Who Killed Gandhi?

Who Killed Gandhi?

Though it was Nathuram Godse’s bullet that killed Mahatma Gandhi, now enough evidence is available to show that since 20^th January 1948 many senior Ministers and Police officers knew that Nathuram Godse and Vishnupant Karakare were planning to assassinate Gandhi. But not a single step was taken to protect Mahatma Gandhi.

Gandhi’s American biographer Robert Payne in his book 'The Life and Death of Mahatma Gandhi' says “In the eyes of too many officials, he was an old man who had outlived his usefulness. He had become expendable. By negligence, indifference, deliberate desire on the part of many faceless people assassination had been accomplished. It was a new kind of murder, the permissive assassination. And there may be many others in the future.”

It would be interesting to know a bit of background about this super-conspiracy behind this permissive murder of Gandhi at the Hands of Nathuram Godse.

1.     Four grenades were thrown in Ahmednagar between 24th November & 26th December 1947. On 1st January 1948, In course of some other Murder Investigation, police raided house of Mr. S. V. Ketkar, Manager of Vishupant Karkare. During the raid, a steel trunk containing hand-grenades, a revolver, daggers, explosives, fuses and a few hundred rounds of ammunition for pistols and rifles were recovered. Mr. S. V.  Ketkar confessed to the police that his employer – Mr Karkare, kept the trunk in his house. Police found that the grenades were of the same type as those thrown earlier. Subsequently Karkare's house was searched, but he was allowed to be released. Had he been arrested then, Gandhiji’s assasination could have been averted.

2.     On 9th January 1948, Inspector Razzak recommended his seniors to arrest Karkare and Madanlal Pahwa, another aid of Karkare, for their involvement in the Ahmednagar Bomb blasts. It took three days, for the Police to issue proper orders. However, Madanlal Pahwa and Karkare had already left Nagar on 9th by afternoon  by train.

3.     Between 9^th and 20^th January, Madanlal Pahwa traveled to Delhi. On 20th January 1948, an attempt was made on Mahatma Gandhi's Life. A Gelatin bomb was exploded at the prayer meeting. In this connection Madanlal Pahwa was arrested. He named one ‘Karkara Seth’ from Nagar and editor of ‘Hindu Rashtra’ paper in Pune. Police also had good descriptions of others -  A man who calls himself Deshpande and was staying at Marina Hotel (Narayan Apte), A man with beard (Digambar Badage) and His servant aged 20 years.

4.     Immediately after the arrest of Madanlal Pahwa, one Mr. Jagdish Chandra Jain personally informed Morarji Desai, Home Minister of the then Mumbai state, that Madanlal has told him about the plan to kill Gandhi that he had hatched along with Nathuram Godse (Editor of  newspaper ‘Agrani, erstwhile ‘Hindu Rashtra’), Morarji did nothing more than threatening to arrest Mr. Jain. Thus, Mr. Jain went home and kept quite. Also, DCP Nagarwala of Mumbai police, who also knew this, did nothing. Later, Mr. Jain was called by police for recording his statement, a month after the assasination of Gandhiji.

5.     On 21st January, Inspector J.N.Joshi, at Ahmednagar (who was attached to DSP, Nagar) informed his superiors that he had seen Madanlal Pahwa on Nagar Railway platform 'on or about 10 January' and Madanlal had told him that he was going to Delhi. Strangely, Nagar Police did not inform Delhi Police that they have already issued warrant against Karkare and Madanlal for Bomb explosions in Nagar.

6.     On the afternoon of the 21^st January two Delhi Police officers, Deputy Superintendent Jaswant Singh and Inspector Balkishen, were on the plane to Bombay. Their orders were to see Mr. J. D. Nagarwala, the Deputy Commissioner of Police in Bombay, and apprise him of the facts and then proceed to Pune to see Raosaheb Gurtu, the Deputy Assistant Inspector-General of Police, CID. They were also supposed to assist Bombay Police in the investigation of the case. They had carried with them a copy of Madanlal's statement in Urdu. Early morning on the 22^nd January the two officers gave Deputy Commissioner Nagarwala, a copy of Mandanlal's statements together with an English note containing its précis and also verbally told him everything they knew, particularly, that Madanlal had mentioned the editor of the ‘Hindu Rashtra’ or the ‘Agrani’ as being one of his principal accomplices. Had police passed on this information to Pune CID, they could have immediately arrested Karkare, Narayan Apte and Nathuram Godse or at-least they could have deployed personnel who could identify Nathuram Godse in Gandhi's security (In fact, Nathuram was apprehensive about this possibility and so Narayan Apte first verified that no such persons from Pune Police was incorporated in Gandhi Security); then the murder could have definitely been avoided.  

