The Men Who Killed Gandhi

by Manohar Malgonkar

  But when, the next morning, the report of his two emissaries reached the desk of the Inspector-General and Director of the Intelligence Bureau, Mr T.G. Sanjevi, he was in no mood to make an issue of their grievances against the Bombay Police. The conspirators were believed to belong to the Bombay province, and in order to trace them it was vitally important for him to obtain the fullest cooperation from the Bombay Police. He decided to try a fresh tack.

  Mr U.G. Rana, the Deputy Inspector-General of Bombay’s CID, happened to be in Delhi for some routine work. Sanjevi sent for Rana, gave him a copy of Madanlal’s full statement together with an English translation of it, and told him to take it personally to the Bombay Police and to get them working on trying to find and arrest the people mentioned in it.

  Rana was given his order on the twenty-fifth, in good time for him to catch the afternoon plane to Bombay, which would have got him there at 9 p.m. There was no question of his not being able to find a seat on it, because every aeroplane in India has a minimum of four seats set apart of government personnel, and allotted to other passengers at the last minute only if they are not claimed by government officers travelling on duty.

  But Rana did not take the plane. He caught a train — and not a train to Bombay, either, but to Allahabad. In fact, he went in the same general direction Nathuram and Apte had gone when they ran away from Delhi. Only Rana went farther away than they.

  Mr Rana later said that he was forbidden by his doctor to fly in aeroplanes and that he could find no accommodation in any of the several Bombay trains, and those who were in a position to call for this explanation seem not to have been surprised by it. At least, no one censured Rana for what Justice Kapur describes as his snail’s pace.

  But there was another explanation. Rana was close to retirement and had come to Delhi on official business. As a good Hindu, there would have been nothing unusual in his wanting to take advantage of his nearness to Allahabad to visit the place and indulge in a ritualistic bath at Triveni, the holy waters where the Ganges, the Jumna and the Saraswati rivers meet. All that Rana needed was a couple of hours in Allahabad, which could be squeezed in between the Delhi-Calcutta Mail getting into Allahabad station and the next Calcutta-Bombay train. It had been done before; it will be done again. A dip in the waters of Triveni confers great spiritual virtue.

  So Rana went to Allahabad, at least three hundred miles out of his way, and reached Bombay on the afternoon of the twenty-seventh, two days later than if he had taken a plane, and a whole day later than if he had caught a direct train.

  From the railway station he went directly to see Nagarvala. In fact, he stayed with Nagarvala as his guest, and gave him the full report on Madanlal’s interrogation, which contained the reference to the editor of the Hindu Rashtra being one of the conspirators.

  But Nagarvala was still riding hard on his runaway theory that the plot was not for murdering Gandhi but for kidnapping him, and even managed to persuade his guest that the Delhi Police were on the wrong track. He and Rana thereupon telephoned Sanjevi. Sanjevi may well have been flabbergasted by the audacity of the supposed plot and the numbers thought to be involved in it, but, according to Justice Kapur, ‘is not shown to have found fault with the kidnapping theory, or rejected it, nor did he violently react against it’.

  When Sanjevi did do was to ask Nagarvala to send him a report the following day. ‘Nagarvala sent the report three days later, and Sanjevi received it on the day after Gandhi was murdered. In any case, this report ‘contained no information about the assassins.’

  NINE

  Don’t you see I am mounted

  on my funeral pyre?

  — M.K. GANDHI

  As compared with the cops, the villains were, after the fiasco of their first attempt, showing themselves to be vastly more businesslike. Gopal Godse, who was still on leave, visited Apte’s house every morning and evening to find out if Apte’s wife had heard anything from her husband; and when, on the morning of the twenty-fourth, he himself received a message from Nathuram that he and Apte had come to Bombay, he promptly went and told Apte’s wife about it. He also impressed upon her that, the moment she heard anything from her husband, she was to pass on the message to him.

  Early in the afternoon of Sunday, 25 January, Champa Apte received a telegram. It was from a man called ‘Vyas’ in Bombay, and she could not make head or tail of it. She dutifully sent it on to Gopal.

