The Assassination of Gandhi
Listen to Nehru Announcing Gandhi's Death to the Nation Here
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| The assassin, Nathuram
Vinayak Godse, left, hanged November 15,1949. He shared the gallows with
the American School graduate
Narayan
Dattatraya Apte, right
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| Note: the fundamentalist Hindu political party associated with the assassination is today the ruling party in India. | |
At 4:30p.m., Abha (an honorific title meaning Great Leader) brought in the last meal he was ever to eat; it consisted of goat's milk, cooked vegetables, oranges, and a concoction of ginger, sour lemons, and strained butter with the juice of aloe. Sitting on the floor of his room in the rear of Birla House in New Delhi, Gandhi ate, and talked with Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Deputy Prime Minister of the new government of independent India. Maniben, Patel's daughter and secretary, was also present. The conversation was important. There had been rumors of differences between Patel and Prime Minister Jawaharal Nehru. This problem like so many others, had been dropped in Mahatma's lap.
Abha, alone with Gandhi and the Patels, hesitated to interrupt. But she knew Gandhi's attachment to punctuality. Finally, therefore she picked up the Mathama's nickel-plated watch and showed it to him. "I must tear myself away," Gandhi remarked, and so saying he rose, went to the adjoining bathroom, and then started toward the prayer ground in the large park to the left of the house. Abha, the young wife of Kanu Gandhi, grandson of the Mahatma's cousin, and Manu, the granddaughter of another cousin, accompanied him; he leaned his forearms on their shoulders. "My walking sticks," he called them.
During the daily two-minute promenade through the long, redstone colonnade that led to the prayer ground, Gandhi relaxed and joked. Now, he mentioned the carrot juice Abha had given him that morning.
"So you are serving me cattle fare," he said and laughed.
"Ba used to call it horse fare, " Abha replied. Ba was Gandhi's deceased wife.
"Isn't it grand of me," Gandhi bantered, "to relish what no one else wants?"
"Bapu (father)," said Abha, "your watch must be feeling very neglected. You would not look at it today."
"Why should I, since you are my timekeepers?" Gandhi retorted.
"But you don't look at the timekeepers." Manu noted. Gandhi laughed again.
By this time he was walking on the grass near the prayer ground. A congregation of about five hundred had assembled for the regular evening devotions. "I am late by ten minutes, " Gandhi mused aloud. " I hate being late. I should have been here at the stroke of five."
He quickly cleared the five low steps up to the level of the prayer ground. It was only a few yards now to the wooden platform on which he sat during services. Most of the people rose; many edged forward; some helped to clear a lane for him; those who were nearest bowed low to his feet. Gandhi removed his arms from the shoulders of Abha and Manu and touched his palms together in the traditional Hindu greeting.
Just then a man elbowed his way out of the congregation into the lane. He looked as if he wished to prostrate himeself in the customary obeisance of the devout. But since they were late, Manu tried to stop him and caught hold of his hand. He pushed her away so that she fell and, planting himself about two feet in front of Gandhi, fired three shots from a small automatic pistol.
As the first bullet struck, Gandhi's foot, which was in motion, descended to the ground, but he remained standing. The second bullet struck; blood began to stain Gandhi's white clothes. His face turned ashen pale. His hands, which had been in the touch-palm position, descended slowly, and one arm remained momentarily on Abha's neck.
Gandhi murmured. "Hey, Rama (Oh, God)." A third shot rang out. The limp body settled to the ground. His spectacles dropped to the earth. The leather sandals slipped from his feet.
Abha and Manu lifted Gandhi's head, and tender hands raised him from the ground and carried him into his room in Birla House. The eyes were half closed and he seemed to show signs of life. Sardar Patel, who had just left the Mahatma, was back at Gandhi's side; he felt the pulse and thought he detected a faint beat. Someone searched frantically in a medicine chest for adrenaline but found none.
An alert spectator fetched Dr. D. P. Bhargava. He arrives ten minutes after the shooting. "Nothing on earth could have saved him," DR. Bhargava reports. "He had been dead for ten minutes."
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The Gun, a 9mm Beretta Automatic Sr. No. 606824, The pistol an automatic 9mm Beretta in excellent working order was the perfect weapon for the murder. It had almost travelled an improbable route halfway across the world to reach Birla Bhavan on 30th January 1948. Manufactured in Italy in 1934, it had been taken to Abyssinia by one of Mussolini's officers. It was taken as a war trophy from him by an officer of the 4th Gwalior Infantry, the force that accepted the surrender of the Italians in Abyssinia. It is rumoured that the Pistol reached Gwalior with the Commanding Officer of the battalion, Lieutenant- Colonel V. V. Joshi, however this is not substantiated. It is believed that the revolver changed many hands in Gwalior till it finally came in possession of Jagdishprasad Goel who sold it to Dandavate who finally delivered it to Nathuram Godse. On 30th January 1948 at 5.15 p.m., the Beretta was fired for the last time by the hands of Nathuram Vinayak Godse. Three 9mm bullets hit the Mahatma from a distance of 1 1/2 feet, two of the projectiles pierced the frail 79 year old body and one was lodged in his chest. |