The Men Who Killed Gandhi

by Manohar Malgonkar

  Of course, the evidence of convicted men must not be relied upon too heavily in passing judgement upon the methods employed by the keepers of the law, even if the keepers of the law themselves sought to make out that one out of the same set of criminals, Badge, was incapable of falsehoods and made him their star witness. Truth, as a Sanskrit proverb states, has many sides. But the fact remains that whatever methods they used, the police had obtained the full confessions or, as they are officially termed, ’statements’ of all the accused persons in their custody except Savarkar. Shankar Kistayya, ostensibly of his own volition, guided them to the spot in the grounds of the Mahasabha Bhavan in Delhi where he, at Badge’s bidding, had buried the unused grenades and explosives after their first attempt to kill Gandhi had failed; and Apte, equally willingly, showed them the tree which Nathuram had used for target practice in Delhi and even led his captors to Gwalior and the enclosure at the side of Parchure’s house to show the door against which they had tried out the Beretta before buying it.

  Facing page: Jamshed Dorab Nagarvala, or ‘Jimmy’ to his friends was Bombay’s Deputy Commissioner in charge of the Intelligence Branch. It was Nagarvala who always believed that there was no conspiracy to kill Gandhi but the failed attempt of 20 January was also carried out to kidnap him. After the assassination, he was appointed Superintendent of the Delhi Police, which was investigating the murder.

  Both the tree trunk and the door panel were made exhibits in the case.

  Thus, bit by bit, what was revealed in the ’statements’ was painstakingly rebuilt by prodigious effort into cases that the most adroit of defence lawyers could not dent.

  The exception was Savarkar.

  The mass of papers seized from his house had revealed nothing that could remotely be connected with Gandhi’s murder and, of course, even under arrest Savarkar was too big a personality to be subjected to the standard methods of ‘dragging out’ information.

  However, Nagarvala had convinced himself that Savarkar was the organizer of the plot to kill Gandhi and was desperate to be proved right. It is also possible that the entire police organization believed, rightly or wrongly, that ’someone up there’ would be highly gratified if Savarkar could be implicated.

  In his book on the assassination, Gopal Godse writes of the difficulty he experienced in trying to convince his interrogators that he had not visited Savarkar on his way to Delhi. By the time he was able to do so ‘no pan of my body was free from bruises’.

  His problem was that he really had no idea where Savarkar’s house was and thus could not, even through terror of pain, evade the beatings by admitting whatever they wanted him to because, ‘even a false admission would have instantly been followed by other questions. How had I gone to the house, who else was there, what did we talk about, at what time? It was just not possible for me to weave a credible story.’

  The one man among the captives who looked likely to co-operate with the police in helping them to establish Savarkar’s involvement was Digambar Badge, and he actually was as good as two separate witnesses because, even in police custody, Shankar still remained wholly dependent upon Badge and could be relied upon to say whatever Badge told him to.

  But in this the police were wrong and Badge was far from cooperative. In his testimony at the trial, he asserted that he ‘regarded Savarkar as a Devta’ (incarnation of God), and twenty-seven years later he still professes to hold Savarkar in the same veneration.9

  It is difficult to see Badge as a man who sets much store by conventional norms of veracity, and still less as the sort of person who would remain blindly loyal to a cause or person, but perhaps he did venerate Savarkar with the sort of unquestioning devotion that only the most uncultivated of people are capable of developing towards their heroes. Indeed, the bulk of Gandhi’s own following was made up of such people. Whatever it was, Badge insisted to the author that even though he had blurted out the full story of the plot as far as he knew it, without much persuasion, he had put up a valiant struggle against being made to testify against Savarkar. And even Gopal Godse. who has no reason to regard Badge with friendliness, mentions how the police found him ‘extremely difficult’ over this issue. ‘But then,’ Gopal concludes, ‘the interrogators possessed the ability to make even a dumb man articulate.’

