September 30, 2017
After the assassination of Gandhiji, Jawaharlal Nehru said in Parliament: “And today the fact that this mighty person whom we honored and loved beyond measure, had gone because we could not give adequate protection is a shame for all of us…”
This is what We discuss today. It is no less shame as then felt by Jawaharlal Nehru than today we should feel. With latest cutting edge technologies, forensic evidences, hundreds eyewitness accounts, years of police surveillance of radicals, accessibility to hundreds of police records; still we cannot conclude who killed him correctly or why they killed him. For last 64 years we discussed many times on many death occasions how great he was or how ideal he was. But today we talk on killing Gandhiji twice. Once with bullets. Next all of us participating for least 65 years in killing the greatest ideologies he fought for. He advocated Gram Swaraj, we centralized entire power, he wanted to empower village youth, we moved towards rapid urbanization, he wanted to ban videshi and develop domestic technologies and innovation, today we say with out foreign technology there is no development, he advocated domestic economic progress, political freedom and participation of every community across India in decision making process, today we say with out FDI nothing can be achieved and are ready to bulldoze political and social freedom of every class before the benefit of FDI countries.
Let us talk today also about the first killing of Gandhi. The physical assassination of Gandhiji 64 years before.
All knew Nathuram Godse killed him. But the important aspect in any action whether criminal or civil crime is; 4 share responsibility – kartha, karayita, preraka, anumodaka. All should be punished. But in this case a couple of karthas also were allowed to get free and no information is available on them. Leave alone other three factors. British rulers never wanted the law enforcement agencies to go beyond ‘karthas’. That served their purpose as they were the prime criminals, overseeing criminal enterprise (East India Company) ruling India and plundering and killing Indians. So even if they are defeated they have a way out – legally. They didn’t want any Indian king or kingdom or later governments sue British for the treasure they took from India, for the crimes they perpetuated in India including massacres in Kanpur or Jalianwalabag. Even today British queen refuses to apologize for the above crimes as she claims the karthas are different. They created an elaborate legal system that punishes only doers or karthas who are very low level operatives. As we never changed the British criminal justice system even since we got freedom, till today only karthas/doers goes to jail not the planner of any frauds or criminal offenses in India.
After USA also got Independence from Britain they immediately changed the stupid British law stating that all four should be punished.
Let us come back to the original Jawaharlal question. From whom the protection was needed to Gandhiji ?
Hindu Radicals, Islamic Radicals, Common Indians, British Government that first time tasted defeat in last 100 years or so in a largest battle where no single bullet was fired; or a combination of one or all of the above ? According to what we know every body loved him then and even now.
Before Jan 20 1948
Having known personally Dr.Jagdish Chandra Jain, the Chief Prosecution Witness in the Gandhi murder trial I think I can say that the assassination was a well conceived conspiracy. One has only to read Dr. Jain’s book in Hindi ‘Main Bapu Ko Na Bacha Saka’ and ‘I could not save Bapu’ in English to understand the entire course of the conspiracy.
There is the fervent testimony of Prof. J.C. Jain, chief prosecution witness in the Gandhi Murder Trial, which leaves no doubt that, having got a hint of the impending plan to murder Gandhiji from Madanlal, he (Jain) had apprised the then Bombay Government about the plan.
The then Home Minister Morarji Desai promptly informed the central government about the devious plan.
This is before that Madanlal had been involved in the bomb explosion at Gandhiji’s prayer meeting on January, 20,1948 which in any case, should have made the Government aware of the utter seriousness of the information given by Dr. Jain.
What did the Government do on the information so received ? Did it act in time to avert further danger ?
It says at did. The Government’s defense was that whatever information they got from Dr. Jain before January 21, 1948. was conveyed to the authorities in Delhi. And what did the Delhi police do ?
The Delhi magistracy and the Home Secretarial remained ignorant of the statement (as head of the Delhi Police never kept them informed) till the world was staggered by the ‘Hay Ram’ shot on the 30th evening.”
The then current head of Delhi Police was appointed just months before assassination as the serving head in long leave with fever.
Jan 20 1948
Bomb explosion (premature) in Birla House at a prayer meeting (similar to that of Jan 31)
As mentioned and as planned Madanlal carried his assassination attempt on Bapu on Jan 20 1948 but it failed. Police caught 6 more along with him with bombs guns knives. He was arrested. Nathuram was one among them. Within a day the whole plot of killing Gandhi came to light.
On Jan 22 Delhi police left Madanlal and all others on the pretext that they cannot prove the owner ship of the weapons confiscated from Madanlal or his aides.
Can it happen in India today ? If any one is caught with a weapon on murder charges and taken into custody but left as the weapons could not be tied up to them ?
The slackness of the police becomes all the more inexplicable when one considers the aftermath of the bomb explosion. It is very important to note that Madanlal made a confession overnight to the Delhi Police in which he gave the full details of the conspiracy – names, plotters, financiers, backers. More important still is the fact that the Delhi Police claims to have sent Madanlal’s statement to the Bombay Police by the evening of January 21.
In his memoirs published in the book “The Civil Servant in India” Mr R.N. Banerjee, then Secretary for Home Affairs in the Union Government, has made a reference to this incident. He says: “Both Godse and Apte could have been found and nabbed in one of their two Bombay haunts on the 23rd.
