Lets Kill Gandhi

by Gandhi, Tushar A.

  The trial of the murderers was conducted at a specially constituted court at Red Fort in New Delhi. The prosecution was lackadaisical; it felt that the trial was prejudged. Savarkar had to be exonerated at any cost, the rest were pre-condemned. The defence was given a free hand in expounding their vicious theories of Hindu-Muslim hatred. The most surprising aspect was that Godse was allowed to give vent to his anger in court twice; once at the Red Fort and again during the appeal in the Punjab high court. It was only after his statement was recorded by the court that the Indian government realised the damage that statement would cause to the already fragile unity of India. Then, in a knee-jerk reaction, they banned it and provided the Hindu extremists with a propaganda tool. Godse's statement May It Please Your Honour was finally freed of the ban by the high court, but not before the Hindu far-Right had used it in its underground propaganda to build up a huge force of fanatics and sympathisers.

  The statement is definitely not written by Godse who never displayed such a profound grasp over the language. The document has been very cleverly authored to emotionally exploit and influence even the most liberal of minds. V.D. Savarkar, a co-conspirator, had complete mastery over the language. He was a firebrand writer and orator beyond compare. Godse had ample access to him during their incarceration and trial. The statement attributed to Godse smacks of the penmanship of Savarkar.

  It is now almost sixty years since Gandhi's murder, yet many facts remain unknown. The partition of India and the slaughter of humanity in its aftermath are still very volatile and sensitive issues. The Hindu extremists have very successfully spread their version of Gandhi's role in the Partition and its aftermath. The Gandhians and Congressmen, by silence on the part of the former and complacence on the part of the latter, have reinforced the lies of the Godseites.

  'Let's Kill Gandhi!' deals with facts gleaned from verbal history, from books earlier published, records of the murder trial and investigations, books written by the defence lawyers and judges, newspaper reports and from what I grew up hearing in the family and from witnessing the bewilderment of Gandhi's loved ones.

  During my childhood I had an experience that left a very distinct impression on me. I must have been barely ten or twelve when my grandmother, Sushilabehn, came to stay with us from South Africa. She expressed a desire to meet Gopal Godse, Nathuram's younger brother and a co-accused in the murder. He had just finished serving a life sentence for his part in the murder of my great-grandfather. The entire family drove to Poona. For us, Poona meant going to the samadhi of Kasturba at the Aga Khan Palace and then to the samadhi of Mahadevkaka, Mahadev Desai, Gandhi's secretary and close associate, who died while incarcerated at the Aga Khan Palace. Then we went to the home of my great-grandfather's killers. For Gopal Godse, our action was like an acceptance of their deed by the family of their victim. He manipulated the episode to imply that we had endorsed that dastardly deed and put our stamp of approval on their act. To me it was all very confusing. I was too young to understand that my grandmother was trying to convey that the family had forgiven the Godses. I still can't understand why we needed to do that! How can one forgive someone who isn't even repentant about their deed? I can never forgive them, nor can I forgive the philosophy that created Nathuram Godse, the murderer.

  I had another opportunity to interact with Gopal Godse—now a frail old man, still as rabid and as adept at passing off blatant lies as truth. We were on a talk show hosted by my dear friend the late Priya Tendulkar. After the shooting was over Gopal Godse tried to rise unsteadily to his feet. When I saw the old man fumbling, I extended a hand to steady him and helped him disconnect the lapel mike. Press photographers caught this moment and the photograph was splashed on the pages of national papers. My act had been one of common courtesy for an old man. I am certain Gopal flaunted the photograph as a proof of my admiration of him and approval of his deed.

  On 30 January 1997,1 immersed an urn containing the ashes from my great-grandfather's funeral pyre. This was the closest I have been to him physically. After performing the ritual in Allahabad, I went to the Gandhi National Museum at Raj Ghat in Delhi where the bloodstained clothes worn by Gandhi are kept. For the first time I saw and handled the 9 mm Beretta automatic gun Godse had used. I felt extreme rage inside me; at that moment I could have shot a sanghi. This book is a result of that rage that has been bottled up in me for far too long. My great-grandfather said: 'Anger is an acid which corrodes the vessel in which it is stored'.

