Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 68 Page 69 Page 70 Page 71 Page 72 Page 73 Page 74 Page 75 Page 76Plough Quarterly • Summer 2015 37 Ben Shahn, Gandhi And so what the whole police force and the army failed to achieve in Calcutta, Gandhi accomplished in a few days. Lord Mountbatten, former governor general of India, called him India’s “one-man army.” Gandhi showed that innocent suffering is the most powerful tool to bring peace to a world weary of conflict and war, just as Isaiah wrote in the songs of the suffering servant: “With his stripes we are healed.” After establishing peace in Calcutta, Gandhi walked through the villages, and wherever he went the miracle occurred and people abandoned violence. I wit- nessed this. Meanwhile, the violence in the north- western border state of Punjab was even worse than in Calcutta. Gandhi was pained by the daily reports of suffering caused by large scale exodus and violence in the divided region. Through his newspaper, The Harijan, he sent out an appeal for vol- unteers to staff the growing refugee camps. One line struck me at the time: “Where are the Christians that live according to the Bible?” He argued that the Christians, as a minority in India, were not a threat to either the Muslims or the Hindus, and that they could bring the Christian message of reconciliation to both camps. Having seen the carnage in Bengal, I was deeply moved by Gandhi’s call to Christians and found it impossible to study theology under these conditions. I shared my pain with like-minded classmates and we approached the principal of our college for a leave of absence to serve under Gandhi. He tried to dissuade us, arguing that India’s churches needed us to study for the future, but finally he gave permission. The National Council of Churches of India agreed to sponsor us. We went back home to Kerala to gather a few other young men who wanted to join us, and to bid farewell to our parents and dear ones. None of us were confi- dent we would return home alive. On our way to the Punjab, we stayed a few days in Delhi, where I met Horace Alexander. He had mediated between Gandhi and Muham- mad Ali Jinnah, former leader of the All-India Muslim League and now founder of Pakistan, in a last-minute attempt to avoid partition. Alexander took me to attend the daily prayer meetings at Birla House where Gandhi lived. Exactly at five each afternoon, Gandhi would walk into the maidan supported by a friend and take his seat on a raised platform. We would sing a hymn, often Isaac Watts’s “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.” Gandhi especially loved the final verse: Ben Shahn, Gandhi, 1964, 922 x 650 mm, Black ink on white wove paper mounted on cardboard. Image from M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, California, www.famsf.org. © Estate of Ben Shahn/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY.