flatter myself with the belief that the loss of a soul by India will mean the loss of the hope of the aching, strong, tossed and hungry world. We remarked the similarities with Lincoln's words of December 1862. Now both were passionate about national unity but only one of them succeeded in keeping his country united. Lincoln led a victorious, bitter and bloody war to undo secession but Gandhi failed despite a series of efforts to avert India's partition. Before examining this question further we should mark that where Lincoln faced one deeply divisive issue named slavery, Gandhi had to wrestle with two polarizing questions, the Hindu-Muslim relationship and the caste question, the untouchability question. If Lincoln had to ask himself how far or fast he could go against slavery without alienating American whites in general and later whether he could allow a South resolve and preserving slavery to secede, Gandhi had to ask himself how far or fast he could go to satisfy Muslims who feared unfair treatment from India's Hindu majority and also the quote-unquote untouchables who feared domination by Hindu high castes without alienating the Hindu high castes. Later in the summer of 1947 Gandhi had to ask himself how he should respond to the agreement for independence come division that the political representatives of India's Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs and the still powerful British had arrived at. This agreement stipulated that Muslim majority areas in the northwest and east of the subcontinent should be free to separate. We've already seen that Lincoln's America had been independent for several decades, Gandhi's India was fighting to be free. This movement towards independence brought to the fore the question of who might dominate whom once the British hand was removed. The Hindu Muslim and caste polarizations were sharpened as a result of this movement towards independence. India's movement towards independence had a parallel in Lincoln's America, the movement of the population towards the west from the east. By creating new states this migration sharpened America's tension over slavery an uneasy yet fairly effective north-south compact that slavery would be permitted in but restricted to southern states had kept a lid on the tension until the 1850s and the fact that pro-slavery and anti-slavery states had an equal number of votes in the U.S. Senate also helped. But a bitter fight ensued in the 1850s following the possibility of slavery being allowed in the new state of Kansas. If Kansas became a slave state it would tilt the U.S. Senate as a whole in slavery's favor. The American Constitution of 1787 had permitted slavery clearly though not explicitly but this commission was accompanied by a tacit understanding that slavery would gradually wind down. However, slavery's defender cited its constitutional legality and claimed further that states that had come together to form America had the right to leave the union if it let them down. Lincoln challenged this view not only by reminding America of the understanding to end slavery but also by holding that quote the union was older than the Constitution unquote. As Lincoln saw it the union was formed in his words by the articles of association of 1774 continued by the Declaration of Independence in 1776 pointing to one of the declared objects for establishing the Constitution quote to form a more perfect union unquote. Lincoln argued that the phrase proved the existence of the union prior to the Constitution. Rejecting the view that the states had created the federal government Lincoln held that the earlier text the Declaration of Independence was America's founding document. Because America was one the union in Lincoln's view could legally go to war to end this session declared by the southern states and also and this too was critical the Declaration of Independence the founding text had solemnly stated that all men equated equal without suggesting that blacks were to be excluded were to be excluded from quote all men unquote but it was more than legal question. Critics and defenders alike have acknowledged Lincoln's passionate attachment to the union. It has been said that sentiment for the union in Lincoln rose quote to the sublimity of religious mysticism unquote also that the only thing like passion or infatuation in the man was the passion for the union of these states. As for Gandhi's reasoning against India's division let me quote what he said in 1939 when he first heard that a separate Muslim homeland was being demanded backed by a thesis that Muslims and Hindus were quote unquote two nations. Wrote Gandhi in October 1939. Why is India not one nation? Was it not one during say the Mughal period? Is India composed of two nations? If it is why only two? Are not Christians a third? The Parsees a fourth and so on. Are the Muslims of China a nation separate from the other Chinese? Are the Muslims of England a different nation from the other English? This is 1939. How are the Muslims of the Punjab different from the Hindus in the Sikhs? Are they not all Punjabis drinking the same water, breathing the same air, deriving sustenance from the same soil? Are Muslims all over the world a separate nation or are the Muslims of India alone to be a separate nation distinct from the others? It continues Gandhi. A Bengali Muslim speaks the same tongue that a Bengali Hindu does. He eats the same food, has the same amusements as his Hindu neighbor. They dress alike. I have often found it difficult to distinguish by outward sign between a Bengali Hindu and a Bengali Muslim. We may note that these remarks were made five months before the Muslim League's Lahore resolution of March 1940 which demanded what would soon be