  In the end Badge gave in. He agreed to say on oath that he saw Nathuram and Apte with Savarkar and that Savarkar, within Badge’s hearing, had blessed their venture with the words, ‘Yeshaswi noun ya’.** After that Badge’s troubles ceased. Even while in custody, he lived as a sort of favoured guest of the Police Department. He was plied with meat, eggs, sweets, cigarettes and liqour, and put on a stipend. Shankar also came in for preferential treatment.

  Poor Shankar must have been more bewildered than ever. Almost without knowing what was happening, he had found himself facing a life sentence. He was incapable of taking in the situation. The things he came out with in the sworn statement that he made in the court make one wonder whether they were hallucinations or sobering glimpses of the inner workings of police methods. He says:

  Nagarvala used to meet Badge and ask: “Have you instructed Shankar?” and to the Jailer he said, “If he instructs Shankar give Badge liquor.” Badge was instructing me as to what to say. I had told Badge, “When I do not know anything why should I say all this?”

  Badge answered that he had to say all this because it was the only way to make sure that he would be acquitted. He used to coach Shankar assiduously and make him repeat all that he was told to say.

  Shankar goes on:

  One night Nagarvala came and ... asked Badge, “Have you given Shankar enough practice?” [and then] asked me in Hindustani what I had to say. I committed 5-6 mistakes.

  Apparently, when Shankar revealed all this to the court-appointed counsel who had to defend him and the Jailer somehow came to know of it, he got angry with him and berated him and ‘Badge slapped me before the Jailer.’

  At least that was the sort of language Shankar could understand. After that he made no difficulties and learned his role diligently. And at the end of his statement, after making a plea that he knew nothing and had no connection with the case, Shankar, as though seeking proof of good behaviour, ends with the admission: ‘Whatever Badge has instructed me to say I have said.’

  The trial opened in Delhi in the searing heat of midsummer. It was held not in a common courtroom but in a spacious hall in Delhi’s Mogul stronghold, the Red Fort.

  And, if the courtroom was something out of the ordinary, so was the court itself; it was specially constituted by an order of the government and empowered, by another order, to exercise a special power that Delhi courts had not hitherto possessed – that of tendering a full pardon to an accused in a murder case.

  The purpose of this cumbersome legislative provision was to make it possible for the trial judge to pardon Badge in advance, and this he promptly did. From then on Badge, from being an accused, became ‘the Approver’.

  And, almost in line with the ’special’ nature of everything else, even the accused persons were housed in barracks within the Red Fort which, by another government notification, was declared to be ‘a prison’.

  Eight men were charged with murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and other charges connected with violations of the Explosive Substances Act. They were Nathuram Godse, Narayan Apte, Vishnu Karkare, Madanlal Pahwa, Gopal Godse, Vinayak Savarkar, Dattatray Parchure and Shankar Kistayya.

  Nathuram admitted that he had killed Gandhi, but the others pleaded ‘not guilty’ to all the charges. The trial went on for nearly eight months while the summer turned to winter. On 10 February the judge, Atma Charan, delivered his judgement. Only Savarkar was acquitted. Of the remaining seven, Nathuram and Apte were sentenced to death, and the others given sentences of imprisonment for life.

  Shankar, Gopal Godse says, looked dazed. He found it altogether impossible to comprehend how the man for whom he had done whatever he was accused of doing – Badge – had got of
f, while he himself was to spend his life in jail. Gopal Godse also mentions that, much to everyone’s surprise, the only man who burst into violent sobs when he heard the judgement was Badge.

  The convicted men were sent to the Central Jail in Ambala to serve their sentences. From there all, including Nathuram, filed appeals in the Punjab High Court against this judgement. Nathuram’s appeal was not against his own sentence, but against the charge of conspiracy for which the others had been convicted. Four months later, the High Court pronounced its judgement. Parchure and Shankar were both ‘given the benefit of doubt’ and acquitted, but the sentences of the other were confirmed.

  November 15 was fixed as the day for the hanging. On the day before, Nathuram and Apte were allowed to be visited by relatives and close friends. Apte, who was allowed only half an hour to see his wife, found that she was weeping bitterly; he had to admonish her: ‘You have the rest of your life to weep; but we have only half an hour to talk about practical things.’

