Spiritual leader, Indian nationalist, and political activist Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated
on January 30, 1948. Trained as a lawyer and advocate for nonviolence, Gandhi began his fight
against discrimination in South Africa. By the time he returned to India, he was ready to take on
injustice in his native country. Gandhi receives continued praise for his efforts to free India
from British imperial rule. The man has also been the subject of increased scrutiny and controversy,
especially related to his personal life. As a result, he made numerous enemies and
was the target of several assassination attempts - the sixth of which killed him.
Gandhi returned to India in 1914 after years of fighting against discrimination in South Africa.
He implemented his satyagraha campaigns - mass civil disobedience - against the conscription
of Indians for the British military during World War One. By 1920, Gandhi headed the
independence movement in India, organizing boycotts and nonviolent protests against the
British. In 1922, Gandhi was charged, tried, and imprisoned for sedition. Released in 1924,
Gandhi went back to work for Indian independence. During the late 1920s and into the 1930s,
his mass protest movements pushed back against the British, most notably the salt tax introduced in
1930. In response to the tax, Gandhi and his followers marched to the Arabian sea
and collected salt of their own, simply avoiding the British in the process.
Concessions by the British government in 1931 brought a lull in protests,
with Gandhi representing the Indian National Congress at a Round Table Conference in London.
For Muslim members of the resistance movement, Gandhi did not accomplish enough at the
meeting - a sign of increasing strife within the effort. Upon return to India, Gandhi was arrested
by the colonial government. His subsequent hunger strikes, intended to call attention to the poor
treatment of so-called "untouchables" in India, helped reverse a decision by the British to use
traditional, yet divisive, castes to allocate representation within the government. Gandhi
retired from politics in 1934, only to return when World War Two broke out. During the 1940s,
he called for the British to withdraw from India in exchange for Indian cooperation in the war.
The British refused and Gandhi, alongside several members of the aptly named Quit India Movement,
found themselves under arrest in 1942. By the end of World War Two, the British government
found itself struggling to maintain control of India. Protests, violence, and calls for Indian
independence increased and, in 1947, Britain granted both India and Pakistan independence.
India, predominantly Hindu, would exist side-by-side with the mostly Muslim Pakistan.
Throughout his life, Gandhi antagonized individuals and groups on every side of what
he was trying to accomplish. During the 1930s, the British saw Gandhi as a threat to their rule.
Winston Churchill even called him Gandhi a dictator and tried to discredit him within
the international community. Alongside efforts to shed British imperialism, Gandhi attempted
to quell animosity and violence between Hindu and Muslim populations in the country.
The divide between Hindus and Muslims in India had increasingly caused a rift within the independence
movement. Hindu nationalists grew increasingly dissatisfied with Gandhi and, when he formed the
Quit India Party in 1942, the animosity between Hindus and Muslims reached its apex. While Gandhi
spent time in jail in 1942, Muhammad Ali Jinnah pushed the agenda of the Muslim League forward.
Jinnah and the League had previously worked for unity among Hindus and Muslims but were no longer
convinced that was possible. As a result, they advocated for the creation of a separate Muslim
state - Pakistan. While Gandhi was pleased to see India granted its freedom in 1947, the partition
of the country and creation of Pakistan went against his hopes for a united India. Gandhi was
disappointed, but hardliners within the Hindu community saw the creation of Pakistan as a
betrayal of India. Hindu nationalists identified Gandhi as a "traitor" who'd given into Muslim
demands at the expense of their homeland. Gandhi's decades of activism placed him in the public eye,
gaining him supporters and detractors alike. His actions and ideas didn't go far enough
for many Hindus who resented Gandhi's efforts to work with the Muslim minority.
As Gandhi made his way to a speaking engagement, he and his wife, Kasturba, traveled in one car
among a larger procession. The first car, similar to the one that transported Gandhi and Kasturba,
arrived at the Pune Corporation auditorium on time for the speech, but the car carrying the
couple was delayed by a railroad crossing. When a bomb detonated outside the auditorium, several
onlookers and safety officers were injured. One observer recalled, "At the entry of the car,
the bomb meant to be dropped on Gandhi’s car was mistakenly hurled at another vehicle.
The two policemen and occupants were injured. Mercifully, Gandhi was a bit late (to the hall).”
Gandhi later said of the incident, “It is sad that this happened. I
have no desire for martyrdom yet, but if it is to happen, I am prepared to face it.
It is easy to kill me. But in trying to kill me, why are they inconsiderate to the innocents who
are likely to be killed or injured along with me?” No perpetrators of the attack were ever arrested,
although many historians believe Nathuram Godse may have been involved. Godse was a
member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a right-wing Hindu nationalist paramilitary group.
