An Act of Ideology: The Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi and Its Enduring Legacy in Indian Politics

Part I: The Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi

Section 1: The Event of January 30, 1948

The assassination of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was not merely the murder of a political leader; it was a meticulously staged act of ideological repudiation, executed at a time and place that symbolized the very principles the assassins sought to destroy.

The event of January 30, 1948, unfolded with a grim precision that belied the chaos of its aftermath, marking a tragic and pivotal moment in the history of the nascent Indian republic.

1.1 The Final Day at Birla House

January 30, 1948, began for Gandhi like many other days in the tense, post-Partition atmosphere of New Delhi.

He was residing in a guest room at Birla House, the mansion of industrialist G.

d+. Birla, which had become his final home.¹

He awoke punctually at 3:30 AM for prayers, beginning a day packed with meetings that reflected his tireless efforts to quell the communal fires still raging across the subcontinent.

His schedule included a crucial and reportedly tense meeting with his long-time political heir, Jawaharlal Nehru, and his deputy, Vallabhbhai Patel, attempting to bridge the growing divide between them.

He also met with a delegation of Muslim leaders from Delhi, discussing his desire to travel to his ashram in Wardha but reassuring them of his commitment to their safety in the capital, prophetically noting, “if Providence has decreed otherwise, that is a different matter”.¹

As the afternoon wore on, Gandhi prepared for his daily 5:00 PM multi-faith prayer meeting, a public ritual that had become a cornerstone of his message of peace and syncretism.

On this day, however, he was running late.

Having failed to wear his watch and engrossed in his meetings, he was already ten minutes past the scheduled start time when he finally began his walk to the prayer lawn in the mansion’s garden.³

Frail at 78 and weakened by a fast he had concluded only twelve days prior, he was supported on his short journey by his two great-nieces, Abha and Manu, who were often referred to as his “walking sticks”.³

1.2 The Assassination

At approximately 5:17 PM (IST), as Gandhi ascended the steps to the raised prayer lawn, a man stepped out from the small crowd of admirers flanking his path.⁵

The man, later identified as Nathuram Vinayak Godse, a 38-year-old Hindu nationalist from Pune, pressed his hands together in the traditional Hindu greeting of

namasté.³

Gandhi, ever accessible to his people, returned the gesture.

In that moment of feigned reverence, Godse revealed a black Beretta M1934 semi-automatic pistol he had concealed between his palms.³

At point-blank range, Godse fired three bullets into Gandhi’s chest and abdomen.³

Gandhi fell to the ground instantly.

According to the First Information Report (F.I.R.) filed later, he was heard to utter the words “Raam – Raam” as he fell, invoking the name of God with his last breath.⁸

He was carried back into his room in Birla House, where he was pronounced dead within minutes, leaving the nation he had led to freedom orphaned and in a state of profound shock.²

1.3 The Immediate Aftermath

In the moments of stunned silence and chaos that followed the gunshots, Godse made no attempt to flee.

He raised his hand holding the pistol, and some accounts suggest he tried to turn the weapon on himself before being overwhelmed.²

He was swiftly apprehended by members of the crowd, most notably by Herbert Reiner Jr., a vice-consul at the newly established American embassy in Delhi who had been attending the prayer meeting.⁶

Godse was disarmed and handed over to the police, his mission complete.

The news of the assassination spread rapidly.

Initially, there was a palpable fear among officials that the assassin might have been a Muslim, an event that would have undoubtedly plunged the subcontinent into a new and even more horrific wave of communal slaughter.¹¹

The government moved quickly to announce that the killer was a Hindu extremist, a fact that averted the worst of the potential backlash but did not prevent sporadic riots and attacks on Brahmins in Maharashtra, Godse’s home state.⁴

That evening, a grief-stricken Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru addressed the nation via All-India Radio.

His unscripted, emotional speech captured the depth of the nation’s loss: “Friends and comrades, the light has gone out of our lives, and there is darkness everywhere…

The father of our nation is no more…

The light has gone out, I said, and yet I was wrong.

For the light that shone in this country was no ordinary light…

and a thousand years later, that light will still be seen in this country, and the world will see it”.⁵

His words framed Gandhi’s death not as an end, but as a martyrdom that would immortalize his message.

The assassination was far more than a simple murder; it was a calculated act of political theatre.

The choice of venue—a multi-faith prayer meeting—was a direct assault on Gandhi’s core belief in religious harmony.

The use of the namasté gesture was a deliberate perversion of a sacred cultural practice, transforming a symbol of respect into an instrument of lethal deception.³

Godse’s decision to remain at the scene, prepared for capture, underscored that his intent was not merely to eliminate a man but to make a public statement, to turn his crime into a political testament for which he was ready to face the ultimate consequence.¹²

The act was thus designed as a public and symbolic execution of Gandhi’s entire philosophy at the very site of its daily practice.

Section 2: The Conspirators: A Network of Militant Nationalists

The assassination of Mahatma Gandhi was not the act of a lone fanatic but the culmination of a meticulously planned conspiracy by a network of ideologically aligned Hindu extremists.

This group, composed of educated, politically active, and deeply committed individuals, had been animated by a shared ideology for years.

They were not fringe outcasts but men who used the tools of political organizing and journalism to advance their cause, viewing the murder as the necessary and logical conclusion of their political struggle.

2.1 Profile of the Assassin: Nathuram Vinayak Godse (1910-1949)

Nathuram Vinayak Godse was born into a Maharashtrian Chitpavan Brahmin family, a community with a strong tradition of religious and political leadership.¹⁰

His early life was marked by an unusual circumstance: after his parents lost three infant sons, they raised him as a girl for his first few years in an attempt to break a perceived curse.

This included piercing his nose and making him wear a nose-ring (

nath), which earned him the nickname “Nathuram” (Ram with a nose-ring) that he carried for life.¹⁰

Though he was a high school dropout who later worked as a tailor and carpenter, Godse was politically astute and an avid reader.¹³

Initially, he admired Gandhi’s role in the independence movement.¹³

However, his life took a decisive turn when he moved to Ratnagiri and fell under the influence of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, the chief ideologue of Hindu Nationalism.

Godse became a fervent disciple of Savarkar and a devotee of his political philosophy,

Hindutva.¹²

He became a dedicated activist for right-wing organizations, primarily the Hindu Mahasabha and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).⁶

Godse was not just an activist but also a propagandist.

A fiery orator, he, along with his close collaborator Narayan Apte, founded a Marathi daily newspaper, initially named Agrani and later Hindu Rashtra.¹²

This newspaper served as a platform for the Hindu Mahasabha, and through its pages, Godse launched scathing attacks on Gandhi’s policies, condemning his “pro-Muslim bias” and his doctrine of non-violence (

ahimsa).¹²

His activism was not limited to print; he had previously been arrested and imprisoned for leading a civil disobedience movement against the Muslim ruler of the princely state of Hyderabad.⁶

This history reveals a long-standing commitment to radical action, culminating in at least two previously documented, albeit unsuccessful, attempts to assassinate Gandhi in 1944.⁶

2.2 The Inner Circle and Their Roles

The conspiracy was a collective enterprise, drawing its members from a close-knit circle of Hindu extremists, most of whom hailed from the Deccan region of Maharashtra.³

• Narayan Apte: A former teacher and a key figure in the plot, Apte was Godse’s closest collaborator. As co-founder and manager of the Hindu Rashtra newspaper, he was central to both the ideological and operational aspects of the conspiracy.³
• Gopal Godse: Nathuram’s younger brother, who worked at a transportation company and had served in the British Army.¹⁶ He was convicted for his role in the conspiracy and served 16 years in prison. After his release, he remained unrepentant and became a crucial, though highly biased, source of information, vocally defending his brother’s actions and insisting on their deep-rooted connection to the RSS.¹⁶
• Other Key Figures: The broader conspiracy included Vishnu Karkare, a restaurant owner and Hindu Mahasabha activist; Madanlal Pahwa, a Punjabi refugee who had suffered during Partition and who carried out the bombing in the failed January 20th attempt; Dattatraya Parchure, a doctor from Gwalior who helped procure the weapon; and Shankar Kistaiya, a servant of another conspirator.⁶
• The Approver: A critical figure in the trial was Digambar Badge, an arms dealer and member of the conspiracy who supplied some of the weapons. After the failed attempt, he turned approver for the prosecution in exchange for a pardon. His testimony was instrumental in unraveling the plot and securing convictions against the other members, although his credibility was a major point of contention during the trial.⁶

2.3 The Failed Attempt of January 20, 1948

The successful assassination on January 30 was preceded by a failed attempt just ten days earlier at the same location.

On January 20, 1948, the conspirators executed a plan to kill Gandhi with a bomb during his evening prayer meeting.³

The plan was for Madanlal Pahwa to detonate a slab of guncotton on a wall to create panic and scatter the crowd.

In the ensuing chaos, Digambar Badge was supposed to throw a second, more powerful grenade at the now-isolated Gandhi.⁶

The plan went awry.

Pahwa successfully detonated his explosive, causing a loud bang and a stampede, but Gandhi remained calm and continued his address.³

At the critical moment, Badge lost his nerve and failed to throw the second grenade, fleeing with the crowd.⁶

While the other conspirators escaped, Pahwa was identified and arrested on the spot.

His capture sent a shockwave through the group, creating a desperate sense of urgency.

They knew the police investigation would inevitably lead to them, and they resolved to complete their mission before they were all apprehended.¹⁹

The structure of the conspiracy, involving individuals with distinct roles—ideologues, organizers, propagandists, and an arms supplier—points to a level of organization beyond a simple, impulsive act.

Their long-term commitment, evidenced by attempts dating back to 1944, and their use of a newspaper to create a climate of opinion hostile to Gandhi, reveal the assassination as the operational climax of a sustained political and intellectual movement.

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Table 1: Key Conspirators in the Gandhi Assassination Plot

Name	Affiliation(s)	Role in Conspiracy	Trial Outcome / Sentence
Nathuram Vinayak Godse	Hindu Mahasabha, RSS, Hindu Rashtra Dal	Assassin; Chief Planner	Death by hanging (Executed Nov 15, 1949)
Narayan Dattatraya Apte	Hindu Mahasabha, Hindu Rashtra Dal	Chief Planner and Organizer	Death by hanging (Executed Nov 15, 1949)
Gopal Vinayak Godse	Hindu Mahasabha, RSS	Conspirator; involved in planning	Life Imprisonment (Served 16 years)
Vishnu Ramkrishna Karkare	Hindu Mahasabha	Conspirator; arranged lodging in Delhi	Life Imprisonment
Madanlal Pahwa	Hindu Mahasabha	Conspirator; detonated bomb on Jan 20	Life Imprisonment
Dattatraya Sadashiv Parchure	Hindu Mahasabha	Conspirator; helped procure the pistol	Life Imprisonment (Acquitted on appeal)
Shankar Kistaiya	Employee of Digambar Badge	Carried weapons for the group	Life Imprisonment (Acquitted on appeal)
Digambar Ramchandra Badge	Hindu Mahasabha	Arms supplier; Conspirator	Turned approver; Granted immunity/pardon
Vinayak Damodar Savarkar	Hindu Mahasabha	Ideological Mentor; Accused Mastermind	Acquitted (for lack of corroboration)

Sources:

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Part II: The Rationale: Unpacking the “Why”

To comprehend the motives behind Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination, one must look beyond the individual perpetrators and examine the turbulent historical context and the potent ideology that fueled their actions.

The “why” is a complex tapestry woven from the unprecedented trauma of Partition, a deeply held political philosophy, and a series of actions by Gandhi himself that, in the eyes of his killers, amounted to the ultimate betrayal of the Hindu people.

Section 3: The Cauldron of Partition: The Immediate Context

The assassination occurred just five and a half months after India’s independence, a period defined by the cataclysmic violence of Partition.

The decision to divide British India into two dominions, Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan, triggered one of the largest and most brutal forced migrations in human history.²⁰

3.1 The Great Unraveling: Violence and the Refugee Crisis (1947-1948)

The scale of the human tragedy was staggering.

An estimated 15 to 18 million people were uprooted from their ancestral homes, becoming refugees in a matter of weeks.²⁰

The death toll from the ensuing communal violence is estimated to range from 200,000 to over two million.²¹

This was not random violence but a systematic process of “ethnic cleansing,” as armed militias and mobs, often with local political support, sought to purge their newly defined territories of religious minorities.²⁰

Horrific accounts emerged from both sides of the new border.

Entire villages were burned, and refugee columns stretching for miles were ambushed.²⁴

Trains packed with desperate families arrived at their destinations as “death trains,” filled with the bodies of those massacred en route.

Tens of thousands of women were abducted, raped, and mutilated in a wave of gendered violence designed to terrorize and dishonor entire communities.²¹

This period created a massive refugee crisis, with millions of traumatized and dispossessed Hindus and Sikhs flooding into Indian cities, particularly Delhi, carrying with them harrowing stories of loss and suffering.⁶

3.2 The Psychological Impact on Hindu Nationalists

For Hindu nationalists like Nathuram Godse, this carnage was the ultimate validation of their worldview.

Godse, who worked as a journalist for the Hindu Rashtra, reported on the plight of these Hindu refugees and was personally exposed to their suffering.⁶

In his mind and the minds of his collaborators, the violence was empirical proof that Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violence (

ahimsa) had failed catastrophically and that his lifelong efforts at Hindu-Muslim unity were a dangerous delusion.²⁸

They saw the creation of Pakistan not as a political settlement but as a violent dismemberment of the sacred Hindu motherland, for which Gandhi was ultimately responsible.

The atmosphere in Delhi in late 1947 and early 1948 was thick with anger and a thirst for vengeance.

The city was overwhelmed with refugees who had lost everything.

It was in this climate that Gandhi’s calls for peace and reconciliation with Muslims were met with hostility.

During his fasts, crowds of refugees gathered outside Birla House, chanting “Let Gandhi die!” (“Gandhi ko marne do!”), a sentiment that provided a perceived public sanction for the extremists’ plot.¹²

3.3 The Final Provocation: Gandhi’s Last Fast

The final catalyst for the assassination plot was Gandhi’s last fast-unto-death, which he began on January 13, 1948.⁶

The fast had two primary objectives.

First, it was a plea for communal peace in Delhi, aimed at protecting the city’s Muslim minority from reprisal attacks and ensuring their right to live in safety and dignity.⁹

Second, and more contentiously, it was an act of political pressure on his own government.

As part of the Partition settlement, India was obligated to transfer a share of the assets of British India’s treasury to Pakistan, amounting to Rs.

75 crores.

While an initial sum was paid, the Indian cabinet, led by Nehru and Patel, decided to withhold the final installment of Rs.

55 crores in response to Pakistan’s invasion of the princely state of Kashmir in October 1947.⁶

Gandhi viewed this as a dishonorable breach of an agreement.

He insisted that India must fulfill its obligation, regardless of Pakistan’s aggression, and made the payment a condition for ending his fast.

For Godse and his co-conspirators, this was the ultimate act of betrayal.

They saw Gandhi using his immense moral authority to “blackmail” the Indian government into transferring funds to an enemy nation in the midst of a war.⁶

They believed this money would be used to buy weapons to kill more Hindus.

When the Indian government, fearing for Gandhi’s life, relented on January 18 and agreed to make the payment, the conspirators saw their worst fears confirmed.³

It was on the very day that Gandhi began this fast that they finalized their plan to assassinate him, believing he had to be removed from the political scene before he could inflict what they saw as further damage upon the nation.⁶

The assassination was therefore a direct result of the collision between two irreconcilable responses to the trauma of Partition.

Gandhi reacted with a radical, almost superhuman, call for empathy, forgiveness, and moral consistency, even toward those perceived as the aggressor.

Godse and his allies, channeling the anger and grief of millions, responded with a demand for retributive justice and the violent assertion of a hardened, militaristic Hindu identity.

Gandhi’s final fast became the flashpoint where these two worldviews could no longer coexist.

Section 4: The Assassin’s Justification: An Analysis of “May it Please Your Honour”

Nathuram Godse’s defense during his trial was not a plea for mercy or a denial of fact, but a calculated political performance.

He dismissed his lawyers, chose to represent himself, and delivered a 30,000-word statement over five hours in court.⁵

This statement, later published under titles like

May it Please Your Honour or Why I Killed Gandhi, was not a legal argument but a political manifesto.

In it, Godse admitted to the killing but sought to justify it as a necessary, moral, and patriotic act, effectively putting Gandhi’s entire life and philosophy on trial.³²

4.1 Core Grievance 1: The “Vivisection” of India and the “Father of Pakistan”

The central pillar of Godse’s argument was that Gandhi was the primary architect of the Partition of India, an act he repeatedly referred to as the “vivisection” of the sacred Motherland.³³

He rejected the honorific “Father of the Nation” (

Rashtrapita) for Gandhi, performing a powerful rhetorical inversion by declaring that Gandhi had betrayed his paternal duty.

In one of the most famous passages from his statement, Godse declared:

“Gandhi is being referred to as the Father of the Nation.

But if that is so, he had failed his paternal duty inasmuch as he has acted very treacherously to the nation by his consenting to the partitioning of it.

I stoutly maintain that Gandhi has failed in his duty.

He has proved to be the Father of Pakistan.” ³⁰

He argued that Gandhi’s much-vaunted “inner-voice, his spiritual power and his doctrine of non-violence” had all “crumbled before Jinnah’s iron will and proved to be powerless”.³⁴

For Godse, Partition was the ultimate proof of Gandhi’s political failure and moral bankruptcy, a crime for which he believed there was “no legal machinery by which such an offender could be brought to book”.³⁴

4.2 Core Grievance 2: “Muslim Appeasement” and Betrayal of Hindus

Godse meticulously constructed a 32-year history of what he termed Gandhi’s “pro-Muslim” policy, arguing that Gandhi had consistently sacrificed Hindu interests to appease Muslims.¹⁰

He cited a long list of grievances, starting with Gandhi’s support for the pan-Islamist Khilafat Movement in the early 1920s, which Godse saw as an injection of theology into secular politics.²⁷

He condemned Gandhi’s perceived inaction and silence during episodes of anti-Hindu violence, such as the Moplah Rebellion of 1921, and his failure to protest the massacres of Hindus and Sikhs during Partition.²⁷

He also attacked Gandhi on cultural grounds, accusing him of trying to “prostitute” the “charm and purity of the Hindi language” by promoting “Hindustani,” a blend of Hindi and Urdu, which Godse dismissed as a “bastard tongue” designed solely to please Muslims.³⁴

Every action, from political concessions to linguistic policy, was framed as part of a consistent pattern of appeasement that weakened the Hindu community and emboldened Muslim separatism.

4.3 Core Grievance 3: The Critique of Ahimsa (Non-Violence)

At its philosophical core, Godse’s statement was a fundamental rejection of Gandhi’s doctrine of absolute non-violence.

He argued that ahimsa, when applied to statecraft and national defense, was not a principle but a “bogus” and suicidal policy.¹⁹

He believed it would inevitably lead to the “emasculation of the Hindu Community,” leaving it defenseless against internal and external aggression.³⁵

Godse posited a counter-philosophy where the use of force against aggression was not only practical but a “religious and moral duty”.³⁴

To support this, he invoked a pantheon of Hindu warrior heroes—Rama, Krishna, Chhatrapati Shivaji, Rana Pratap, and Guru Gobind Singh—who had used righteous violence to defeat evil and defend

Dharma.

He accused Gandhi of “self-conceit” and “total ignorance of the springs of human action” for condemning these figures as “misguided patriots”.³²

In Godse’s worldview, Gandhi’s pacifism was not a sign of strength but of weakness, a perversion of true Hindu values that had brought “untold calamities on the country”.³⁴

He saw his own violent act as a necessary corrective, a way to shock India back to what he considered a more “practical” and “powerful” path of armed strength.³²

Godse’s statement was, therefore, a comprehensive attempt to reframe history.

He sought to transform himself from a common murderer into a political executioner, and to demote Gandhi from a revered Mahatma to a failed politician whose misguided idealism had led his nation to ruin.

It was a direct, ideological assault aimed not just at justifying a crime, but at defining the very soul of the new Indian nation.

Section 5: The Ideological Architecture: Hindutva, the Mahasabha, and the RSS

The assassination of Mahatma Gandhi was not born in a vacuum.

It was the violent culmination of a political ideology that had been developing for decades, nurtured within a specific ecosystem of organizations that viewed Gandhi’s vision for India with profound hostility.

To understand the motive, one must understand this ideological architecture, built upon the foundation of Hindutva and channeled through groups like the Hindu Mahasabha and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

5.1 The Guru: Vinayak Damodar Savarkar and the Ideology of Hindutva

The intellectual fountainhead of the movement that produced Godse was Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (1883-1966).

In his 1923 treatise, Hindutva: Who Is a Hindu?, Savarkar articulated the political ideology of Hindu Nationalism.⁷

Hindutva was distinct from Hinduism, the religion.

It was a political concept that defined the Indian nation (Rashtra) not on the basis of territory or citizenship, but on a shared culture, bloodline (jati), and common fatherland (pitribhumi).

In this formulation, only those whose holy lands were also within India—namely Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, and Buddhists—could be considered true, loyal members of the nation.

Muslims and Christians, with their holy lands in Arabia and Palestine, were deemed perpetual outsiders whose loyalty would always be suspect.³⁷

Savarkar’s ideology was a direct refutation of Gandhi’s inclusive, syncretic nationalism.

He became Godse’s political and ideological mentor (guru) after Godse met him in Ratnagiri in the late 1920s.¹²

Godse became a devoted follower and popularizer of Savarkar’s work, and the relationship between them was that of a master and his disciple.¹⁷

Savarkar’s influence was so profound that he was arrested and tried as the mastermind of the assassination conspiracy.

The prosecution argued that he had given his blessing to the plot.

However, he was ultimately acquitted by the trial court.

The judge ruled that the testimony of the approver, Digambar Badge, was the only direct evidence against Savarkar, and it lacked the independent corroboration required by law for a conviction.³

Despite the acquittal on technical grounds, senior government officials, including Home Minister Vallabhbhai Patel, remained privately convinced of Savarkar’s guilt.⁴¹

5.2 The Political Vehicle: The Hindu Mahasabha

If Savarkar provided the ideology, the Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha provided the political platform.

Founded in 1915, the Mahasabha emerged in the 1930s under Savarkar’s leadership as the primary political party advocating for Hindutva.⁴²

It stood in direct opposition to the secular and inclusive policies of the Indian National Congress, rejecting Gandhi’s emphasis on Hindu-Muslim unity and opposing what it saw as concessions to the Muslim League.⁴²

Nathuram Godse and nearly all of his co-conspirators were dedicated members of the Hindu Mahasabha.³

The party provided the organizational structure for their activities.

Their newspaper,

Hindu Rashtra, which served as a mouthpiece for anti-Gandhi propaganda, was an official organ of the Mahasabha.¹²

The plot to assassinate Gandhi was hatched and executed within the orbit of the Mahasabha’s most extreme wing.

5.3 The Contested Connection: The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)

The relationship between Godse and the RSS is the most fiercely debated and politically sensitive aspect of the assassination.

The RSS, a right-wing Hindu paramilitary volunteer organization founded in 1925, has consistently and vehemently denied any connection to the murder.¹⁰

Its official position is that Godse had left the RSS in the mid-1930s, long before the assassination.¹⁰

However, a significant body of evidence challenges this narrative.

