Blood was also an anti-colonial metaphor. Gandhi, the world"s most famous pacifist, hoped Indians would "possess blood that could withstand the corruption and poison of colonial violence". A blood-stained cloth worn by the leader on the day he was murdered in 1948 is among the artefacts on display in a museum in Madurai in southern India. "Metaphors of blood - its extraction and sacrifice - are inescapably rife in Indian political discourse," note Mr Copeman and Mr Banerjee.