Lost Gandhi Recording Resurfaces

A long-lost recording of a Mahatma Gandhi speech has emerged in the collection of an American journalist, the Washington Post reports. In the 1947 speech, one of only two known recordings of the spiritual and political leader speaking in English, Gandhi calls for peace and unity. The day before, he had made a radical proposal for a Muslim to become the first prime minister of a united India.

Speaking months before India descended into sectarian bloodshed, Gandhi called for Asia to reject the violence of the West. "If you want to give a message again to the West, it must be a message of love," he said. "I want to capture your hearts, and don't want to receive your claps," Gandhi added when interrupted by applause. "Let your hearts clap in unison with what I am saying, and I think I shall have finished my work." He was assassinated by a Hindu extremist 10 months later. (More Mahatma Gandhi stories.)