Godse himself joined the RSS in Sangli in 1932 as an intellectual worker (boudhik karyavah) and remained a member of the Hindu Mahasabha simultaneously.¹⁰

Most damningly, his own brother and co-conspirator, Gopal Godse, stated unequivocally in multiple interviews after his release from prison that Nathuram never left the RSS.

Gopal claimed that his brother’s statement in court disavowing the RSS was a deliberate strategy to shield the organization and its then-leader, M.S. Golwalkar, from the inevitable government crackdown and public backlash.¹⁷

He said, “All the brothers were in the RSS…

You can say we grew up in the RSS rather than in our home.

It was like a family to us…

He did not leave the RSS”.¹⁷

Recent historical investigations have further corroborated the family’s claims, with some records suggesting Godse was listed as an RSS member in meetings long after he had supposedly left.¹⁰

Furthermore, top officials in the Indian government at the time did not make a sharp distinction between the organizations.

In his letters, Home Minister Patel held both the “extreme section of the Hindu Mahasabha” and the RSS responsible for creating the “atmosphere of hate” and spreading the “poison” that made the tragedy possible.

He noted with disgust that “RSS men expressed joy and distributed sweets after Gandhiji’s death”.¹⁷

Ultimately, the debate over Godse’s formal membership status on the day of the murder, while historically significant, can obscure a more crucial truth.

Godse was undeniably a product of the ideological ecosystem of Hindutva.

The Hindu Mahasabha, the RSS, and other smaller outfits like Godse’s own Hindu Rashtra Dal were not hermetically sealed entities but porous and overlapping groups united by a common ideology and a shared animosity towards Gandhi’s vision for India.

The strenuous and ongoing denials by the RSS are, in themselves, a testament to the profound and lasting reputational damage the assassination inflicted upon the organization, making the strategic distancing from Godse a political necessity for its survival and growth.

Part III: The Aftermath and Legacy

The assassination of Mahatma Gandhi sent a seismic shock through the newly independent Indian state and across the world.

The immediate aftermath was a period of intense grief, political maneuvering, and a forceful assertion of state authority.

In the long term, the murder and the motivations behind it have cast a long shadow over Indian politics, creating an ideological fault line that continues to define the nation’s identity.

Section 6: The Trial and the State’s Response

The government’s reaction to the assassination was swift and decisive, a clear effort to restore order, deliver justice, and consolidate the authority of the nascent state against its ideological challengers.

6.1 The Red Fort Trial

The trial of Godse and his co-conspirators began in May 1948.

In a move laden with political symbolism, the venue chosen was not a regular courthouse but a special court convened within the walls of Delhi’s historic Red Fort, the former seat of Mughal power and a potent symbol of Indian sovereignty.³

The trial was a complex affair, conducted under the Bombay Public Security Measures Act, and involved 149 prosecution witnesses, 404 documentary exhibits, and 80 material exhibits, including the firearms and explosives seized from the conspirators.¹⁸

The proceedings were complicated by the multiple languages spoken by the accused and witnesses, requiring a team of interpreters.¹⁸

The trial was rushed, a haste that some have attributed to Home Minister Patel’s desire to avoid prolonged scrutiny of the intelligence failures that allowed the assassination to happen.⁶

6.2 Verdicts and Sentences

On February 10, 1949, the Special Judge delivered the verdict.¹⁸

• Nathuram Godse and Narayan Apte were found guilty of murder and conspiracy and were sentenced to death. Despite pleas for commutation from Gandhi’s own sons, Manilal and Ramdas, who argued that executing the killers would be a violation of their father’s principles, the sentences were upheld. They were hanged at Ambala jail on November 15, 1949.³
• Five other conspirators were given life sentences: Gopal Godse, Vishnu Karkare, Madanlal Pahwa, Dattatraya Parchure, and Shankar Kistaiya.³
• On appeal to the Punjab High Court, the convictions and sentences of Nathuram Godse, Narayan Apte, Vishnu Karkare, and Madanlal Pahwa were confirmed. Gopal Godse’s sentence was also confirmed, though one judge recommended commutation due to his lesser role.⁸
• Dattatraya Parchure and Shankar Kistaiya were acquitted on appeal.⁶
• Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, accused of being the conspiracy’s mastermind, was acquitted by the trial court due to a lack of independent evidence to corroborate the testimony of the approver, Digambar Badge.³

6.3 The Ban on the RSS

The government’s most significant political response was a crackdown on Hindu nationalist organizations.

On February 4, 1948, just five days after the assassination, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) was banned nationwide.⁴⁶

The government communiqué announcing the ban stated that the organization’s members had indulged in “acts of violence involving arson, robbery, dacoity, and murder” and had “circulated leaflets exhorting people to resort to terrorist methods.” Home Minister Patel was blunt in his assessment, writing that RSS members had publicly “expressed joy and distributed sweets after Gandhiji’s death,” confirming in his mind that their activities had created the environment of hate that led to the murder.¹⁷

The ban lasted for nearly 18 months and was lifted on July 11, 1949, only after the RSS leadership agreed to a critical precondition: they would adopt a formal written constitution, pledge allegiance to the Constitution of India and the national flag, and renounce violence and secrecy.⁴⁷

This was a pivotal moment, forcing a powerful non-state actor to formally submit to the authority of the new secular state.

