Family chronicles of Partition - Jamal Kidwai

"I went alone for a stroll to the nearby posh Liberty Market. I stopped at a juice shop and asked for mixed juice in Hindustani. Since there was no response from the shop owner, I asked again. He looked at me scornfully and said, ‘Agar itni Urdu jhaadni hai to Karachi mein jaake juice peo’ (If you have to talk in Urdu, then go have your juice in Karachi). That’s when I was first introduced to the term mohajir and realized the antagonism towards Urdu speaking migrants in Pakistan. I innocently told him that I was from Delhi. Suddenly the juice owner became apologetic, quickly made me a glass of juice and also refused to take any money.."

THE tragedy of the Partition can be revisited from many prisms. The most common is the brutal violence and displacement that shaped the formation of India and Pakistan. In this article I will not address that aspect; instead I want to try and sketch an anecdotal history by dwelling on incidents in my family which, in their own manner, invoke the tragedy of the Partition. These incidents, sometimes comic and at other times tragic, show how the Partition created new and largely artificial identities relating to notions of citizenship, culture, kinship, family and politics. It also shows how our understanding of these concepts became expressive, on the one hand, of a kind of common sense and, on the other, left these same concepts unresolved and unexamined.

Unlike thousands of Hindu and Muslim refugees who were forced to migrate at the time of the Partition, my family members, who belonged to the Barabanki district of the North Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, migrated to Pakistan voluntarily. Many of them went to the newly created Pakistan in the early 1950s because they thought there would be better opportunities of employment. They were also convinced that borders would remain soft and fluid and they would be able to carry on their connection with India through regular visits to their homeland. Several of them continued to move back and forth between Lucknow/Barabanki and Lahore/Karachi. But then came the 1971 war and things changed dramatically between the two nations. It became increasingly difficult to get visas and permission to visit India.

Through my childhood and as a teenager till the late 1980s, I went for the summer holidays to our native village in Barabanki where we were joined by Pakistani cousins. Though visas were difficult, their parents made sure that they visited our village at least once every two years. Unlike our parents and our uncles and aunts from Pakistan, my cousins and I were from a generation that was born and bought up after the Partition. In other words, we were in many ways first generation Indians and Pakistanis. We as children were also influenced by the nationalist jingoism that was a contribution of the 1971 war, in which India defeated Pakistan; cricket matches added colour to this (in those days an India win was rare).

As children we would invariably be divided into Pakistani and Hindustani groups. We would have long arguments about who would win the next war, whether Imran Khan was a better all-round cricketer than Kapil Dev; we would even divide ourselves into Indian and Pakistani teams when it came to playing cards, scrabble, cricket or antakshari. These competitions and arguments brought small but interesting victories. Like once when in the course of an argument, a Pakistani cousin pulled out a tube of Colgate toothpaste, a far slicker plastic tube than our usual Indian toothpaste which came in tin tubes and was easily rusted. He was taunting us about the quality of the toothpaste tube which, of course, proved how backward India was compared to Pakistan. At this point one of us from the Indian team noticed that ‘their’ tube had a mark ‘Made in India’. Nothing gave us more joy than that and the Pakistani team was not only defeated but was left embarrassed for the rest of the holidays. (Material wealth and consumer goods was one area where Pakistan, with its imported goods from the US, was far more ‘developed’ than India and it gave us great pleasure to puncture that aspiration.)

Ironically, the antakshari competition was always won by the Pakistani team, because they were more in tune with the old and latest film songs than us Indians. But then Hindi cinema was never considered specifically ‘Indian’. That was one shared heritage of which all of us were proud of. All year round, the Indian team would religiously collect old issues of Stardust and Filmfare for the Pakistani cousins. The other such shared heritage were the mangoes of Barabanki. The Pakistani cousins would proudly boast to us how they successfully convinced their friends back home in Pakistan that the best mangoes on earth came from Barabanki...

Read more: http://www.india-seminar.com/2012/632/632_jamal_kidwai.htm

In search of Sa'adat Hasan Manto

Every time young Sa'adat came down to Paproudi for his vacation, Ujagar Singh knew exactly what needed to be done. In the small, quiet village in Punjab's Samrala tehsil the friends had their own ritual. Grab some makki ki roti and sarson ka saag and meet at their regular hangout - the common well in fellow villager Kartar Singh's fields. Or as they fondly put it, "Kartaarey da khoo" . That was where they would bathe, eat and while away time playing football. Ujagar Singh admits his memory is rusty. He is, after all, close to a 100 years old. But when he talks about the little things he does remember, his heavily lined face further creases into a smile. "He (Manto) really liked playing football. He would get one himself. For all the years he was here, I never heard him utter a single swear word." His disjointed memories of the time he spent with his childhood friend are frequently punctuated with "Bahut hi changa banda si (he was a very fine man)."

As young kids playing in the wheat fields that surround Paproudi even today, Ujagar Singh says he never imagined his playmate Sa'adat Hasan Manto would some day become one of the greatest short story writers the Indian sub-continent had ever seen. Being unlettered, he has never read Manto. But he knows Manto was written about in the papers. He remembers nothing of the time when the writer was charged with obscenity and tried in court for six of his stories. "Maybe something like that happened. I don't know," Ujagar Singh says, the words tripping over each other as they come out of his mouth in a near-incomprehensible mumble.

In its absence, Ujagar Singh's memory mirrors that of Samrala. There is a vague sense of acknowledgement that a writer of renown once belonged to these parts. But it's easy to find vignettes of rustic Punjab in Manto's stories like 'Thanda Gosht' (Cold Meat). Gurbhajan Singh Gill, president of the Punjabi Sahit Akademi, calls Manto a "real son of the soil" . Manto's characters worked to shock and turn societal stereotypes on their heads. For example, Mozel, the Jewish woman who accepts, spurns and then dies for her Sikh admirer. Or Babu Gopi Nath, who does all he can to get a young prostituted woman married off to a rich man. Manto's accounts of the riots and violence that followed Partition are chilling yet remarkably sensitive at the same time. 'Khol Do' is one stand-out example that immediately comes to mind. 'Toba Tek Singh' , perhaps his most famous story, is a telling commentary on the madness of Partition.

Manto's treatment of sex and sexuality was something that earned him the ire of the British government as well as the rulers of Pakistan, where he had migrated to in the late 1940s. His openness and direct approach to the subject was taken for obscenity and perversion then. Today, though, he finds place even in the Delhi University syllabus, regarded as a man ahead of his times. Manto, however, did not stay in his village of birth for long. He studied in Amritsar and later moved to Bombay for work. But had Manto been around, he'd be happy to see that finally, after all these years, a small group of people are putting all their might to revive the writer in Samrala and neighbouring Ludhiana.

On May 13, two days after Manto's birth centenary , the Punjabi Lekhak Manch and the Punjabi Sahit Akademi have scheduled a seminar in Samrala , inviting the writer's three daughters from Pakistan. The Ludhiana chapter of Punjab University will also stage a play based on one of his short stories. In Malerkotla, a village about 40 km away from Samrala, an Urdu bi-monthly magazine 'Nazariya' plans to bring out a special issue dedicated to Manto. Advocate Daljeet Singh Shahi, who works in the Samrala civil court and is also president of the Punjabi Lekhak Manch, proudly points out that it's the same court where Manto's father served as subjudge years ago. A Punjabi short-story writer himself , Shahi is unhappy at the lack of recognition for Manto in Punjab today. "I feel people have forgotten him. There is very little interest in literature here," he says. Talking about the centenary celebration plans, he turns to two people waiting in his office and politely explains to them who exactly it is that is being discussed. The men have never heard the name Manto before.

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-04-29/special-report/31475556_1_toba-tek-singh-partition-obscenity

See also: Saadat Hassan Manto and the partition of India —Ishtiaq Ahmed
This year marks the centenary of one of the most remarkable Urdu short-story writers of the Indian subcontinent: Saadat Hassan Manto (May 11, 1912-January 18, 1955). His contemporary, Krishan Chander (1914-1977), himself a literary icon who some critics have described as the “the imam of the Urdu short-story” graciously wrote in his obituary on Manto that indeed he was the greatest short-story writer of his generation...I will end by narrating one of my other favourites. In his, ‘Siyah Hashiye’ (Black Borders), Manto depicts an excited pro-Pakistan mob that attacks the statue on the Lahore Mall Road of the great Hindu philanthropist of Punjab, Sir Ganga Ram. One of them blackens its face with tar. Another collects old shoes, strung into a garland, and is about to put it around the statue’s neck, when the police shows up and begins firing. The man who is about to put the garland of shoes around the statue’s neck is injured. He is sent to the Sir Ganga Ram Hospital for treatment.. (The writer is a Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Stockholm University. He is also Honorary Senior Fellow of the Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore.)