  To Gopal the telegram made a lot of sense. It told him that Karkare, too, had arrived in Bombay but had not been able to get in touch with Nathuram and Apte. It was up to him, Gopal, to bring the three together again.

  Gopal rushed to the railway station and caught the first train to Bombay. He had to get there and back before the next morning, when he was due to report for duty at the Ammunition Depot, and thus had no time to go to Poona and retrieve his .38 revolver, which he had given to his friend Godbole for safe keeping. Badge’s revolver was still with him, for even though he and Badge had met he had been so put off by the hatred with which Badge spoke of Nathuram and Apte that he had changed his mind about returning the revolver. Now he took it with him to Bombay for what it was worth.

  On Sunday, Apte and Nathuram were in a position to move a step forward in the pursuit of their new plan. They went to the house of a wealthy sympathizer of the Hindu cause, a Mr Paranjpe, who was a partner in the Silver Bank Company, and asked him for a ‘loan’ for their paper. Paranjpe promised them Rs 10,000, but told them to collect the money from his office the next morning, Monday. Having thus made sure of plenty of spare cash, they went to the Air India office, and booked two tickets for the morning flight to Delhi two days later, on Tuesday. At the booking-counter, Apte gave his name as ‘D. Narayan Rao’, and Nathuram as ‘N. Vinayaka Rao’; and, though they were actually staying at the Elphinstone Annex Hotel, they gave their address as the Sea Green Hotel.

  Gopal got into Thana a little after six in the evening. The first thing he did was to ring the Northcote police hospital where he left a message for Miss Salvi to tell Apte that ‘Vyas’ had arrived. Then he went on to the Navpada area and to G.M. Joshi’s house to see ‘Vyas’ (Karkare) himself.

  It was not till three hours later that the two principals joined them. The plan did not take long to explain. Nathuram told them that he was going to find a reliable pistol or revolver, get as close to Gandhi as possible, shoot him, and then give himself up.

  According to Karkare, a silence followed this statement. He and Gopal stared at Apte to see what he had to say. Apte said nothing. The leadership had already passed out of his hands. When Karkare asked him what he was going to do, Apte told him: I’m going to Delhi too. I am going to be there, with Nathuram.’

  ‘Then I’m coming too,’ Karkare announced. ‘I, too, want to be there, even if it means certain death.’

  And so it was decided, within a matter of minutes. Gopal took out the revolver and passed it to his brother. The action signified that he did not want to go with them. In fact, he soon called out to Joshi and asked when the next train for Poona was due. There was plenty of time. According to Joshi’s son, Vasant, Gopal Godse was still in the house after he had gone to sleep, at about 10 p.m., but left some time during the night.

  The striking force had been reduced from seven to three but, for the plan they had in mind, even that number was not really necessary. It was just that Apte and Karkare had decided to stand by Nathuram even if it meant sacrificing themselves.

  How much Karkare’s host Joshi heard of this talk never became clear. As will be seen, Karkare and Apte came to his house again and again even after Gandhi’s murder and when Joshi must have known that they were hiding from the police. But, as in the case of Manorama Salvi, who was not called to give evidence because she would prove ‘a hostile witness’, the police must have decided that G.M. Joshi was far too friendly with Karkare and Apte to give evidence that was sure to send them to the gallows. He was never called upon.

  Monday, 26 January 1948. The da
y began with a mist and a bracing mountain breeze that Bombay experiences perhaps only a dozen time during what it calls its winter season; the sort of day, in fact, on which nothing could go wrong. Apte and Nathuram decided to risk breaking cover to get hold of a dependable revolver. They knew that both the brothers of the Bhuleshwar temple possessed licensed revolvers, either one of which would have suited Nathuram’s purpose admirably. Both brothers also possessed the resources to produce such a weapon from somewhere else. After all, the elder one, Dada Maharaj, had once promised to give Apte a good revolver in exchange for the pistol that Apte had given him in Poona.

