There were only two occasions when Mahatma Gandhi was recorded speaking in English. Once in the 1930s and the second, especially historic because it was just a few months before Gandhi was assassinated, was made on April 2, 1947. This second speech has been largely lost to the world. Recently, however, the second speech surfaced in — of all places — downtown Washington. Shankar Vedantam in the Washington Post:
Gandhi’s speech — made with the uneven diction of an elderly man who sounds as though he has lost most of his teeth — had the same themes he visited over and over throughout his life: the importance of nonviolence, the eradication of the caste system in Hindu society, amity between South Asia’s Hindus and Muslims, and a world united against violence and exploitation.
“A friend asked yesterday, did I believe in one world?” Gandhi says at one point in the speech. “Of course I believe in World One. And how can I possibly do otherwise? . . . You can redeliver that message now in this age of democracy, in the age of awakening of the poorest of the poor.”
Click here for the rest of the story and here to listen to the rare recording:
