ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with whether Mohandas K. Gandhi should have died then, there, and in that way. Around the time of his death Gandhi should have been retired from politics and public life and preparing for a peaceful death; he should have been practicing the art of dying. Gandhi helped India become independent of Great Britain, but he knew that the true liberation for his country would consist only in its own internal regeneration. Gandhi wanted to die—of disappointment and shame. The day of the declaration of Indian independence, August 15, 1947, Gandhi spent in silence, meditation, and mourning. The extremism of sectarian violence undermined Gandhi's faith. In this period many of his remarks express his desperation. Decades of dedicated work had seemingly come to nothing. Gandhi continued march from one site of violence to the next began to resemble the work of Sisyphus.