Another time, another mosque

This article is based on a lecture I prepared for university students, named Mahatma Gandhi’s Legacy. It includes the text of the Delhi Declaration on communal harmony, January 18, 1948. 'Volume' citations are from Gandhi's Collected Works.

Gandhi’s Last Fast: January 13-18, 1948

From September 1947, the communal situation in north India became grievous. Massacres were taking place in Punjab and Sindh, sparking off the migration of over ten million Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims. In September, hundreds of Muslims of Delhi had been killed in Karol Bagh, Subzi Mandi and Paharganj. Tens of thousands of Hindu and Sikh refugees from Punjab were crammed into Diwan Hall, Chandni Chowk and Kingsway Camp; while thousands of Muslims, including Meos from Alwar and Bharatpur, camped in fear in Jamia Millia, Puran Qila and Humayun’s Tomb. The life of Dr Zakir Husain, VC of Jamia Millia and president of the Hindustani Talimi Sangh, was saved by a Sikh army captain and a Hindu railway official. Upon arrival in Delhi on September 9, Gandhi was asked to stay not in the sweepers colony (his prefered residence in the city), but in Birla House. Gandhi plunged into the turmoil around him, travelling to nearby places, talking to refugees and cadres of social organisations. On December 22, he made this announcement at his prayer meeting:

“Some eight or ten miles from here, at Mehrauli, there is a shrine of Qutubuddin Bakhtiyar Chisti. Esteemed as second only to the shrine at Ajmer, it is visited every year not only by Muslims but by thousands of non-Muslims too. Last September this shrine was subjected to the wrath of Hindu mobs. The Muslims living in the vicinity of the shrine for the last 800 years had to leave their  homes. I mention this sad episode to tell you that, though Muslims love the shrine, today no Muslim can be found anywhere near it. It is the duty of the Hindus, Sikhs, the officials and the Government to open the shrine again and wash off this stain on us. The same applies to other shrines and religious places of Muslims in and around Delhi. The time has come when both India and Pakistan must unequivocally declare to the majorities in each country that they will not tolerate desecration of religious places, be they small or big. They should also undertake to repair the places damaged during riots.” (vol 98, p 98-99).

This was the background to his last protest. There was also the matter of the Government’s decision to withhold payment of Pakistan’s share of undivided India’s sterling balance. We may take it that the fast was undertaken both to restore the mosque and to convey to the public his feelings about ongoing events. It began on January 13, 1948 and was announced at his prayer meeting that evening. He said: “Now that I have started my fast many people cannot understand what I am doing, who are the offenders – Hindus or Sikhs or Muslims. How long will the fast last? I say I do not blame anyone. Who am I to accuse others? I have said that we have all sinned.”

He continued: “I shall terminate the fast only when peace has returned to Delhi. If peace is restored to Delhi it will have effect not only on the whole of India but also on Pakistan and when that happens, a Muslim can walk around in the city all by himself. I shall then terminate the fast. Delhi is the capital of India. It has always been the capital of India. So long as things do not return to normal in Delhi, they will not be normal either in India or in Pakistan. Today I cannot bring Suhrawardy here because I fear someone may insult him. Today he cannot walk about in the streets of Delhi. If he did he would be assaulted. What I want is that he should be able to move about here even in the dark. It is true that he made efforts in Calcutta only when Muslims became involved. Still, he could have made the situation worse, if he had wanted, but he did not want to make things worse. He made the Muslims evacuate the places they had forcibly occupied and said that he being the Premier could do so. Although the places occupied by the Muslims belonged to Hindus and Sikhs he did his duty. Even if it takes a whole month to have real peace established in Delhi it does not matter. People should not do anything merely to have me terminate the fast. So my wish is that Hindus, Sikhs, Parsis, Christians and Muslims who are in India should continue to live in India and India should become a country where everyone’s life and property are safe. Only then will India progress.”

