Mahamana Madan Mohan Malaviya

Mahamana Madan Mohan Malaviya

A GOLDEN LAMP EXTINGUISHED

 

Sarojini Naidu

Eminent Congress Leader

 

Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya's death was hastened, because of his sorrow over the communal strife in India.

 

Pt. Malaviya, who had striven to make during his lifetime unity the one basic creed of India, gave up his life as sacrifice in his old age, because men were no longer brothers, but enemies in their motherland. The greatest Hindu of his time and the greatest among great Hindus of all ages, Pandit Malaviya fulfilled in himself the great noble and universal ideals of Hinduism, which did not recognise division between human clans and classes.

 

Never was there a bitter thought in his heart even when Indians forgot their own greatness and culture and slew one another like beasts.

 

Pt. Malaviya's greatness was unquestioned, he was also a man of ineffable sweetness and courtesy. There was another man known over the world for his courtesy, namely Mahatma Gandhi, but much as she loved her little Mahatma, Pt. Malaviya's courtesy was far greater and sweeter than Mahatma Gandhi's.

 

Pandit Malavia was one of the earliest pioneers among those who founded the Indian National Congress. In these many years, the Congress had changed beyond recognition, and those of his contemporaries who were his colleagues in founding the Congress more than 50 years ago, could not keep with the wonderful and incredible charges that the new generation brought in the Congress. They could not be revolutionaries. But Pandit Malaviya, even when he did not agree with the revolutionary changes that were taking place swiftly, never deserted the Congress. Sometimes, he expressed his views with that moving voice of his, and protested gently against such rapid changes.

 

At the A.I.C.C. meeting at Allahabad in 1942 Pandit Malaviya was so old and frail that he was literally carried to the dais, and he sat there all bent down, but his spirit was alive and young and immortal. Today, the whole country is mourning, because the great flame quenches, a golden lamp extinguished, yet not really extinguished. His spirit would be a beacon light to succeeding generations down to the ages.

 

Pandit Malaviya remained a Hindu to the core, a nationalist to the core, a great human being to the core.

 

Mahamana Madan Mohan Malaviya