  They had an early breakfast and took a taxi to the Bhuleshwar temple. They saw Dada Maharaj first, who later testified:

  Back in Bombay, after the January 20 debacle, Godse decided, ‘he was going to find a reliable pistol or revolver, get as close to Gandhi as possible, shoot him, and give himself up’. Staying in Bombay’s Elphinstone Annexe Hotel, Godse and Apte booked themselves Air India tickets for Delhi. Again this time the names were different – N. Vinayak Rao and D. Narain Rao.

  On 26 January 1948, Apte and Godse came to my place and demanded from me the revolver which I had promised to them, or its equivalent in money. I considered myself morally bound either to return Apte’s pistol, give him a revolver in exchange, or give him the price of his pistol... they appeared to be more anxious to get the revolver than the price of the pistol.

  The money meant little to them just then, the promised revolver everything; in fact, Dada Maharaj gave them neither a serviceable revolver nor the price of Apte’s pistol. They left him and walked across the cool marble floor of the temple yard to where Dixitji Maharaj lived. But the younger brother proved to be equally uncooperative.

  The morning had been wasted. All that they had succeeded in doing was to provide two separate witnesses who would swear to it that on 26 January they were in Bombay and desperate to lay their hands on a revolver. But the afternoon was much more rewarding. They called at Mr Paranjpe’s place of business where, true to his promise, he had their Rs 10,000 ready for them. Suddenly they began to feel much more confident about being able to procure a revolver. With that sort of money at their disposal, it was going to be much easier.

  They had promised to meet Karkare at 10 p.m., and thus had the rest of the afternoon free. Nathuram went to see a movie, and Apte brought Manorama to the hotel room to spend what they both feared might be their last few hours together. Manorama later made out that Apte had not told her what he and Nathuram had planned to do. But this is difficult to believe — particularly since she knew that they were going to Delhi, to which place Apte, in an attempt to set up an alibi for himself, had told her to send a telegram. As she admitted later: ‘Apte asked me to remember that, if anything happened to Godse, I should send a telegram “arriving Delhi arrange for Godse’s defence”.’

  The telegram was to be sent in Apte’s name and addressed to the Hindu Mahasabha office at Delhi. But, according to Manorama, he did not tell her what it was that Nathuram was going to do which might need someone else to arrange for his defence, or why it was so important for Apte to establish that he was in Bombay while Nathuram was doing it.

  After an early dinner, Nathuram and Apte went by train to Thana. Karkare met them on the platform, and all three of them walked across the lines and squatted down under a lamp in a lonely part of the goods yard. Nathuram briefed Karkare about their future plans. He and Apte were flying to Delhi the next morning, from where they would go straight to Gwalior where Nathuram knew someone who, he felt sure, would be able to procure for him a reliable weapon. They hoped to be back in Delhi on the morning of the twenty-ninth, which was a Thursday. If Karkare left Bombay by train on the twenty-seventh, he would get into Delhi on the night of the twenty-eighth. On the twenty-ninth he was to wait for them near the stone fountain in the middle of the Queen’s Gardens just outside the entrance to the Old Delhi railway station.

  ‘I’ll wait there all throughout Thursday,’ Karkare promised.

  Karkare had run out of money, so Apte gave him Rs 300 for expenses. After that they strolled back to the main platform and sat in the tea stall till the last local train to Bombay came in. Karkare saw the other two off and then walked back to Joshi’s house.

  The next morning, Nathuram and Apte flew to Delhi.

  Three weeks after their journey to Delhi, their air hostess, Miss Lorna Woodbridge, stated on oath that she remembered the two passengers who had given their names as ‘D. Narayan Rao’ and ‘N. Vinayaka Rao’, that they had occupied one of the last rows of double seats, and even that Nathuram had sat near the window and Apte away from the window. She explained that she had special reason to remember one of the two — Apte — because he had asked her ‘for coffee or sweets more often than what people normally did’. At an identity parade held in Bombay late in February 1948, Miss Woodbridge unhesitatingly picked out not only this passenger, but even the man who had sat next to him.