  India is today going through a similar phase as it was during the mid 1940s. The democratic process has been made a mockery of by opportunistic and exploitative politicians who have fragmented the electorate on the basis of castes and sub castes. The Hindu extremist elements, aided by the acts of exploitative Muslim clergy and opportunistic political leadership amongst the Muslims, have become powerful and have re-launched their campaign to rid India of its Muslims, or to subjugate them into living as serfs in the country of their birth. There is a stream of Hindu supremacists who want to restore a Brahmin dominated society as it was before Gandhi and Ambedkar.

  We do not want another holocaust. We do not want caste supremacy; we do not want another war between religions. Racial profiling is the first step towards ethnic cleansing; we cannot live through the ages of Hitler and Milosevic again. The world cannot survive at the mercy of a bullying super power. We must fulfil Gandhi's unfulfilled dream of a reunited India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. India does not need the RSS, the Hindu Mahasabha's version of a Hindu rashtra. We do not want another partition, neither of hearts nor of territory.

  This book puts the facts straight. Lest we forget.

  Tushar A. Gandhi

  * * *

  BOOK 1

  1

  * * *

  'HÈ RAM':

  ANOTHER CRUCIFIXION

  'It shows how dangerous it is to be too good.'

  — GEORGE BERNARD SHAW,

  reacting to Mahatma Gandhi's murder

  It was 4.55 pm on Friday, 30 January 1948. Gandhi was going to be late for the evening prayers. For him, being late was as close to committing a sin.

  Abha was worried, but the atmosphere in the room was electric. Gandhi was engrossed in a conversation with Sardar Patel. The meeting had begun at 4.00 pm; Patel had come accompanied by his daughter Manibehn. The intense dialogue between the mentor and his protégé was on the growing rift between Sardar Patel and Pandit Nehru and its effect on the party and administration. The dialogue went on with no signs of it coming to an end. To catch Gandhi's attention, Abha put his evening meal in front of him, comprising some cooked vegetables, twelve ounces of goat's milk, some carrot juice and a decoction of ginger, sour lime and aloe. But today, even this was ignored by him.

  'Today he will be late for prayers and he will be very angry with himself', Abha thought to herself. She could do nothing to divert his attention, as she was overawed into silence by the sheer intensity of the discussion and the charisma of the two leaders. Finally, she mustered up courage and held up the clock in front of Gandhi so that he would see the time, but even this failed to draw his attention. Seeing her predicament Manibehn intervened.

  'I must now tear myself away,' Gandhi said to Patel. After partaking of the frugal meal, he rose to get ready for the evening prayers. It was 5.10 pm. People had already started gathering on the rear garden lawns of Birla House.

  As he walked accompanied by his 'walking sticks' Abha and Manu, an attendant informed him that two brothers from Kathiawad had asked for an appointment. 'Tell them to come after the prayers,' Gandhi replied. 'I shall see them—if I am alive.' This was the second time he had mentioned death that day. It was thirteen minutes past five.

  Gandhi walked towards the prayer ground, his hands resting on the shoulders of Abha and Manu. He laughed and exchanged jokes with them. Gurbachan Singh, a Sikh attendant who normally walked a few paces ahead of Gandhi, clearing a path for him through the crowd, was held up with some work and was walking a dozen steps behin
d Gandhi.

  Referring to the raw carrot meal that Abha had served him in the afternoon, he teased her saying that she had served him cattle fare.

  Abha replied, 'Ba [Kasturba] used to call it horse fare!'

  Gandhi then said, 'Is it not grand of me to relish what no one else would care for?'

  'Bapu, your watch feels neglected,' Manu joked, 'you ignored it.'

  'Why should I, since you are my time-keepers?' he retorted.

  'But you would not look at your time-keepers either,' Manu said and Gandhi broke out into laughter.

  As he cleared the footsteps leading to the terraced garden where the prayers were held, Gandhi remarked: 'I am late by fifteen minutes. I hate being late. I like to be at the prayer meeting punctually at the stroke of five.' It was 5.15 pm.

  All conversation stopped; there was a tacit compact between Gandhi and his 'walking sticks', that as soon as they entered the prayer grounds, all jokes and conversation would end. Nothing but thoughts of prayers must fill their minds.

