“Kasturba Gandhi, practically unlettered and stubbornly old fashioned as she was had the dignity and integrity of a truly simple soul. Her life was one long act of faith.”
FEBRUARY 24, 1944
Kasturba Gandhi
IN THIS HOUR OF SORROW THE HEARTS OF THE MILLIONS OF HIS countrymen will go out in respectful sympathy to Gandhiji. Not many months ago he lost a loyal friend whom he dearly loved. To-day, the gracious companionship of sixty years is broken by a blow which, for all that it had seemed inevitable, must be hard to bear. Lonely by his very eminence as all great men must be, the loss of the devoted wife who had so long shared with him the exaltations as well as the rigours of the life heroic must make him feel lonelier than ever. Kasturba Gandhi, practically unlettered and stubbornly old-fashioned as she was, had the dignity and integrity of a truly simple soul. Her life was one long act of faith. Made for happy domesticity, for the best part of her long life she knew less than most women the comforts of privacy or the amenities of ordered existence. It was one long fight in a cause which, in the early days, she but imperfectly understood; but through all the trials and tribulations of which she had a greater share than falls to most mortals, she was sustained by a supreme fidelity to duty as she conceived it and by a child-like trust in the man by whose side she trod so bravely. Few passages in “My Experiments with Truth” are more touching than those in which Gandhiji pays tribute to the loving devotion that carried her through many an emotional crisis which the merciless logic of a mind set on self-mastery imposed upon her loyalty. No match to her illustrious husband in intellect, she yet found little difficulty in adjusting her pace to his; what she lacked in subtlety she made up by her honesty and intuitive sympathy. Shrewd and unassuming, homely and yet full of the wisdom that comes from the heart, serene through much suffering borne without bitterness, she was a true helpmate to the great man whose life fate had linked to hers and a tower of strength to all who needed sympathy or succour. In every sense of the word she was a great lady. We offer our respectful condolences to Gandhiji in his great loss.
Reference:
The First 100
A Selection of Editorials, 1878-1978, THE HINDU, VOLUME I