  Lorna Woodbridge’s gift of total recall may seem as unlikely as Manorama Salvi’s lack of curiosity, but it had the effect of destroying Apte’s carefully worked out plan to set up an alibi for himself. If Apte and Nathuram had not visited the two brothers of the Bhuleshwar temple and not been spotted by Miss Woodbridge, it might have been a little more difficult for the prosecution to prove that Apte had travelled to Delhi with Nathuram and was standing beside him when he shot Gandhi dead.

  From the airport, Apte and Nathuram went straight to Old Delhi railway station, which they reached in good time to catch the Delhi-Bombay express. This train got into Gwalior just before midnight. At this hour, they were among the few passengers to go out of the first-and second-class exit. Outside in the yard, each behind a manure-fire smoking in the bright moonlight, a dozen or so tongas were waiting for fares, their drivers muffled up in layers of blankets against the cold. They approached the rank and asked if any of the drivers knew the house of Dr Parchure. Apparently they all did, and one of them — Gariba — agreed to take them there for one rupee.

  Karkare, the third member of their reduced striking force, was at this hour sitting up in a packed third-class compartment of the Bombay-Delhi Frontier Mail. He had spent the morning in Joshi’s house, writing some letters. Just before noon, he had taken his luggage and gone to the Central Station, at least three hours before his train was due to start. He had no role to play other than that of onlooker to the murder – a role for which he had himself volunteered. And, for the privilege of being able to see Gandhi being struck down, this mild-mannered, essentially kind-hearted and generous man was as good as sacrificing his life.

  Dr Dattatray Sadashiv Parchure who, along with his wife and children and the wives and children of his several brothers, lived in an enormous family mansion on the Station Road in the Lashkar, or the Cantonment area of Gwalior, was the sort of character whom the late Ian Fleming might have been proud to have invented. He was forty-seven and he was, at best, only a moderately successful medical practitioner, but he was by far the most controversial political figure in Gwalior, with many powerful friends and some deadly enemies. A round face in which large black eyes stared dully from behind spectacles that were thick enough to be opaque, a full black flowing beard under a luxurious growth of hair that cascaded over powerful shoulders, he looked both saintly and sinister, more like a guru than most gurus manage to look, and yet someone endowed with the capacity for anger, venom, and fanaticism.

  As a background to whatever Parchure stood for in Gwalior’s politics, it is necessary to explain that, under the Raj, Gwalior was, like Hyderabad and Kashmir, a large princely state. It had not gone under Congress rule automatically upon the transfer of power. The Maharaja still remained its ruler, and all he had done was to sign what was called a ‘standstill agreement’ with Nehru’s government. The Congress, desperately anxious to merge the princely states into India, was doing everything in its power to foster and support democratic movements in the princely domains – a process which m
any princes believed was merely a device for sabotaging their rule. And, since the Congress’s idea of democratic rule was rule by the Congress Party, it was keen to set up a Congress ministry in the Gwalior State.

  The claim of the Congress to represent public opinion in Gwalior was fiercely contested by the Hindu Mahasabha. Since no popular elections had been held, there was no means of assessing whose was the more realistic claim; but, judging by the subsequent course of politics in these parts, it seems that the Hindu Mahasabha had good grounds to feel that it represented the majority party in the state.

  And the Gwalior Hindu Mahasabha had been built up from scratch almost entirely by Dr Parchure. He was its secretary as well as its principal organizer. He was also the ‘dictator’ of the militant wing of the Gwalior unit of the Mahasabha, which called itself the ‘Hindu Rashtra Sena’ (Indian National Army). The Sena was thus the Gwalior counterpart of Savarkar’s Dal, in whose activities Nathuram and Apte had taken such prominent parts. The Sena claimed to have a strength of three thousand.

  Parchure and Nathuram had met several times before in the course of their work for the Hindu Mahasabha; and, a year or so earlier, when Parchure had gone to Poona to deliver a series of political lectures, he had held talks with Nathuram about the desirability of merging the Sena and the Dal together. These talks had failed, but while they had lasted they had brought out the fact that both men felt equally intensely about many aspects of their mission in life. It was this man whom Nathuram had decided to visit to ask for a weapon with which to kill Gandhi.