The People’s Reaction

Delhi was visibly affected by Gandhi’s fast. Addressing a gathering of three hundred thousand people on January 17, Maulana Azad announced seven tests given him by Gandhi to be fulfilled and guaranteed by responsible people. They included freedom of worship to Muslims at the tomb of Khwaja Bakhtiar Chishti, non-interference with the Urs festival due to be held there; the voluntary evacuation by non-Muslims of all mosques in Delhi that were being used as houses or which had been converted into temples; free movement of Muslims in areas where they used to stay; complete safety to Muslims while travelling by train; no economic boycott of Muslims; and freedom to Muslim evacuees to return to Delhi.” That evening a procession of citizens walked to Birla House where Jawaharlal Nehru addressed them. Gandhi’s speech was read out at the prayer meeting, attended by some four thousand people. Among other things, he said:

“My fast should not be considered a political move in any sense of the term. It is in obedience to the peremptory call of conscience and duty. It comes out of felt agony. I call to witness all my numerous Muslim friends in Delhi. Their representatives meet me almost every day to report the day’s events. Neither Rajas and Maharajas nor Hindus and Sikhs or any others would serve themselves or India as a whole, if at this, what is to me a sacred juncture, they mislead me with a view to terminating my fast” (vol 98:248).

On January 18, Gandhi ended his fast. Over a hundred representatives of various groups and organizations including the Hindu Mahasabha, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Jamiat-ul-Ulema who had assembled at Rajendra Prasad’s residence, called on Gandhiji at 11.30 a.m. Those present included Jawaharlal Nehru, Abul Kalam Azad, Rajendra Prasad, INA General Shah Nawaz Khan, Hifzur Rahman and Zaheed Hussain, Pakistan’s High Commissioner. Dr. Rajendra Prasad reported that even those who had some doubts on the previous night were confident that they could ask Gandhiji with a full sense of responsibility to break the fast. As the President of the Congress, Rajendra Prasad said that he had signed the document in view of the guarantee which they had all jointly and severally given. Khurshid, the Chief Commissioner and Randhawa, Deputy Commissioner of Delhi, had signed the document on behalf of the administration. It had been decided to set up a number of committees to implement the pledge. Rajendra Prasad hoped that Gandhiji would now terminate his fast. Deshbandhu Gupta described scenes of fraternization between Hindus and Muslims which he had witnessed when a procession of Muslims was taken out that morning in Subzimandi and was received with ovation and offered fruit and refreshments by the Hindu inhabitants. A seven-point declaration in Hindi was read out solemnly affirming the people’s desire for communal harmony and civic peace. This read as follows:

SEVEN-POINT DELHI DECLARATION OF JANUARY 18, 1948

“We wish to announce that it is our heart-felt desire that the Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs and members of the other communities should once again live in Delhi like brothers and in perfect amity and we take the pledge that we shall protect the life, property and faith of Muslims and that the incidents which have taken place in Delhi will not happen again.

“We want to assure Gandhiji that the annual fair at Khwaja Qutub-ud-Din Mazar will be held this year as in the previous years.

“Muslims will be able to move about in Subzimandi, Karol Bagh, Paharganj and other localities just as they could in the past.

“The mosques which have been left by Muslims and which now are in the possession of Hindus and Sikhs will be returned. The areas which have been set apart for Muslims will not be forcibly occupied.

“We shall not object to the return to Delhi of the Muslims who have migrated from here if they choose to come back and Muslims shall be able to carry on their business as before.

“We assure that all these things will be done by our personal effort and not with the help of the police or military.

“We request Mahatmaji to believe us and to give up his fast and continue to lead us as he has done hitherto.” .” (vol 98, p 249, 253).