  She stopped weeping and listened.

  The relatives had brought them things to eat, with which they supplemented their last meals. After dinner, the other three prisoners, Gopal, Madanlal and Karkare, were allowed to go and sit in the condemned cell and keep them company. Together they recited the second, the eleventh and the eighteenth cantos of the Gita.

  By that time it was ten o’clock; time for the others to go back to their cells.

  But at dawn the next morning they again went to the condemned cells and read more verses from the Gita. After that, Nathuram and Apte had their baths. Gopal asked his brother: ‘Anna [elder brother] are you going to shave?’

  Nathuram rubbed his hand over his chin. ‘I shaved last night. It’s not as though I’m going to a party.’

  As a last courtesy, the prison warders brought in coffee for Nathuram and tea for the others, and they all drank together. But now the others had to leave. The condemned men had to be ‘prepared’ for the hanging. The black robes in which they were to be dressed were brought in by the guards.

  Nathuram and Apte came out of their cells, wearing black and each carrying in his hands a map of undivided India, the saffron flag of the Hindu movement, and a copy of the Gita. This was the first time they had been allowed out of their maximum-security cells so early in the morning, and Apte drew Nathuram’s attention to the clear cold morning sunlight of the Punjab winter.

  ‘Yes, like the sun in Simla,’ Nathuram commented.

  As they walked towards the hanging shed, they both shouted: ‘Akhand Bharat Amar Rahe!’ (‘Long live undivided India!’)

  They were guided towards the single gallows that had been erected for them, with two loops neatly arranged to slip over their heads, suspended from the same beam. They went towards it, singing a Sanskrit verse in unison which had the refrain: ‘Even as we die, we salute you, our land of birth.’

  They were cremated with Hindu rites in the open ground outside the prison wall. And in order that no sort of monument may ever come on the place of cremation, in time-honoured Mogul style, the entire field was ploughed and planted with grass. Also, even though, according to ritual, their ashes were immersed in a nearby river, the Ghaggar, it was all done under a strict cloak of secrecy so that no one should ever discover the actual spot where the ashes were thrown.

  Following pages: ‘While the whole nation mourned Gandhi’s untimely death, the police took up the investigation of by far the most dastardly crime they had ever had occasion to handle. As the enquiries proceeded, it transpired that Nathuram Godse was not the only person concerned in the murder. His act of shooting Gandhiji was the culmination of a widespread and carefully laid conspiracy in which several persons were involved and declared the case ripe for trial.’ Justice G.D. Khosla Seen in the picture are Vishnu Karkare (extreme right, leaning over the dock); Narayan Apte (second from right); Nathuram Godse (sitting third from right) and Digambhar Badge (sitting in the second row, extreme left).

  Charged with murder, conspiracy to commit murder and offences punishable under the Arms Act, the trail started on 22 June 1948, before Atma Charan, a senior member of the judicial branch of the Indian Civil Service. Held inside the Red Fort, Delhi the court was open to the public and the Press. Arguments of counsel lasted a whole month and the court pronounced judgement on 10 February, 1949. Seen in the picture is Judge Atma Charan.

  Seen in the picture above are (sitting in the dock): Vishnu Karkare (first from right), Narayan Apte (second from right), Nathuram Godse (extreme left); second row: Gopal Godse (first from left); and in the third row: Veer Savarkar (second from left).

  Following pages 342-345:The highlight of the appeal for mercy was the statement delivered by Nathuram Godse in his defence. He spoke for hours about the facts, the motives that had prompted him to take the Mahatma’s life. Excerpts from his statement.

  The final order: The death sentence and life imprisonment. Excerpts from Judge AtmaCharan’s final judgement in the trial at Red Fort.

  NOTES

  1 In 1949, Akbar Khan became the Chief of the General Staff of the Pakistani Army, and in 1950 he was imprisoned for organizing a military coup.