called Pakistan. Residing at the Lahore gathering was Muhammad Ali Jinnah, seven years younger than Gandhi and like Gandhi, a brilliant Gujarati lawyer. Speaking in Bombay on 16 September 1940, Gandhi voiced his opposition to partition in emotional terms. I do not say this as a Hindu. I say this as a representative of Hindus, Muslims, Parsees and all. I would say to Muslim brethren cut me to pieces first and then divide India. You are trying to do something which was not attempted even during the Muslim rule of 200 years. We shall not allow you to do it unquote. Seven years later, however, India was divided. The Hindu-Muslim question which as we have seen was similar in some though not in all ways to America's north-south divide was quote resolved unquote in 1947 through India's partition. Calling the South an alliance of rebels Lincoln went to war against it, crushed what he saw as rebellion and the union was preserved. Despite what India's Hindus and Muslims had in common, Gandhi did not for all his passion and reasoning advocate war or compulsion for keeping India one. Nor did he despite his exclamation of September 1940, which I just said it, go on at fast to oppose the creation of Pakistan or offer himself to be cut into pieces. In the summer of 1947, Gandhi's position was very different from that of Lincoln when Lincoln faced the South's secession. The administration in New Delhi led by his closest colleagues Nehru, Patel, Rajaji, Prasad had all accepted the partition plan. The league had accepted it. The Akali is the Sikh party had accepted it. The British that still the ruling power were in favour of partition. Where Lincoln fought the civil war on behalf of the union government, Gandhi weighed whether he could lead a rebellion against India's government, against the imperial power, against India's leading political parties and against his own close colleagues of 30 years. Though the man close to his six seventy-eighth birthday seriously pondered leading a rebellion for unity, in the end he chose not to. He did not see a critical mass of supporters. India's people did not want a rebellion. At the all India Congress committee meeting of 14 June convened to ratify the partition plan, this is what Gandhi said. You have a perfect right to revolt because it brings in some who are critical of the agreement on partition. You have a perfect right to revolt but I do not find that strength today. If you had it I would also be with you. If I felt strong enough myself I would alone take up the flag of revolt but today I do not see the conditions for doing so. The legal conditions were not there. There was a pact for separation not for a union. The political conditions were not there. All the leading parties were in favour of partition. All he had was his emotional attachment for one India. He did not think it reason enough. Gandhi resigned himself to partition. When the popular view is contrary to mine should I force my own view on the people. I must step aside and stay back he said on 9 June 1947. It was not Gandhi and non-violence that came in the way of a nation or a people keen on preventing or reversing partition. At independence in August 47 the Indian government led by Gandhi's close colleagues Nehru and Patel had neither the will nor a popular mandate nor the military force to attempt anything like an undoing of Pakistan. In fact no mainstream element in India defied the division. Moreover India did not have a founding document like the Declaration of Independence that legally entitled the Indian Union to undo Pakistan. Though the Indian National Congress of which Gandhi was for many years the unquestioned leader and which was supported by the bulk of India's Hindus and the Muslim League the leading political body of the Muslims had forged short term alliances during the course of the independence movement in 1916 for instance and again for 1920 to 1922 the two bodies had never signed on to an agreed declaration or constitution. On his part Gandhi had worked repeatedly for such an agreement. In September 1944 he and Jinnah talked 14 times to find an accord with Gandhi proposing complete autonomy for Muslim majority areas after independence if the Muslim League worked jointly with the Indian National Congress to end British rule but Jinnah rejected the offer. Then in April 1947 Gandhi proposed to his congress colleagues and Lord Mountbatten in India's last British vice-troy. The installation of an all India government led by Jinnah has an alternative to partition but his colleagues and the British vice-troy successfully joined forces to defeat Gandhi's plan which was never put to Jinnah. By the way one of the chief elements in this successful effort to scotch Gandhi's plan was a very prominent Indian civil servant called VP Menon who was then a senior functionary under the vice-troy and VP Menon who later was very prominent in India's administration wrote a paper called tactics to be adopted against Gandhi's plan and it's a paper in the transfer of power values. As to why Gandhi did not go on a fast to death to prevent partition perhaps he was influenced by the possibility that a fast by him or his death from a fast would bring about not any rethinking over partition but a fresh cycle of Hindu-Muslim killings. To die to prove that I alone was right was meaningless Gandhi said on 5 June. When partition seemed inevitable but was heralded by terrible Hindu-Muslim violence reconciliation between Hindus and Muslims rather than the prevention of Pakistan became Gandhi's chief goal and this task his action and words were again linkin-esque. Now let me quote some lines from Lincoln's second inaugural delivered in March 1865 when the union was approaching victory in the civil war. