At the age of 78, Mahatma Gandhi was killed on January 30, 1948, in the grounds of Birla House, a sizable palace in the heart of New Delhi that is today known as Gandhi Smriti. Nathuram Vinayak Godse, a right-wing Hindu paramilitary group and member of the Hindu Mahasabha, was his assassin. Nathuram Godse was a Chitpavan Brahmin from Pune, Maharashtra, and a Hindu nationalist. Nathuram Godse believed that during the partition of India the year before, Mahatma Gandhi had been too accommodative to Pakistan.
According to witnesses, Mahatma Gandhi had arrived at the top of the stairs leading to the elevated lawn outside Birla House, where he had been holding multifaith prayer gatherings every evening, sometime after 5 o’clock. Nathuram Godse emerged from the group of people flanking Gandhi’s path as he started to go toward the dais and fired three bullets at point-blank range into Gandhi’s chest and belly. Gandhi collapsed on the floor. Mahatma Gandhi was taken back to his room at Birla House, where a representative later appeared to make the announcement of his passing.
Nathuram Godse was apprehended by crowd participants and turned over to the police. The Mahatma Gandhi murder trial began in May 1948 in Delhi’s famed Red Fort, with Godse as the lead defendant and his accomplice Narayan Apte, as well as six additional people, being considered co-defendants. The trial was completed quickly; this hurry was reportedly caused by Vallabhbhai Patel, the home minister, who wanted “to evade scrutiny for the inability to prevent the assassination.” On November 8, 1949, Nathuram Godse and Narayan Apte received a death penalty verdict. Despite Manilal Gandhi and Ramdas Gandhi, Mahatma Gandhi’s two sons, pleading for commutation, they were rejected by Jawaharlal Nehru, Vallabhbhai Patel, the deputy prime minister, and Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, the governor-general of India. On November 15, 1949, Nathuram Godse and Apte were executed at the Ambala prison.
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