  The crowds parted, forming a passage through which Gandhi walked towards the dais, occasionally greeting people. He took his hands off the shoulders of the two girls and walked on with his hands folded in greeting. He had hardly taken two or three steps towards the dais, when a young man dressed in a blue-grey shirt elbowed his way through the crowd and blocked his path.

  The young man folded his hands and said 'Namaste Bapu.' Manu tried to get the young man to let them pass; she said, 'Brother, Bapu is already late for prayers ...' before she could complete her sentence, the young man pushed her out of his way. The rosary and spitoon that Manu was carrying fell from her hands and she tumbled to the ground. Before anybody in the tightly packed crowd realised what was happening, the man whipped out a snub-nosed automatic and fired thrice in quick succession at Gandhi.

  The bullets pierced Gandhi's chest, two going through his seventy-eight-year-old frail body, one remaining lodged in his flesh. The killer was so close to him that one of the ejected shells was later found in the folds of Gandhi's clothes. The first shot entered his upper abdomen on the right, two and a half inches above the navel and three and a half inches to the right of the mid-line. The second penetrated the seventh intercostal space one inch on the right of the mid-line, and the third on the right side of the chest, one inch above the nipple and four inches from the mid-line. The first and the second shots passed right through and came out of Gandhi's back; the third remained embedded in his lung. As the first shot hit him, his foot, which was in mid stride, came down. He was still on his feet as the second and third bullets hit. 'R...a...m,' Gandhi sighed, and then, the father of a fledgeling nation, fell.

  As life ebbed out, his face reflected inner peace. With his last few breaths, the devout Hindu kept chanting the name, Rambha, his childhood maid, had taught him, 'Ram .... R..a...m.......R....a......m ......R.....a...' The time was seventeen minutes past five on the evening of Friday, 30 January 1948. Mahatma Gandhi, Bapu, the Father of the Nation, born Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, was no more.

  The crowd was stunned. They had heard three shots fired, they saw their 'Bapu' collapse and they saw a man holding a gun. There was a murmur, a few voices rose in shock and anger, there were a few muffled sobs, rage was building up, and the situation was threatening to turn volatile. A gardener, Raghu, from the Birla household staff, rushed up to the gunman and hit him on the back of his head with the blunt side of his sickle, and then grabbed him from behind. A shoulder flap of the killer's shirt was torn off. Passions threatened to run amok as volunteers carried the limp and bleeding Gandhi into the room he had just exited. They tried to administer a few drops of honey mixed with warm water, but it remained unswallowed. Gandhi was no more.

  On the lawns the situation was turning ugly; the enraged mob was threatening to lynch the killer, 'Mia lagta hai, Musalman ne Bapu ko mar diya,' 'He looks like a Muslim. A Muslim has killed Bapu,' someone screamed. The crowd immediately took up the chant 'A Muslim has killed Bapu, kill Muslims.' Pyarelal Nayyar, Gandhi's personal secretary since 1942, rushed out on to the lawn and took control of the situation. 'Calm down, we are Bapu's children, we will not seek revenge,' he pacified the crowds. Volunteers took hold of the killer, who did not divulge his identity or his religion, knowing that a rumour was spreading that he was a Muslim. The killer was taken to a room on the ground floor of Birla House and detained there.

  Dr. B.P. Bhargava was urgently summoned to attend to Gandhi. His regular medical caretaker, the diminutive Sushila Nayyar, younger sister of Pyarelal, was away in West Pakistan. Patel had just reached home when he was informed about the tragedy; he immediately left for there. He was the first political leader to reach. In his grief, he picked up the limp wrist of his leader, with whom he had just been talking an hour ago; his face suddenly lit up with hope, he thought he could feel a faint pulse. Dr. Bhargava felt for a pulse and checked for eye reflexes; there were none. He looked up at Patel and mumbled, 'Dead for ten minutes.'

  Abha and Manu burst into tears, but soon everybody gathered their composure and started chanting Ram naam. Nehru arrived and rushed to Gandhi's side. He clutched at Gandhi's bloodied clothes and sobbed uncontrollably. Patel consoled him, their differences seeming to melt away in the face of the tragedy. Speaking to Pyarelal a little later, Patel commented, 'Others can weep and find relief from their grief in tears, I cannot do that.'