After Gandhi was released from prison in 1944, he went to a resort to recover from malaria. When he
arrived, Gandhi was met by a group of protestors by Nathuram Godse. Godse was a member of the
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a right-wing Hindu nationalist paramilitary group. Godse and
his associates were fervent Indian nationalists that, in the words of Godse, believed,
"always showed or evinced a bias for Muslims, prejudicial and detrimental to the Hindu Community
and its interests." The Mahatma asked to meet with Godse, who declined the invitation. During an
evening prayer gathering, Godse appeared, however, and attempted to stab Gandhi. Godse was tackled
and subdued by the owner of the resort, Mani Shankar Purohit, and one of Gandhi's followers,
Bhilare Guruji. Bhilare recounted the evening: It was a wet July evening in Panchgani in 1944,
all of us had assembled in the ...hall for the evening prayers when suddenly a door opposite
me opened and in rushed Nathuram Godse. Hewas wielding a knife and muttering incoherently.
My colleagues in the Seva Dal were also quick to react, and threw him out of the premises. Gandhi,
however, invited him to stay with him for eight days. It was Gandhi's hope
to understand Godse's ideology. Again, Godse refused and Gandhi let him go free.
Just a few months later, Gandhi was the target of another attempt on his life. During a
meeting with Mohamed Ali Jinnah, politician and leader of the Pakistan independence movement,
in Bombay, Godse again appeared. The would-be assassin was stopped from getting close to Gandhi,
again holding a blade with the intent to stab the Mahatma. Continued attempts on Gandhi's
life highlight growing discontent within Hindu factions in India. The meeting with Jinnah was
carried out at the urging of the Allied Powers as World War Two came to an end. Gandhi was perceived
to be a political puppet of sorts, speaking out of turn on how Hindus in India viewed independence.
As Gandhi traveled by train from Bombay to Pune, debris on the tracks derailed the locomotive.
Intentionally placed there, the large boulders damaged the engine but a fatal disaster was
avoided thanks to the quick actions of the train conductor. Gandhi acknowledged the incident at a
prayer meeting several days later, "By the grace of God, I have escaped from the jaws of death.
I have not hurt anybody. I can’t understand why there are so many attempts on my life.
Yesterday’s attempt too failed. I will not die yet, I aim to live till the age of 125.”
When Madanlal Pahwa placed a bomb at one of Gandhi's prayer meetings, it damaged a wall but
never came near the Mahatma. Witnesses described what they saw: …he placed the gun-cotton slab on
the wall and ignited the fuse. The others saw that the plan was not succeeding and so they
rushed to the taxi and left. The explosion was mild. Pahwa was one of several associates of
Godse, determined to kill Gandhi. Madanlal was taken into custody, telling authorities that,
"They would come again." Madanlal was speaking the truth. While he underwent an interrogation,
Madanlal's fellow conspirators, Nathuram Godse, Narayan Apte, Vishnu Karkare,
Digambar Badge, Gopal Godse and Shankar Kistaiya, prepared another attempt on Gandhi's life.
Ten days after Madanlal's failed attempt to assassinate Gandhi, Nathuram Godse accomplished
what his colleague could not do. As the Mahatma walked to an evening prayer meeting in New Delhi,
Godse emerged from the throng of onlookers with a revolver. He stepped in front of Gandhi and fired
three bullets into the Mahatma's chest. Godse was disarmed by an American diplomat, Herbert Reiner
Jr., who, "grasped his shoulder and spun him around, then took a firmer grip on his shoulders,"
as an astonished crowd looked on. While Godse was taken into custody, Gandhi breathed his
last breath. Godse was tried, convicted, and hanged for the murder of Gandhi in November 1949.
Ultimately, Godse saw the so-called "Father of the Nation" as having "failed his paternal duty in as
much as he acted treacherously to the negation by his consenting to the partitioning of it."
Before his execution, Godse explained how the assassination of Gandhi, in his view, saved India:
I felt that the Indian politics in the absence of Gandhi would surely be proved practical, able
to retaliate, and would be powerful…. The nation would be saved from the inroads of Pakistan...free
to follow the course founded on...sound nation-building. Gandhi's ascetic lifestyle,
advocacy for self-sufficiency, and emphasis on economic autonomy in India brought him thousands
of followers. Fasting, meditation, and spiritual leadership soon earned him the title Mahatma,
Sanskrit for "the great-souled one." While he lived for 78 years, during which he facilitated
massive political and social change, Gandhi may have seen his death on the horizon.
While many events and circumstances of Gandhi's life continue to stir emotion,
prompt conversation, and open up avenues of reinterpretation.
Gandhi said he wanted to live to be 125 years old, even talking about his mortality earlier the day
he died. He seemed to have changed his perception of a long life, lamenting the "terrible happenings
in the world...darkness and...madness." What do you think? Did Gandhi know what was coming? Which
one of his escapes from death was most surprising to you? Would you have kept at it like Ghandi did?
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