The Men Who Killed Gandhi

by Manohar Malgonkar

  This Angchekar heard one of the passengers say something to another in Marathi, which was Angchekar’s mother-tongue. Angchekar got into conversation with the man, who told him that his name was Karkare, that he worked for the Hindu Mahasabha, and that he was going to Delhi for some work connected with the Mahasabha. After listening to Angchekar’s troubles in turn, and finding that he was a total stranger to Delhi and had nowhere to stay, Karkare, ever willing to help a refugee, offered to take Angchekar to the Hindu Mahasabha Bhavan, which kept a few rooms for party workers, and where he and Madanlal expected to stay.

  The Peshawar Express got into Delhi’s main railway station at noon on Saturday. Karkare hired a tonga and in it they all drove to the Hindu Mahasabha Bhavan which, however, had none of its rooms vacant. They then proceeded to the serai (travellers’ home) attached to the Birla temple, and drew a blank there too. In the end they went to Chandni Chowk and booked a room with three beds in one of the cheapest hotels there, the Sharif. In the hotel register, Karkare put his name down as M. Bias, but Angchekar, who signed the register after him, did not notice anything wrong; Madanlal gave his correct name.

  Karkare seemed to have a lot of things to attend to in Delhi and was out most of the time, with the result that Madanlal and Angchekar were left to themselves in the hotel room. They talked at length about their experiences in the refugee columns and shared confidences, and on Sunday Madanlal even invited Angchekar to accompany him to the houses of his relatives where he was going ‘to see a girl suitable for marriage’. Angchekar later revealed that at these houses they were ‘treated to teas’ and that ‘many ladies came to see Madanlal’. That night, Sunday, Karkare quite scandalized the other two by not turning up at all, and he had still not returned on Monday morning when Angchekar left the hotel to visit the Transfer Bureau to register himself. But when he returned at about three in the afternoon he found that Karkare was back in the room and had brought another man with him. (This was Gopal Godse, but he was not introduced to Angchekar.) All three had been talking before Angchekar entered the room but stopped abruptly, and after a while Karkare somewhat brusquely told Angchekar that they were all leaving for Jullunder ‘for Madanlal’s marriage’ within the hour and that he, Angchekar, would also have to vacate the room. Angchekar, who had finished his business in Delhi and was catching the evening train to Bombay, had no use for the room in any case. Full of gratitude towards Karkare for letting him stay with them, Angchekar asked him for his permanent address. Then Karkare said a surprising thing. He told Angchekar, ‘It is not necessary for you to know my address.’

  On Godse and Apte’s flight to Delhi, was another passenger they knew, Dixitji Maharaj, priest of Bhuleshwar Temple, Bombay. A firm supporter of the Hindu cause, Dixitji Maharaj had initially tried to help Apte and Godse with money, was now quiet indifferent to them, as he felt that theirs was just big talk.

  Facing page: Hindu Mahasabha Bhawan, Delhi: Through different means of transport and on different days, the conspirators were collecting in Delhi. The Hindu Mahasabha Bhawan on the Mandir Marg became their place of rendezvous.

  If Karkare was now trying to cover up his tracks, it was already too late. Just as Apte had made sure that he would be identified by the taxi driver Kotian, Karkare had made sure that Angchekar would remember him and Madanlal. Both would pay dearly for these indiscretions. Nathuram Godse, who actually killed Gandhi, pleaded guilty, and Madanlal was caught red-handed; but the cases against Apte and Karkare might not have been so convincingly established if both had not been so prodigal in leaving clues behind and gone repeatedly out of their way to impress their identity on total strangers, transforming bystanders into material witnesses.

  Once again, Gandhi’s fast unto death did not have to go on for more than five days. In that time, the country had undergone an emotional purge. Like a drunk making a good resolution in a pre-dawn moment of sobriety, the national conscience had been subjected to a jolt and perhaps even a fleeting interval of introspection.

  ‘You have to live in the vicinity of a Gandhi fast to understand its pulling power,’ wrote Alan Campbell-Johnson, who of course, had a ringside seat. The fast pushed both the Kashmir war and the communal killings off the front pages of the newspapers. Nehru and his colleagues rushed to Gandhi’s bedside to try to talk him out of his decision. His answer was to impose his second condition. India must pay the Rs 55 crores to Pakistan or see Gandhi die; and never mind if the country was at war with Pakistan. Gandhi was not only demanding a change of conscience on the part of the people of Delhi, but had also served an ultimatum upon the Government of India.