  2 Mountbatten did entreat Gandhi to tack on the Rs 55 crores payment to Pakistan as a condition for ending his fast. He told this to Larry Collins and Dominic Lapierre (Vide their “Mountbatten and the Partition of India) ‘I shall make no bones about it. I am the man who suggested the Rs 55 Crores to Gandhi. He hadn’t even heard about it.’

  3 Digambar Badge, who, for the help he rendered the police as The Approver in the Gandhi murder trial, was given a lifetime pension and a tiny official flat in the compound of Bombay’s CID Headquarters, still runs a one-man business making ‘permitted’ weapons. The two products he is most proud of are a belt made of thin steel which doubles as a sword, and the waghnak or tiger’s claw, which can be hidden in a man’s fist and used to rip open an enemy’s stomach. He sold me a waghnak for the left hand. ‘Because you are a writer’, he explained, ‘you can pretend to go on writing with the right hand and strike with your left.’

  4 Alas, only too true. In 1976 or 77, I tried to track her down, and found she lived as a poor relation with her brother, a medical practioner in a small township called Sonai, about 20 miles from Ahmednagar, and earned a pittance as a saleswoman in the local chemist’s shop. When I and a friend entered the shop she just ran away and hid herself. Her brother Dr Salvi, who tried to reassure her that I meant no harm, did not succeed in breaking her resolve not to come out again. Manorama was just as much a victim of the Gandhi-murder conspiracy as the principal conspirators. I found out from Godse’s family that her child from Apte... I think a girl... did not survive childhood, and may have been yet another casualty of the deed, subjected to horrifying social ostraicism and invective.

  5 In the last week of August 1974. I saw Badge several times and, in particular, questioned him about the veracity of his testimony against Savarkar. I quote his answer from my notes: ‘I never heard Savarkar say “Yeshaswi houn ya!” In fact, when we passed through Bombay on our way to Delhi Savarkar did not even see them [Nalhuram and Apte].’

  6 This was how I saw him, on my way to the office, on the morning of 30 January. M. M.

  7 The confession bristled with inconsistencies and glaring procedural flaws. It was as though in their zeal to make their case against Parchure absolutely watertight, the police had overreached themselves. The deplorable part in this affair is that a magistrate who is said to be a tool of justice had been roped in to assist in the exercise. Ironically, the extra bracing sought to be given to the ‘Confession’ to make it stick in a court of law which necessitated blatantly self-incriminatory statements being put into the mouth of the confessor, gave it a ‘doctored’ look; it was all too well-engineered to ring true, and ultimately had the contrary effect, of vitiating the very strong circumstantial evidence against Dr Parchure. For instance this part: ‘I mentioned to my brother Krishnarao Parchure that two gentlemen had come to me with a plot to
kill Gandhi at Delhi, and that I had arranged a pistol for them.’ It screamed of artifice designed to establish that Parchure had provided the pistol to his visitors in the full knowledge that it was going to be used to murder Gandhi.

  At the Red Fort trial, Parchure’s lawyer, P.L. Inamdar, had a wonderful time discrediting the confession. He charged that the magistrate who had taken it down, Mr R.B. Atal, had violated professional norms in that he had not recorded the confession in the prison cell in the Gwalior Fort but had worked on it in his own house and under the guidance of Deputy Superintendent Deulkar. Pouncing on Atal’s own sworn testimony that he had spent ‘Not more than three hours in Parchure’s cell’ to record it, Inamdar proceeded to establish that it was just not possible to record a statement of such length while still observing the requirements of judicial procedure within less than five hours!

  But these arguments, and the glaring inconsistances in the body of the confession itself, don’t seem to have persuaded the trial judge, Atma Charan, into dismissing the confession as not being admissible as evidence. Parchure was given a life sentence. It was later, during the hearing of the appeal in the Punjab High Court that all three sitting Judges agreed with Inamdar that Parchure’s confession was not admissible as evidence. Indeed one of the judges, Justice Achroo Ram, scoffed: ‘Who will believe it. Think of a magistrate who says all this? It is an absurd exaggeration.’ In the High Court, Parchure was let off, given the benefit of doubt.

  8 To the author. By then, of course, Savarkar was dead.

  9 As he told the author.