6.4 International and National Reactions

The assassination elicited a profound and global outpouring of grief.

Gandhi was mourned not just as an Indian leader but as an international symbol of peace and non-violence.⁴⁹

Major newspapers from

The New York Times to The Washington Post and The Economist ran front-page stories, and world leaders like U.S. President Harry S.

Truman issued statements extolling his legacy.⁵

Lord Mountbatten, India’s last Viceroy, sat cross-legged on the ground at the funeral in a mark of respect.³

Within India, the grief was overwhelming.

More than a million people lined the streets of Delhi for his funeral procession.³

However, the reaction was not uniform.

The assassination also triggered violent reprisals against the Brahmin community in Maharashtra, and, as Patel noted, quiet celebrations among some Hindu extremists who saw Gandhi’s death as a victory.³

The state’s response to the assassination was thus a foundational act of governance.

Faced with a moment of extreme crisis, the Nehru government used the legal and political tools at its disposal to assert its authority, define the boundaries of legitimate political action, and decisively counter its most potent ideological rivals.

Section 7: The Consolidation of the Nehruvian State

Paradoxically, the act designed to extinguish Mahatma Gandhi’s influence became the single most powerful catalyst for cementing his ideology—or at least the state-sanctioned version of it—at the heart of the new Indian republic.

The assassination provided the Nehruvian state with the moral authority to quell the forces of religious nationalism and entrench secularism as the nation’s official creed.

7.1 The Martyrdom Narrative and the Delegitimization of the Hindu Right

In the immediate aftermath of his death, Gandhi was transformed from a complex and, at the time, often controversial political figure into a saintly martyr who had sacrificed his life for the cause of Hindu-Muslim unity.¹¹

This narrative was politically invaluable for the Congress government.

It created a powerful wave of public revulsion against the communal hatred that had fueled the assassination.

The dominant story became that Gandhi’s death had shocked a nation, maddened by Partition violence, “back to its senses”.¹¹

This martyrdom narrative was weaponized to politically neutralize the Hindu Right.

The Hindu Mahasabha, directly implicated through its members, was thoroughly discredited and saw its political support evaporate, rendering it a marginal force in Indian politics.¹¹

The RSS, though it survived the ban, was forced onto the defensive for a generation, compelled to publicly disavow any connection to the crime and moderate its rhetoric to regain legitimacy.⁴⁷

7.2 Entrenching Secularism as State Ideology

The assassination gave the Nehru government the political and moral capital to decisively win the battle for India’s soul.

In the months leading up to the murder, Gandhi’s popularity had waned among many Hindus, especially the millions of refugees who viewed his calls for peace and his fast for Pakistan as a betrayal.¹¹

In this volatile climate, the ideology of Hindu nationalism was gaining significant traction.

His murder reversed this trend overnight.

The sheer horror of the act discredited the ideology of its perpetrators in the eyes of the vast majority of Indians.

It allowed Nehru and the Congress Party to frame the national debate as a stark choice between Gandhi’s inclusive, secular vision and the violent, exclusionary vision of his killers.

The government launched a pro-secular propaganda and educational drive, leveraging the emotional power of Gandhi’s death to promote its agenda.¹¹

The draft constitution of the Indian Union and the first annual budget of free India, both published in the weeks following the assassination, further solidified this secular, state-centric vision.¹¹

In a profound historical irony, Godse’s bullet did not kill Gandhian ideals; it immortalized them as the founding principles of the modern Indian state.

The assassination eliminated the most potent critic of the Nehruvian consensus while simultaneously making that consensus politically and morally unassailable for decades to come.

Section 8: The Long Shadow: From Jana Sangh to Contemporary India

While the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi dealt a devastating blow to the political fortunes of Hindu nationalism in the short term, the ideology itself did not disappear.

It retreated, regrouped, and evolved, eventually re-emerging as the most dominant political force in 21st-century India.

The legacy of the assassination, therefore, is not one of settled history but of an ongoing ideological struggle, where the assassin himself is now at the center of a battle over the nation’s memory and identity.

8.1 The Political Reincarnation: Bharatiya Jana Sangh to BJP

The political vacuum on the right, created by the discrediting of the Hindu Mahasabha, was soon filled.

