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Tributes
Sadanand Ward Mailliard, Sri Ram Centre
California
The passing of a
great woman of India
I was informed just now that our dear friend
Nirmala Deshpande passed away
just a few hours ago at 5am in New Delhi. Nirmala
Deshpande was a member of the
Rajya Sabha the Upper House of India Parliament.
She met recently with U.S Speaker
Pelosi and her delegation on their trip to
India.
More important than Nirmala Deshpande's role as
a Member of Parliament was
her beloved status in India as the keeper of the
Gandhi legacy. Mahatma
Gandhi's chief disciple and spiritual heir was a
great India spiritual
leader by the name of Vinoba Bhave. He led the
idealistic Bhoodan movement
after Indian Independence in which he walked
more than 40,000 kilometer all
over India and collected and distributed more
than one million acres of
land to the landless. Nirmala Deshpande as a
young woman walked with him and
was his chief disciple. When he passed away the
torch was passed to her and
she was the president of Gandhi's most precious
Trust the Harijan Sevak
Society which was formed to help the Harijans,
the poorest of the poor known
as the scavenger caste Gandhi directed that
proceeds from his writings go
to help build schools and other services for
this group and Nirmala
Deshpande was the modern leader of that cause.
Nirmala Deshpande never
married and spent her entire life in service to
the the ideals of Gandhi.
Nirmala Deshpande was well known and loved all
over India and loved and
respected in Pakistan and was a tireless worker
in promoting peace between
India and Pakistan. One of her favorite stories
was one in which she said
³people used to cheer 'Jai Hind', when her
teacher Vinoba Bhave would come
to their village, which means 'Victory to India'
Vinoba Bhavie would stop
and say, 'No please say Jai Jagat', which means
'victory to the whole
world.' Nirmala Deshpande believed as did her
teacher that no one was truly
free unless the whole world was free.
This is sad news for us all and the world has
lost a great soul, a tireless
champion for the needy and devoted servant in
the cause of peace and
international harmony.
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