The Men Who Killed Gandhi by Manohar Malgonkar

Author:Manohar Malgonkar [Kapoor, Pramod]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789351940838
Publisher: Roli Books
Published: 2017-08-06T04:00:00+00:00

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.

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