In 1951, with the active support and organizational muscle of the RSS, a new political party was formed: the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS).⁵³

Led by Syama Prasad Mookerjee, a former Mahasabha leader who had resigned from Nehru’s cabinet, the Jana Sangh presented a more mainstream and electorally palatable version of Hindu nationalism.⁵³

It served as the political arm of the RSS for nearly three decades, steadily building a cadre-based organization and promoting core

Hindutva tenets, such as the abrogation of Kashmir’s special status and a hardline policy towards Pakistan.⁵³

In 1977, the Jana Sangh merged with other opposition parties to form the Janata Party, which briefly came to power.

Following the collapse of this coalition, the leaders of the erstwhile Jana Sangh reconstituted themselves as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 1980.⁵³

The BJP is the direct political and ideological successor to the Jana Sangh, and through it, the lineage of Savarkar’s

Hindutva has moved from the margins of Indian politics to its absolute center.

8.2 The Contemporary Battle for Legacy: The Rehabilitation of Godse

The rise of the BJP to national power, particularly after 2014, has been accompanied by a startling and concerted effort to rehabilitate the image of Nathuram Godse.¹⁰

Once universally condemned as the nation’s most infamous villain, Godse is now increasingly being portrayed in right-wing circles as a

desh bhakt (patriot) and a martyr for the Hindu cause.¹⁰

This rehabilitation takes many forms: BJP politicians and leaders of affiliated groups have publicly praised Godse, calling him a “worthy son of India”.⁵⁵

There have been attempts to build temples in his honor and to celebrate the anniversary of his execution as

Shaurya Diwas (Bravery Day).¹⁰

Films, books, and plays that present his court statement as a heroic and justified defense of his actions have gained prominence, seeking to popularize his narrative.¹²

This project represents a direct and audacious assault on the foundational narrative of the Indian republic.

8.3 The Enduring Relevance of the Assassination

The contemporary debate over Godse’s legacy reveals that the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi is not a settled historical event but a live and potent symbol in the ongoing struggle for India’s identity.

This is the culmination of the ideological war that began in the pre-independence era.

The conflict between Gandhi’s vision of a pluralistic, secular India and the Hindutva vision of a Hindu-majoritarian nation-state remains the central fault line of Indian politics.³⁸

The modern-day veneration of Godse is the logical conclusion of the Hindutva project’s journey from the political wilderness to state power.

Having achieved the political control that eluded the Hindu Mahasabha, the movement now seeks to capture the nation’s foundational narrative itself.

To transform the nation’s most reviled assassin into a celebrated patriot is to retroactively validate the ideology that drove him.

If Godse was a patriot, his reasons for killing Gandhi must be considered legitimate.

If his reasons were legitimate, then Gandhi’s vision of secularism and religious harmony must have been a betrayal of the true (Hindu) nation.

This effort to invert the roles of hero and villain is not merely historical revisionism; it is a political project aimed at dismantling the secular principles upon which the Indian republic was built and remaking it in the image of the ideology that murdered its founding father.

The conflict that played out with a Beretta pistol in the gardens of Birla House in 1948 continues today in the battle for India’s national memory.

Conclusion

The assassination of Mahatma Gandhi on January 30, 1948, was perpetrated by Nathuram Vinayak Godse, a Hindu nationalist activist and journalist.

However, the answer to “who killed Gandhi” extends beyond the triggerman to a network of co-conspirators, including Narayan Apte and Gopal Godse, who were steeped in the political ideology of Hindutva.

This ideology, articulated by their mentor V.d+. Savarkar and propagated through organizations like the Hindu Mahasabha and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, provided the “why.”

The conspirators’ motivations were rooted in a profound rejection of Gandhi’s vision for India.

They held him responsible for the bloody Partition of 1947, which they saw as a “vivisection” of the Hindu motherland.

They condemned his philosophy of non-violence as a doctrine that had “emasculated” the Hindu people, and they viewed his efforts at Hindu-Muslim unity and his final fast to secure payment of assets to Pakistan as the ultimate acts of “Muslim appeasement” and national betrayal.

Godse’s assassination was, in his own words, a “wholly and exclusively political” act, intended to remove what he considered a destructive force from Indian politics.

The immediate aftermath of the murder saw a massive outpouring of national and international grief, which the nascent Indian state, under Prime Minister Nehru, skillfully channeled to consolidate its own power.

The assassination paradoxically led to the delegitimization of the Hindu Right and the entrenchment of secularism as the official creed of the republic, a foundational narrative that held sway for decades.

Today, the legacy of this act is fiercely contested.

The political descendants of the ideology that inspired Godse now hold power in India.

This has fueled a growing movement to rehabilitate Godse’s image from that of an assassin to a patriot, a process that seeks to retroactively validate his motives and, by extension, the ideology of Hindutva.

The assassination of Mahatma Gandhi thus remains more than a historical event; it is the symbolic core of the enduring struggle over the fundamental identity of the Indian nation—a struggle between Gandhi’s vision of a pluralistic, secular democracy and his assassin’s vision of a Hindu Rashtra.

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