The conference, however, proved fruitless. Gandhi returned to India to find himself imprisoned once again in January 1932 during a crackdown by India's new viceroy, Lord Willingdon. Later that year, an incarcerated Gandhi embarked on a six day fast to protest the British decision to segregate the "untouchables," those on the lowest rung of India's caste system, by allotting them separate electorates. The public outcry forced the British to amend the proposal. After his eventual release, Gandhi left the Indian National Congress in 1934, and leadership passed to his protege Jawaharlal Nehru. He again stepped away from politics to focus on education, poverty and the problems afflicting India's rural areas. As Great Britain found itself engulfed in World War II in 1942, though, Gandhi launched the "Quit India" movement that called for the immediate British withdrawal from the country. In August 1942, the British arrested Gandhi, his wife and other leaders of the Indian National Congress and detained them in the Aga Khan Palace in present day Pune. "I have not become the King's First Minister in order to preside at the liquidation of the British Empire," Prime Minister Winston Churchill told Parliament in support of the crackdown. With his health failing, Gandhi was released after a 19 month detainment, but not before his 74 year old wife died in his arms in February 1944. After the Labour Party defeated Churchill's Conservatives in the British general election of 1945, it began negotiations for Indian independence with the Indian National Congress and Mohammad Ali Jinnah's Muslim League. Gandhi played an active role in the negotiations, but he could not prevail in his hope for a unified India. Instead, the final plan called for the partition of the subcontinent along religious lines into two independent states predominantly Hindu India and predominantly Muslim Pakistan. Violence between Hindus and Muslims flared even before independence took effect on August 15, 1947. Afterwards, the killings multiplied. Gandhi toured riot torn areas in an appeal for peace and fasted in an attempt to end the bloodshed. Some Hindus, however, increasingly viewed Gandhi as a traitor for expressing sympathy toward Muslims. Assassination In the late afternoon of January 30, 1948, the 78 year old Gandhi, still weakened from repeated hunger strikes, clung to his two grandnieces as they led him from his living quarters in New Delhi's Birla House to a prayer meeting. Hindu extremist Nathuram Godse, upset at Gandhi's tolerance of Muslims, knelt before the Mahatma before pulling out a semiautomatic pistol and shooting him three times at point blank range. The violent act took the life of a pacifist who spent his life preaching non violence. Godse and a co conspirator were executed by hanging in November 1949, while additional conspirators were sentenced to life in prison. Death and Legacy Even after his death, Gandhi's commitment to non violence and his belief in simple living making his own clothes, eating a vegetarian diet and using fasts for self purification as well as a means of protest have been a beacon of hope for oppressed and marginalized people throughout the world. Satyagraha remains one of the most potent philosophies in freedom struggles throughout the world today, and Gandhi's actions inspired future human rights movements around the globe, including those of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in the United States and Nelson Mandela in South Africa. On Swami Vivekananda's 149th birth anniversary, here's the full text of his famous Chicago speech through which he introduced Hinduism at the Parliament of the World's Religions, Chicago in 1893. 11th September, 1893 Sisters and Brothers of America It fills my heart with joy unspeakable to rise in The conference, however, proved fruitless. Gandhi returned to India to find himself imprisoned once again in January 1932 during a crackdown by India's new viceroy, Lord Willingdon. Later that yea