The Rajghat Samadhi where Mahatma Gandhi was cremated has become the most important national place of memory in India. The Hindu custom of cremating the dead and immersing their ashes in a river actually precludes the transformation of the place of burning the dead into a place of memory. This custom highlights the transient nature of human life and stresses that memory cannot be attached to time and space. There is an exception, however, as far as the samadhi of any saint is concerned. Samadhi means a concentration of the mind. It is believed that holy men at the end of their days can leave their mortal body in full consciousness. Although samadhi refers to this process, the term is also used for designating the locality where it has taken place. Small monuments mark such places and they attract worshippers. Calling Gandhi's place of cremation a `samadhi' makes him a saint which he never claimed to be. But it is only by presuming that he was a saint that this particular place of memory can be justified. It is also treated as a place of worship. Visitors must remove their shoes when approaching the Rajghat Samadhi as they have to do when entering a temple. Most of them also perform a pradakshina, a clockwise circumambulation of the monument. This is an ancient ceremony otherwise only performed when visiting a temple. In doing this pradakshina the worshipper personally reaffirms the sacred territorial claim of the temple. Many visitors of the Rajghat Samadhi who have followed the ritual observed that they may not be aware of its meaning.

The form of the monument, a plain slab of black marble, was obviously designed according to the wishes of Jawaharlal Nehru who preferred this impressive simplicity. He had first thought of asking an American artist to design it, but there was criticism in Parliament about this (Parliamentary Debates, Lok Sabha, 1951) and the work was finally entrusted to an Indian artist, Vanu G Bhuta. The only inscription on the side of the slab of marble are the words Hey! Ram which Gandhi uttered when he was shot. A few weeks before his death Gandhi had referred to this end. He had said that the people called him a Mahatma but he may fail the final test of facing his murderer and saying Hey! Ram, he may be frightened by the murderer and run away (Harijan, 1947). As he did not fail this test, the inscription on the slab of marble can be taken as a testimony to this fact.

There were suggestions to erect a huge statue of Gandhi at the Rajghat Samadhi. Fortunately, this was not done as it would have been not in keeping with the memory of the Mahatma. Some members of Parliament (Lok Sabha) recommended the construction of a Gandhi Memorial Library during the debates on the Rajghat Samadhi Act of 1951. But then Nehru intervened in the debate and stressed that the act was merely intended to look after this place as efficiently as possible, there was a library under the Gandhi Memorial Trust and it would be undesirable to mix up the two. Nehru then added that the committee (empowered by the act) "looks after it as a sacred place, non-partisan, non-political, non-propagandist. It is a sacred place which everybody in India holds in reverence" (Parliamentary Debates, Lok Sabha, 1951). After Nehru's intervention, all amendments to the act were withdrawn and it was passed without any objection.

Rajghat: In Memory of the Mahatma,liability, breach, European, negligence, remedies, tradition, tortuous, accidents, compensation, consequences, conflicts, continental, defendant, defamation, discouraging, divergent, Donoghue, focussed, globalization, intentional, movement, ombudsman, AngloAmerican, preventing, approach, resolving, Stevenson, survived, unsuccessful, Winfield, victim, Gandhi, memory, Rajghat, Samadhi, Mahatma, monument, Parliamentary, Debates, circumambulation, concentration, cremated, debates, designating, everybody, entrusted, empowered, Fortunately, amendments, immersing, Jawaharlal, justified, approaching, monuments, nonpartisan, passed, personally, presuming, recommended, reaffirms, ritual, samadhi', stresses, undesirable, transient