  Congress leaders milled around in Delhi, holding frantic consultations with groups of citizens, and worked late hours trying to hammer out a formula which they could force the groups to accept. They knew that it was not easy to bluff Gandhi that Delhi had become suddenly peaceful. For one thing there were the processions of angry refugees that came to Birla House with the sole purpose of shouting their slogans of vengeance within his hearing. Also there was what Gandhi called his private intelligence system. Every day he received hundreds of letters from all sorts of people telling him of their sufferings as they would to a close relative, and many people even came to see him to demand redress.

  ‘I would beg of all my friends not to rush to Birla House, nor try to dissuade me or be anxious for me,’ Gandhi had said at his prayer meeting on the twelfth. ‘I am in God’s hands.’

  This was one prohibition that even Gandhi must have known would never be obeyed. People came to Birla House in droves and took their places around the tight inner circle of the men and women of Gandhi’s entourage. The lawns of Birla House resembled a fairground. Newsmen from the great papers of the world gathered around like birds of prey scenting death, set up their typewriters under convenient trees and recorded the comings and goings of great men and wisely interpreted the signs. One of the wisest was to ascribe a boil that had suddenly erupted on the palm of his hand to his own involvement in Gandhi’s ordeal.

  Birla House, not Government House where Mountbatten lived, nor No. 13 York Road where Nehru lived, was now the centre of the capital, and Nehru acknowledged the shift by calling a meeting of his cabinet on the lawn of Birla House ‘to consider afresh the issue of Pakistan’s share of the cash balances.’

  At that meeting, the government capitulated to Gandhi. They would be good boys and pay up the Rs 55 crores to Pakistan. Now only the other condition remained to be fulfilled. To be sure it was not a decision that a dozen men sitting around Gandhi’s bedside could be called upon by their leader to endorse. It was something that had to be established by visible proof of the slaughter of Muslims begin halted, by the intended victims of that slaughter coming out and testifying that they now felt safe, by the opposing communities mingling together to celebrate one another’s festivals as they once had.

  Facing page:‘You have to live in the vicinity of a Gandhi fast to understand its pullingpower,’wrote Alan Campbell-Johnson, the Press Secretary of Mountbatten. Gandhi’searlier fasts had given results, and this time too when he decided to go on a fast on 13 January 1948 for communal harmony and payment of Rs 55 crores to Pakistan, hehoped he would be able to demand a change of conscience.

  Birla House: Gandhi spent the last 144 days of his life here. Birla House, not Governor-General’s residence, nor No. 13 York Road where Nehru lived, was now the centre ofthe capital.

  But even this now seemed possible. The tide was definitely turning. In the words of Pyarelal, Gandhi’s private secretary: ‘The people woke up to their full sense of responsibility and set out organizing an all-out campaign to bring about a real change of heart.’

  But, if the fast was turning the tide, it was also creating discernible swell on the opposite shore. The local leaders could reason with the citizens of Delhi, but the refugees from Pakistan, who were now as numerous as the citizens, had no loyalty to or regard for the local leaders. The refugees had suffered directly at the hands of the Muslims, and
they longed for revenge. They felt outraged that Gandhi should have staked his own life to save the Muslims from their due retribution. And the paying of a vast sum of money to Pakistan was, in their eyes, nothing short of an act of national sabotage.

  They marched to Birla House to voice their protest. Inevitably, they were stopped by the guards at the gate. Placidly, exchanging obscenities with the guards, they squatted by the roadside and settled down for a long vigil. Every now and then they shouted slogans: ‘MARTA HAI TO MARNE DO!’ (‘If he wants to die; let him die!’) and ‘KHOONKA BADLA KHOONSE LENGE!’ (‘We want blood in return for blood!’) A few stones were hurled at the windows of Birla House. Whenever their demonstrations got a little out of hand, the police made a lathi charge and dispersed them. But within minutes they gathered again

  Whenever a ministerial car passed in or out of the gate, their shouting would rise in a deafening crescendo. The other ministers sat slumped in their cars as though they did not hear the yells, but Nehru had his car stopped and jumped out.