  Lord Mountbatten, who had returned from Madras that very day, was informed about the tragedy and he rushed to Birla House. As he was going in he heard someone say, 'A Muslim has killed Bapu, kill Muslims.' Instinctively Mountbatten turned around and shouted, 'You fool, everybody knows he is a Hindu.' Later, when questioned by an aide as to how he was sure it wasn't a Muslim, Mountbatten replied, 'I pray it is not a Muslim. If a Muslim has killed Gandhi, India will witness carnage such as I cannot bring myself to imagine.'

  Mountbatten realised that he would have to take control. He took Patel and Nehru aside and requested them to calm down. Patel told Nehru what Gandhi had asked of him; they both embraced each other and vowed to work unitedly.

  The police arrived and took charge of the situation. At the spot where Gandhi had fallen, a young boy was handing out fistfuls of the blood-soaked soil. Gandhi's glasses and slippers—which had slipped off when he fell—were never found. The police cordoned off Birla House, vacated the garden and started searching for clues. N.V. 'Anna' Gadgil, the veteran Congressman from Poona, looked inside the room where the murderer was being held and recognised him. As soon as Anna's eyes fell on him, he said in Marathi 'Are Nathya, he tu kay kela?' 'Nathya [as Nathuram was locally known to Poonaites] what have you done?' The worst nightmare of the leaders of India was over: it was now established that Gandhi's killer was a Hindu, in fact a Hindu Brahmin from Poona. Godse was taken into custody, and the first thing he demanded was medical aid for a minor wound on the back of his head and a few abrasions. After first aid he was taken to the Tughlaq Road Police Station, where the First Information Report of Gandhi's murder was recorded.

  Gandhi's youngest son Devdas and his family were the first of the immediate family to reach Birla House. Devdas tenderly took the lifeless hand of his father and caressed it as tears rolled down his face. For his family and that of his siblings—Harilal, Manilal and Ramdas—there would be no private mourning. Gandhi belonged to the nation in death as in life.

  Mountbatten, Nehru and Patel discussed the funeral arrangements in the next room. Mountbatten's suggestion was to embalm Gandhi's body and preserve it like Lenin's in Red Square. Pyarelal and Devdas vehemently opposed the suggestion. 'Bapu would not want it. What is more, he would want his funeral to take place at the earliest,' Devdas said firmly. It was therefore decided that the funeral would take place the next evening at a spot on the banks of the river Yamuna. The armed forces would be in charge and Mountbatten would oversee the arrangements. Devdas, with the help of other male members, took the body for bathing. While removing the blood-stained clothes they recovered one of
the bullets that had gone through Gandhi's body, and a spent shell in the folds of the cloth draped over his upper body. The three entry wounds were small and had caused less bleeding; two bullets which had passed through his body had torn out much larger chunks of flesh. After bathing the body, the doctor closed the bullet wounds; then Gandhi's body was draped in a fresh set of clothes.

  The doctor's report about the cause of death was, 'Death ... caused by shock and internal haemorrhage due to ... injuries inflicted ... by bullets fired from a pistol'. In the meantime, a mixture of cow dung, mud and water was spread on the floor to form a square on which khadi was spread. As the body was brought out, a shawl was spread on it and drawn up to the neck, leaving only the face uncovered. Devdas folded back the shawl to leave the chest bare; he said, 'The bullet wounds on Bapu's chest are medals of gallantry awarded to a non-violent warrior, the world must see them.'

  All India Radio's six o'clock news bulletin began with the announcement, 'A Hindu Brahmin shot Mahatma Gandhi, the father of the nation, this evening. Gandhiji is no more.' The nation came to a halt as the news rode the airwaves to every corner of the world. While the nation mourned, there were some who rejoiced by distributing sweets. The shakhas of the RSS and Hindu Mahasabha bore a festive look. Lamps were lit, flowers showered and firecrackers burst. What the sanghis had failed to do for the past decade had been done by one of their cadre. Many of the branches of the RSS and Hindu Mahasabha had been informed in advance and were prepared to celebrate. In Alwar a handbill proclaiming Gandhi's murder was circulated five hours before it actually happened.