7.     On 23rd Deputy Superintendent Jaswant Singh and Inspector Balkishen from Delhi Police met Nagarwala again. They wanted to proceed to Pune, but Nagarwala ordered them in plain words to return to Delhi. They took the train back same evening and reported to their superiors “We were actually put under some sort of ‘Nazar Quaid’”!

8.     In the past, on 22/7/1944, Narayan Apte led demonstrations against Gandhiji's support to partition and was arrested by Mr.Deulkar. Later when Deulkar was DySP, CID, Pune, he led Gandhiji Murder Investigations in Pune.

9.     Background of Deulkar implies absolute possibility of Deulkar arresting Nathuram, Apte and Karkare – if the information carried by the two Delhi officers had reached him. Deulkar’s  information about this group run even dipper. B.D.Kher who was on editorial staff of Hindu-Rashtra, used to stay in an adjoining apartment of  Dy SP Deulkar. In fact, the wall they shared had a grilled window acting as a ventilator. So Deulkar was able to hear each word uttered there. Vishnupant Karkare along Nathuram Godse and Narayan Apte were regular visitors there. Deulkar had even attended one dinner given to Karkare and his Friends. Narayan Apte and Nathuram were already under CID surveillance. So Deulkar clearly knew connection between Karkare, Apte and Nathuram. He could have easily nabbed them all at short notice. Why the information available to Bombay Police a week before assassination was not passed to him?

10.  On 24th January 1948, Nagarwala issued order for the arrest of Digambar Badage as a suspect dealing with illicit arms. But Pune Police did nothing. Only after the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, he was arrested at his residence on 31 January 1948 at 5.30 AM. According to police record, as soon as he was arrested, he divulged whole plot. Had he been arrested earlier the murder could have been avoided.

11.  On 25^th January, Mr. U.G. Rana, DIG, Bombay, who was in Delhi, was handed over a copy of Madanlal's statement and its English translation and was requested to help arrest the suspects. Curiously,  instead of rushing to Mumbai, he took a de-tour to Allahabad and reached Mumbai on the afternoon of the 27^th January. From the railway station he went straight to see Nagarwala. In fact, he stayed with Nagarwala 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. Nagarwala sent a report to Mr Sanjevi, IG, Delhi Police, which was received by him day after murder. In any case report contained no valuable information about assassins.

If one police officer commits a folly can be understood, and even then he would have to face action. But so many senior officers, from Delhi to Nagar via Mumbai and Pune and Ministers like Morarji Desai, choose not to take any action against Nathuram Godse and his associates and still no action was taken against any of them. No one with clear conscious will call this as coincidence.  Height of height is Nagarwala, a mare DCP in Mumbai and who failed so miserably to protect Gandhi and should have been terminated from service on the spot, was made All India head of Gandhi Murder Investigation. Later he retired as I.G. Police, the then top rank of Mumbai Police. Morarji Desai, instead of being kicked out of Congress, became Chief Minister of Mumbai State. Same is the case with all the other officers responsible for failure in preventing Gandhi Murder.

There is enough evidence to suspect that all the callousness and purposeful inaction on part of responsible people who knew the conspiracy, is not just coincidence!!

When one thinks about the reasons behind the chronology of events, the question arises that who was the direct or indirect beneficiary of the most unfortunate incidence of Mahatma’s assassination?

The obvious aftermath of the death of Gandhi was that it gave new lease of life to the dying power politics of Javaharlal Nehru. He never implemented Gandhi’s last wish to disband Congress, but used the sympathy wave generated by Gandhi’s assassination to establish his Dynasty, which was in absolute control of the Nation till few months ago. Even today this dynasty rules Congress.

At the same time Nehru ordered arrest of Swatantryaveer Savarkar alongwith 35000 Hindusabha activists all-over India. Many were tortured to death. Swatantryaveer Savarkar was honorably released by the court and out of 35000 arrested, not a single person was charged with crime. But damage was done. Nehru succeded in vanquishing the main opposition party of India, Hindu Mahasabha, and its leader Swatantryaveer Savarkar.

Even the evil Britishers would not have been able to even think about such devilish scheme!