  ‘Who dares shout “Let Gandhi die”?’ he demanded. ‘Let him who dares repeat the words in my presence. He will have to kill me first!’

  Nehru’s tirade stopped the shouting, but only while he was in the vicinity. Lying in bed and trying to sleep, Gandhi must have been woken up again and again by the roar from Albuquerque Road, ‘MARTA HAI TO MARNE DO! KHOONKA BADLA KHOONSE LENGE!’ And at time he must have wondered to himself if this time he would be able to bring it off.

  He did bring it off. On the night of 15 January, and thus within three days of going on his fast, a government communique announced that it had reversed its decision to withhold the share of Pakistan’s cash balances in order to ‘remove the one cause of suspicion and friction’. This decision, the communique added, ‘is the Government’s contribution, to the best of their ability, to the non-violent and noble effort made by Gandhiji... for peace and goodwill.’

  Gandhi in a message from his bedside complimented the government on ‘the promptness with which they had unsettled their settled fact’.

  Meanwhile, by a heavy-handed use of the carrot as well as the stick, the protest marches of the refugees had been stopped; at least, they were stopped before they reached within a mile of Birla House. From the sixteenth, Gandhi was not disturbed by anyone shouting slogans that exhorted him to die.

  The Congress President, Rajendra Prasad, who was soon to become the President of India, had evolved a seven-point formula that would meet the requirements laid down by Gandhi for ending his fast. It was in the form of a pledge to be taken by the Hindus and Sikhs that they would not molest the Muslims, and it had to be endorsed by the leaders of the various political parties, of the refugee organizations, of religious institutions, and even of citizens’ committees in the predominantly Muslim areas of the city. It must have been something of a problem to prevent some of these leaders, gathered in one room, from flying at each other’s throats, but like wild animals facing a common danger they were tamed by a sense of impending calamity — the threat of Gandhi’s death. Even so there must have been a good deal of finger-crossing or its Indian equivalent, tongue-biting, at the time of the actual signing. After an all-night sitting on the night of the seventeenth, Rajendra Prasad succeeded in obtaining all the signatures he wanted. In the morning, the signatories carried the document in triumph to Gandhi.

  The people of Delhi had pledged themselves ‘to protect the life, property and faith of the Muslims, and [promised] that the incidents which have taken place in Delhi will not happen again.’

  Gandhi, in a voice that was charged with emotion, began to tell them how deeply touched he was, and then broke down. A little later there was ‘a ceremony of prayer,’ at which ‘texts from the Japanese, Muslim and Parsi scriptures were recited, followed by the mantra:

  Lead me from untruth to truth,

  From darkness to light,

  From death to immortality.

  Then he broke his fast, by taking a glass of fruit juice which was handed to him by a Muslim friend, Abul Kalam Azad.

  The airline coach took Apte and Nathuram into the centre of New Delhi, and by 8.30 on the evening of 17 January they were installed in a room (No. 40) in the Marina Hotel in Connaught Place. The Marina in New Delhi was the exact counterpart of the two Sea Greens in Bombay, a middle-class hotel for westernized tastes, but patronized almost entirely by Indians. In the hotel’s register, they put their names down as M. Deshpande and S. Deshpande. It never became clear which was which; nor did it matter. They had dinner and went to the Hindu Mahasabha Bhavan where Karkare was waiting for them. They had a brief chat with him and returned to their hotel. The next morning, Karkare joined them for breakfast, and afterwards all three went in a tonga to take a look at Birla House where Gandhi was staying.

  In India, the name Birla has the same ring of power, influence and wealth that is generated by that of the Rockefellers in the USA, or the Mitsubishis in Japan; Birla House in Delhi was then the residence of the head of the family, Ghanashyam Das Birla. Today Birla House is a national monument and the road on which it is situated, then called Albuquerque Road, has been renamed Thirtieth January Marg (Tees January Marg) to commemorate the date of Gandhi’s assassination.