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude of the duration which is already attained each looked for an easier triumph and result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible both read the same Bible and pray to the same God and each invokes his aid against the other fondly do we hope fervently do we pray that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away with malice toward none with charity for all with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right let us strive on to finish the work we have in to buy depth the nation's wounds to care for him who shall have born the battle and for his widow it is often to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. 82 years later, Gandhi in India also spoke of the unity of God 13 June 1947 when God is here there and everywhere God must be one that is why I ask whether those calling God Raheem would have to leave India and whether in the park described as Pakistan Rama as the name of God would be forbidden would someone who call God Krishna be turned out of Pakistan we shall worship God both as Krishna and Kareem and show the world that we refuse to go mad in line with Gandhi's convictions India adopted the constitution that rejected the idea of a Hindu India abating a Muslim Pakistan though the new India was smaller than what Gandhi had imagined it wasn't India for all its inhabitants if Lincoln preserved the union Gandhi also preserved a quote union of India unquote which is India's full and correct name assuring equal rights to all in its truncated space now I have another portion on untouchability I'll deal with it quickly because I think we should have enough time for the questions now we all we know that Lincoln despite this battle against slavery and this battle for the union this battle against the secessionist south has often been criticized for not being an abolitionist and also being not passionate enough or rapid enough in his fight against slavery similarly Gandhi has been criticized by many Dalit leaders led by the remarkable B. R. Ambedkar in the 30s 40s 50s that he was also not strong enough in his fight against or fight for the so-called untouchables but let's look at one of the things here in September 1932 15 years before independence leading Hindu politicians solemnly pledged that free India's parliament would ban and punish untouchability the pledge was a direct result of a fast over untouchability by Gandhi who wanted such a lot to be the first act of the independent parliament of India abolition of untouchability and punishment for those who practice it should be the first law of independent India this was Gandhi's demand and leading Indian politicians pledged themselves to it in September 1932 15 years before independence in November 49 when the constituent assembly passed article 17 of the Indian constitution and by the time Gandhi was dead declaring that untouchability was abolished and that its practice in any form was forbidden and punishable members remarked that the soul of Gandhi who had been assassinated 21 months earlier had finally been given satisfaction today criticisms of Gandhi originally made by Ambedkar the brilliant and dedicated Dalit was Gandhi's political opponent for many years are frequently voiced Ambedkar modern India's most popular Dalit icon and complained that the abolition of untouchability was not Gandhi's sole aim and that Gandhi's aims of independence in Hindu-Muslim unity no matter how worthy diluted the fight against untouchability in fact said Ambedkar independence was risky for Dalits for it would give high caste Hindus political power on top of the social power they already enjoyed another of Ambedkar's charges was that though Gandhi attacked untouchability he did not attack the caste system or Hinduism which had tolerated if not blessed the evil of untouchability I think many are aware of Lincoln's sharing some of the popular prejudices of his time some of his remarks about the African Americans at the time are well known and they do disclose a great deal of ignorance and even prejudice neither Gandhi nor Lincoln where they're live in my assessment would dispute proofs of their preconceptions of their limitations and perhaps neither should be judged from the perspectives of later and better informed times now Gandhi believed that untouchability would really end only when the minds of caste Hindus were changed neither the British government the continuance of which Ambedkar favored nor a dictator Gandhi now Ambedkar once said to Gandhi you are very popular among the Hindus and you share some very good views on the question of caste and untouchability but I want you to give up your fight for independence and on the Hindu-Muslim question just appoint yourself a dictator of the Hindus and focus only on this very important question and Gandhi said no I'm not able to do this Gandhi believed that untouchability would end only when the minds of caste Hindus would change neither the British government the continuance of which Ambedkar favored nor a dictator Gandhi would compel caste Hindus to change they had to be one over challenged and shamed similarly Lincoln was aware that for slavery to end America's whites had to be one over challenged if need be shamed this meant that Gandhi moved against sorry this meant that Lincoln moved against slavery gradually and in stages in 1850 he went along with the so-called fugitives slave law that required all U.S. citizens including those living in the north to assist in the capture of runaway slaves in return for a commitment that slavery would not be extended to newly acquired California though it would be allowed in newly acquired Texas four years later however Lincoln sharply opposed an act that