Unfortunately, nobody took any action on this confession statement of Madanlal, and the Delhi Police did not even remind the Bombay police.
The Delhi magistracy and the Home Secretarial remained ignorant of the statement (as head of the Delhi Police never kept them informed) till the world was staggered by the ‘Hay Ram’ shot on the 30th evening.”
The then current head of Delhi Police was appointed just months before assassination as the serving head in long leave with fever.
Heres one important thing that we have to remember. We just got Independence in August just six months before. The country witnessed worst massacres, rapes, plunder of property in centuries. Our political leadership requested Mountbatten to take over military and police services to bring normalcy to the country. So the police intelligence was still in the hands of British.
If there was no co-ordination it was deliberate. If there was mis-communication it was conspiratorial. If even Delhi Home Secretary and home minister were not informed it means British developed radical assassination squads -consistent to their foreign policy- in India in all radical elements be it Muslim or Hindu and used them for a purpose. It was unfortunate that it was done under protection of religion either Islam or Hinduism. So without the highest levels of Mountbatten administration knowing or deliberately blocking the information; it cannot happen. British have every reason to fear that an alive Gandhi can foil their partition plans even post independence. And British were defeated first time in centuries with out a single bullet fired.
Now Godse and Apte are hanged. But what happened to Madanlal ? No body knows ? Why ? Don’t we need to know ?
This means there are two teams that went to kill him; one on 23 Jan failed then on 31 Jan that went successful.
How many attempts were made on Gandhiji ? Precisely 6 attempts. Still we pretend that someone suddenly was angry for a mere Rs 51 crores given to Pakistan after Independence.
This logic does not even stand because who ever killed Gandhiji should be first angry with British for their mass murders and killings. Like Udham Singh went to kill General Dyer as a revenge for Jalianwalabag. He did not kill the president of Punjabi congress party. Their anger should be on every British who ruled us who took thousands of crores out of India in the name of trade read loot. Their anger should be directed towards Mountbatten who divided the country in to two between cousins causing more than 60 years of misunderstandings and internecine fratricidal infight. But their anger went only against Gandhiji for just a mere Rs 51 crores giving to our cousins, that too on the basis of a forged home ministry letter.
There are few more questions on the aftermath.
The FIR was written in Urdu script and Persian language. One of the witness of Gandhi murder scenario walked to the police station and gave a statement that Gandhiji was killed by Revolver shots – precisely 3 shots. Now immediately after death of Gandhiji there was lot of commotion. No doctors were there no postmortem done ? How can a civilian in the crowd not close to Gandhiji give testimony that 3 bullets were fired that too from revolver ? And Delhi police recorded that as FIR ?
The police sent him back to Birla House and prepared the FIR in Persian and Urdu script and came to Birla House and rather than themselves finding what happened spent next few hours finding the complainant and than read the statement to the complainant and asked him if it was true. The complainant said it was true and police got him sign the FIR.
So way before police investigation, way before forensic evidence gathered way before the culprits nabbed or accepted the crime; the FIR concluded that 3 bullets were fired from revolver.
But the funny thing was the murder weapon submitted to the court was an Italian Bereta – a 0.9 MM pistol. And funnily not one pistol but three pistols were produced but none matched with the wounds on the body.
So the question is the murder weapon – is it a pistol or revolver ?
If it was both then there was a second killer. Who was he (or even she) ?
Because Madanlal failed on the previous occasion, whoever planned Gandhiji’s killing had a back-up to swing in to action who used a different weapon than Godse. Is this the reason why the postmortem report was kept out of reach of Indian people ?
The same FIR was translated in 1999 or so by Kiran Bedi. Now what happened to Postmortem or panchanama reportbased on which the death was concluded. No where to be found for last 64 years ?
It is stranger than fiction. This report was reported missing. Not even a single copy was available.
2009 Postmortem Report
Only after RTI was passed a senior IAS officer Mr. Subramanyam requested the postmortem report in 2009 under RTI. Government never bothered to give the same for 3 years. Only when PM was threatened with a fine of Rs 26000 the copy of the report was sent to him in 2009 March during elections.
2011 Who Killed Gandhi ?
“Who Killed Gandhi?” by Lourenco de Salvador is a Goanese by birth and has settled in Portugal. He is a life-long follower of Gandhiji. The book was printed privately and has been reviewed in a recent issue of the Times Literary Supplement. The book is banned and is unlikely that the book will find entry in India.
Only 10% of the actual evidence and facts gathered in the case of assassination made to the courts and less than 10% of what went to courts were made public. Rest if comes out “there were certain aspects of the trial of Godse which de Salvador thinks partook of the nature of a cover-up exercise” indicating compliance at highest levels. When home secretary and home minister do not know what is happening, then the highest levels here means the British officers and Mountbatten and their henchmen who they used as pawns in the game.
At least after 64 years let us not kill the last ideal of Gandhiji – The very Swarajya the Independence he fought with out firing a single bullet. We are now full speed to sell that under FDI to any foreign country with money. Our industrialists want to create thousands of jobs in west so that their economies can come out of economic crisis and can come back to loot us our hard earned Swarajya. If we rededicate today for this last ideal of Gandhiji at least we would move a step forward in the direction of removing our shame, and paying true homage to our father of Nation.
Research conducted by Geo Political Strategic Security Studies Institute GPSSI
The article appeared in the Great Game India on 30/09/2017