Godse et al: Who were the 5 people convicted of killing Mahatma Gandhi?

Justice G D Khosla, who was part of the three-judge Bench that heard the appeals of Godse and the others wrote about each convict in his book The Murder of Mahatma (1965). Here are some profiles based on the book and other sources, and their roles in the conspiracy to murder the Father of the Nation.

1. 01

   Nathuram Godse

   Nathuram was born as Ramachandra Vinayak in 1910 to a village postmaster near Baramati, Maharashtra. He was his parents’ fourth son. And since all three previous sons died at an early age, Ramchandra was brought up as a girl due to his parents’ belief that a curse targeted all male children in the family. His parents even got Ramchandra’s nose pierced which earned him the nickname ‘Nathuram’ (literally ‘Ram witha nose-ring’ or nath).

   From a very early age, Nathuram was fully committed to the Hindu nationalist ideology. He joined the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) at the age of 22. A few years later, he moved to Pune and became the secretary of the local branch of the Hindu Mahasabha. Justice Khosla noted that Nathuram had learnt most verses from the Bhagavad Gita by heart.

   Nathuram actively participated in the Hindu civil disobedience movement in Hyderabad in the 1930s, in which Hindus complained of being deprived of their rights by the Muslim Nizam of Hyderabad. He was even arrested and imprisoned for a brief period of time.

   While in Pune, Nathuram met Narayan Apte, a school teacher who echoed many of Nathuram’s political beliefs, notably against Gandhi’s anti-communal ideology. Together, the two founded a Marathi daily called Agrani which became a vocal critic of Gandhi and his outreach to Muslims. Nathuram was warned several times by the government of the day for writing “incendiary articles”.

2. 02

   Gopal Godse

   Born in 1919, Gopal was Nathuram’s younger brother. He too was affiliated to the RSS and Hindu Mahasabha. During World War II, he joined the Army as a member of civilian personnel. He was appointed a storekeeper of the Motor Transport Spares Sub-Depot at Kirkee, a military station near Pune.

   According to Khosla, “Gopal, was not quite so passionate in his espousal of the Hindu cause”. That said, he was greatly inspired by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar’s speeches “against the proposal to divide India, and became converted to the creed of violence”.

   Unlike Nathuram, Gopal was a married man with two daughters. Nonetheless he joined the conspiracy to kill the Mahatma, despite Nathuram’s repeated pleas against that.

3. 03

   Narayan Apte

   Narayan Apte was born in 1911 to a middle-class Brahmin family. After completing his B.Sc, he became a school teacher in Ahmednagar. “There he started a rifle club and joined the Hindu Rashtra Dal [a Hindu nationalist outfit]. Apte went on to join the Indian Air Force in 1943, but had to resign and return home after the death of his younger brother. He subsequently joined Godse to help with Agrani.

   According to Justice Khosla, “His close association with Godse converted him to the belief that nothing substantial could be achieved in the political field by peaceful means... though he did not possess Godse’s religious fervour nor his ebullient enthusiasm.”

4. 04

   Vishnu Karkare

   Vishnu Ramakrishna Karkare had a background unlike the rest of the conspirators discussed thus far. Justice Khosla discusses Karkare having a “chequered childhood and adolescence”. He was even shifted to an orphanage after his parents abandoned him due to financial difficulties.

   Karkare ran away, and started to earn a living by working odd jobs. He joined a troupe of travelling actors, and finally started a restaurant of his own in Ahmednagar. It is here that he joined the Hindu Mahasabha, and became a close associate of Apte. With Apte’s support, he successfully contested the election to the Ahmednagar Municipal Committee.

   In 1946, Karkare made his way to Noakhali (present-day Bangladesh) which was witnessing terrible communal violence at the time. He was a member of a relief community which was meant to assist Hindus who had been victims of Muslim mob violence. It was during his three month stay at Noakhali that Karkare “witnessed the kidnap and rape of Hindu women” and came back extremely embittered against Gandhi’s reconciliatory positions.

5. 05

   Madanlal Pahwa

   Madanlal Pahwa was a Punjabi Hindu from Pakpattan (now in Pakistan). He ran away from school to join the Royal Indian Navy. When he failed the naval examination, he came to Poona (now Pune) and joined the Army.

   He witnessed large-scale rioting in 1947, when his family had to leave their ancestral homes for Indian Punjab. He witnessed his father and aunt being massacred by a Muslim mob with his own eyes. And in India, he failed to secure suitable employment.

   Pahwa met Apte and Godse in 1947 during a demonstration against the government’s “apathy” for the Hindu victims of the Partition. He would join the two in organising such demonstrations, and eventually in the conspiracy to kill Gandhi.

Apart from these five convicts, the other accused were Savarkar, Shankar Kistayya, and Dattatraya Parchure. Digambar Badge confessed to his role in the conspiracy and became an approver in return for a pardon.

Khosla wrote that the group “came together and became united by a common hatred of what they believed was the weak-kneed policy of capitulation to Muslim arrogance, as propounded and advocated by Mahatma Gandhi”.

The conspiracy

Godse and Apte conceived of the plan to kill Gandhi sometime in December 1947. The duo left Poona for Bombay (now Mumbai) on January 13. The same day, Badge, accompanied by his servant, Shankar Kistayya, also left for Bombay with a bag containing two gun-cotton slabs and four hand-grenades.

Godse, Apte, and Badge were joined in Bombay by Pahwa and Karkare at the Hindu Mahasabha office, where the plan was chalked out. After some money was raised for the project — ostensibly to help Hindus in Hyderabad — Godse and Apte travelled to Delhi by plane. They stayed at the Marina hotel till January 20. The rest of the conspirators too arrived in Delhi by January 19.

They had with them two revolvers, some gun-cotton slabs, and several hand-grenades. “One of the revolvers was a service weapon which Gopal Godse had with him from the time he had been posted abroad… The other revolver was procured by Badge… [as were] the hand-grenades and gun-cotton slabs…”

In the morning of January 20, Apte, Karkare, Badge and Shankar reconnoitered Birla House, where Gandhi was staying. The first attempt to kill Gandhi was made on January 20. The plan was to throw a grenade to disperse the crowd — and then throw another grenade at Gandhi. However, Badge lost his courage and the second grenade was never thrown. Pahwa was arrested and interrogated by the police. The plan had failed.

Subsequently, Godse decided to kill Gandhi himself. On January 30, as the Mahatma was on his way to give his evening sermon, Nathuram walked up to him and shot him dead. Apte was by his side. Godse was apprehended immediately, while Apte would be picked up from Bombay a few weeks later.

Both Godse and Apte were hanged in 1949. The rest of the conspirators were handed prison sentences of varying lengths.

This article borrows from an explainer published in 2023.