left scope for an extension of slavery to two new territories emerging from recent expansion Kansas and Nebraska in 1861 he went to war and in 1863 emancipated slaves in the rebelling south there were similar stages in Gandhi's battles over caste and untouchability while attacking untouchability in the sharpest language possible Gandhi held for several years that India's caste system as such in an idealized form and freed from any marks of high and low was defensible while always saying that in the same breath that the idealized form could never be actualized Gandhi felt here to make a gesture like this to the caste Hindus whom he needed for all these three goals independence Hindu-Muslim unity, removal of untouchability and it is a fact that for 30 years the vast majority of India's caste Hindus and Dalits followed Gandhi's lead with time Gandhi radicalized his position over caste and the caste system in a 1935 article 13 years before his death in a 1935 article 13 years before his death he declared in capital letters that caste has to go and about three years before his death Gandhi said he would give special blessings to marriages or to only those marriages where one party was a Dalit and the other was a caste Hindu in the end Gandhi was for intermarriage between caste Hindus and Dalits in the end Lincoln was not for intermarriage between whites and blacks but then Lincoln was born 60 years before Gandhi now we know that towards the end Lincoln uttered these very powerful words in the second Yet if God wills that the war continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's 250 years of unrequited toil shall be sunk and until every drop of blood drawn with a lash shall be paid by the other drawn with a sword as was said 3000 years ago so still it must be said the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous all together these searing words identifying a nation's sin had finally burst out of one who had often denied voice to his own sense of iniquity and who by this time had seen much blood drawn Gandhi was as strong in his emotion against untouchability and in his case he voiced his feelings all the time in 1916 within a year of his return to India after spending 20 years in South Africa a 47 year old Gandhi said every affliction that we labor under in this sacred land is a fit and proper punishment for this great and indelible crime that we are committing in 1921 Gandhi spoke of the Indian fight against the existence of British rule in India and added what crimes for which we condemn the government as satanic have we not been guilty of towards our untouchable brotherhood we make them crawl on their bellies we have made them rub their noses on the ground with eyes red with rage we push them out of railway compartments what more than this has British rule ever done in 24 referring to untouchability Gandhi said God does not punish directly his ways are inscrutable who knows that all our woes are not due to that one black sin whether or not we agree with Lincoln's strategy and tactics of over slavery or Gandhi's over untouchability we can acknowledge their role in changing the thinking of the nations incidentally it's worth noting that at Gandhi's suggestion Nehru and Patel invited Ambedkar to join the Indian cabinet not only did Ambedkar agree he chaired the committee that drafted India's constitution and as India's law minister piloted the passage of the constitution the untouchable became India's principal lawmaker final remarks what explains the Lincoln Gandhi similarity across the boundaries of time space and culture soon after he started Indian opinion in South Africa the Gandhi in his early 30s and wishing to inspire the journal's readers wrote a few short sketches of individuals what surmounted great odds one was about Lincoln underlying Lincoln's courage on behalf of his country's blacks Gandhi wrote it is believed that the greatest and the noblest man of the last century was Abraham Lincoln and he also spoke of Lincoln's incredible fight when everybody was against his fight however there's no evidence to suggest that link that Gandhi made a conscious decision to emulate Lincoln's approach or even that he studied Lincoln's life in great detail still his mind had underlined Lincoln's willingness to confront the toughest challenges for America with what was deepest inside of it this quality in Lincoln found both response and resonance in Gandhi's soul he too was prepared to pit his deepest against the toughest his deepest and his shudest the inmost convictions of both included a certainty that all human beings had equal worth and that one person's domination of another was a sin each wish to win all components of his diverse nation we've seen moreover that there was similarity between race in America and caste in India and also that both Lincoln's America and Gandhi's India faced a separatist challenge even all this their resemblance in approach and articulation becomes understandable almost a century after the civil war a 30 year old man for Martin Luther King Jr talked of Gandhi and Lincoln in the same breath said king in Montgomery Alabama on 22 March 1959 they killed him this man who had galvanized 400 million Indians for independence one of his own fellow Hindus felt that he was a little too favorable towards the muslim he was a man of love falling at the hands of a man with hate but the man who shot Gandhi only shot him into the hearts of humanity just as when Abraham Lincoln was shot mark you for the same reason that Gandhi was shot that is the attempt to heal the wounds of a divided nation and Secretary Stanton said now Lincoln belongs to the ages of course a little later Martin Luther King also was shot for similar reasons thank you very much