DURBAN, South Africa — Six decades after his death, some of Mohandas Gandhi’s ashes have been scattered off the coast of South Africa, where he was confronted by racial discrimination and developed some of his philosophies of peaceful resistance.
An early-morning service Saturday in a harbor in the eastern city of Durban on the 62nd anniversary of Gandhi’s death included the laying of flowers and candles on the water’s surface.
Gandhi was shot and killed by a Hindu hard-liner in 1948 in New Delhi. His ashes were divided, stored in steel urns and sent across India and beyond for memorial services. It was not unusual for some of the ashes to have been preserved instead of scattered as intended.
Gandhi first came to South Africa in 1893. He lived in homes and farms across South Africa for two decades, before returning to India at age 46 to push for independence from Britain.
