On Martyrs’ Day, January 30, 2026, a powerful documentary titled “Lead on Gandhi” is released, carrying a message by Kamal Haasan and Gopal Krishna Gandhi, their voices deeply rooted in India’s moral and democratic traditions.
The documentary traces, with quiet intensity, the extraordinary journey of the bullet that killed Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi – from the mines of Italy to Birla House, New Delhi. By following this single object across geographies and histories, the film lays bare the global pathways of violence, and the tragic irony of how instruments of hatred cross borders far more easily than ideas of peace.
More than a historical exploration, “Lead on Gandhi” is a meditation on what was lost on January 30, 1948. At a time when polarisation and intolerance are increasingly normalised across the globe, the documentary asks uncomfortable but necessary questions: What happens when non-violence is dismissed as weakness? What becomes of a society that forgets the moral courage Gandhi stood for?
Through the eyes of Kamal Haasan, the film connects Bapu Gandhi’s assassination to the present moment, reminding audiences that ahimsa is never passive, and that love, truth, and restraint demand far greater courage than anger and revenge.
Released on Martyrs’ Day, “Lead on Gandhi” serves not only as a tribute to the Father of the Nation, but as a timely call to conscience, urging citizens to reclaim the values of empathy, dialogue, and non-violence in public life.
As the documentary powerfully underscores, the mortal man may have fallen to a bullet, but his immortal ideas can only perish if we choose to abandon them.