  Even though anyone who wanted to attend Gandhi’s five o'clock prayer meetings could freely enter the compound of Birla House, for the rest of the day it was not easy to get past the police guard at the gate. But, to get a general idea of the layout of the garden and the place where the prayers were held, it was not necessary to enter the gate. There were service lanes on both sides of the house and at the back, and a separate entrance to the numerous servants’ quarters and garages situated at the rear. Much of the garden could be overlooked from these lanes and, even from the main road, in the mornings Gandhi could often be seen beyond the low brick wall, sitting in the sun in a cane chair and with a towel draped over his shoulder, bending over his papers or dictating to a secretary.6

  It will be recalled that, in case they missed one another at the railway station, they had arranged to rendezvous at the Hindu Mahasabha Bhavan, where Karkare and Madanlal expected to stay. Nathuram, who had been a prominent and influential party worker and had attended many of its conventions in Delhi, knew the secretary of the Party, Ashutosh Lahiri, well. He gave Karkare a letter of introduction to Lahiri, and as a result of this Room No. 3 was allotted to Karkare from the afternoon of the eighteenth.

  That afternoon, while Madanlal, accompanied by Angchekar, was taking a look at marriageable girls in the Chandni Chowk area, Apte, Nathuram and Karkare went to attend Gandhi’s prayer meeting. Gandhi did not appear, because he was in bed; but he had sent a message to be read out over the public address system. This was the day on which Gandhi had decided to give up his fast and, according to his biographer, D.G. Tendulkar, ‘it was a happy day for him and all of them’. The crowd at the meeting was a little larger than usual, and everyone milled around like excited schoolchildren at an unscheduled holiday. The three conspirators wandered all over the garden and finalized their plan of action. Now that the fast was over, they were confident that Gandhi would come out and begin to conduct prayers himself within a day or two.

  On January 17, 1948, when Nathuram Godse and Narayan Apte reached Delhi, they took a room in Hotel Marina (Room No. 40), situated in Connaught Place and checked in with another set of new names — M. Deshpande and S. Deshpande.

  While Godse and Apte stayed in Hotel Marina, Vishnu Karkare, who had reached Delhi by train went to the Hindu Mahasabha Bhawan with a letter of introduction from Nathuram Godse for the secretary of the Party, Ashutosh Lahiri. Karkare was allotted a room, which later became the place for their secret consultations where they ironed out the final role each of them had to play.

  Pleased with the way everything was going, they went to the New Delhi Railway Station where both the fast trains from Bombay, the Punjab Mail and the Frontier Mail, were due to arrive within an hour of one another. Badge and Shankar were to c
ome by the Frontier Mail, and Gopal by the Punjab Mail. Both trains arrived on time but, even though they tramped up and down their entire lengths several times, they did not see either Badge and Shankar or Gopal. Of course, Badge and Shankar, who had stayed on an extra day in Bombay, were not on their train, but Gopal had travelled by the Punjab Mail and had arrived. What had happened was that he had jumped out even before the train had come to a halt and, instead of waiting in one place, had gone walking up and down the platform looking for them in the milling crowd. They concluded that he too had missed the train. They went back to the Marina, feeling for the first time depressed and jittery because, even though Madanlal had brought over their stock of explosives, neither of their revolvers had arrived. Apte, normally a one-drink man, treated himself to two double Scotches.

  That night, Karkare did not go back to the Sharif Hotel but slept in the room that had been given to him in the Hindu Mahasabha Bhavan. He knew that, if they had somehow missed Gopal and the other two at the railway station, they were bound to show up at the Bhavan, and did not want to miss them. But Badge and Shankar did not come, and neither did Gopal. After waiting on the platform till the next train from Bombay had come and gone, he had curled up on a bench and gone to sleep in case his brother or one of the others came looking for him during the night.

  Early on the morning of the nineteenth Apte and Nathuram drove in a taxi to the Hindu Mahasabha Bhavan and were greatly perturbed to learn that their three missing companions had still not shown up.

  But there was nothing they could do, Nathuram and Apte walked across to the Secretary’s office in the adjoining building and sat for a few minutes talking to Mr Ashutosh Lahiri, or at least listening to him; he was holding forth indignantly against the Peace Committee, which had stated that his party had also signed the seven-point pledge that had persuaded Gandhi to end his fast. According to Lahiri, the Mahasabha had done nothing of the kind; nor had it authorized any of its members to do so. He had prepared a press statement clarifying the position. He gave his callers an advance copy of his statement.