Gandhi’s Speech on the Delhi Declaration

In his reply, Gandhi said: “I am happy to hear what you have told me, but if you have overlooked one point all this will be worth nothing. If this declaration means that you will safeguard Delhi and whatever happens outside Delhi will be no concern of yours, you will be committing a grave error and it will be sheer foolishness on my part to break my fast. You must have seen the Press reports of the happenings in Allahabad, if not, look them up. I understand that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Hindu Mahasabha are among the signatories to this declaration. It will amount to breach of faith on their part if they hold themselves responsible for peace in Delhi, but not in other places. I have been observing that this sort of deception is being practised in the country these days on a large scale. Delhi is the heart - the capital of India. The leaders from the whole of India have assembled here. Men had become beasts. But if those who have assembled here, who constitute the cream among men cannot make the whole of India understand that  Hindus, Muslims and followers of other religions are like brothers, it bodes ill for both the Dominions. What will be the fate of India if we continue to quarrel with one another?... Let us take no step that may become a cause for repentance later on. The situation demands courage of the highest order from us. We have to consider whether or not we can accomplish what we are going to promise. If you are not confident of fulfilling your pledge, do not ask me to give up my fast. It is for you and the whole of India to translate it into reality. It may not be possible to realize it in a day. I do not possess the requisite strength for it. But I can assure you that till today our face was turned  towards Satan, we have now resolved to turn towards God. If what I have told you fails to find an echo in your hearts or if you are convinced that it is beyond you, tell me so frankly.

What greater folly can there be than to claim that Hindustan is only for Hindus and Pakistan is for Muslims alone? The refugees here should realize that things in Pakistan will be set right by the example set in Delhi. I am not one to be afraid of fasting. Time and again I have gone on fasts and if occasion arises I may again do so. Whatever therefore you do, do after careful thought and consideration. The Muslim friends frequently meet me and assure me that peaceful atmosphere has been restored in Delhi and Hindus and Muslims can live in amity here. If these friends have any misgivings in their hearts and feel that today they have perforce to stay here - as they have nowhere else to go to - but ultimately they will have to part company, let them admit it to me frankly. To set things right in the whole of India and Pakistan is no doubt a Herculean task. But I am an optimist. Once I resolve to do something I refuse to accept defeat. Today you assure me that Hindus and Muslims have become one but if Hindus continue to regard Muslims as Yavans and asuras, incapable of realizing God, and Muslims regard Hindus likewise, it will be the worst kind of blasphemy. A Muslim friend presented me with a book in Patna. Its author is an eminent Muslim. The book says: “God ordains that a kafir - and a Hindu is a kafir - is worse than a poisonous creature. He should be exterminated. It is one’s duty to be treacherous to him. Why should one treat him with any courtesy?” If Muslims still harbouring such thoughts assure Hindus about their good behaviour, they will only be deceiving Hindus. If you betray one you betray all. If I truly worship a stone image I deceive no one. For me God resides in that stone image. I feel that if the hearts of both Hindus and Muslims are full of deceipt and treachery, why need I  continue to live?

“..After listening to all that I have said, if you still ask me to end my fast I shall end it. Afterwards you have to release me. I had taken the vow to do or die in Delhi and now if I am able to achieve success here I shall go to Pakistan and try to make Muslims understand their folly. Whatever happens in other places, people in Delhi should maintain peace. The refugees here should realize that they have to welcome as brothers the Muslims returning from Pakistan to Delhi. The Muslim refugees in Pakistan are suffering acute hardships and so are the Hindu refugees here. Hindus have not learnt all the crafts of Muslim craftsmen. Therefore they had better return to India. There are good men as well as bad men in all the communities. Taking into consideration all these implications, if you ask me to break my fast I shall abide by your wish. India will virtually become a prison if the present conditions continue. It may be better that you allow me to continue my fast and if God wills it He will call me.” (vol 98, p 254-257)

Maulana Azad said that the remarks about non-Muslims to which Gandhiji had referred were abhorrent to Islam. They were symptoms of the insanity that had seized some sections of the people. Maulana Hifzur Rahman insisted that Muslims wanted to remain in India as citizens with self-respect and honour. He welcomed the changed atmosphere in the city as a result of Gandhi’s fast and appealed to Gandhi to break the fast. On behalf of the Hindu Mahasabha and the RSS, Ganesh Datt reiterated the appeal. Pakistan’s High Commisioner Zaheed Hussain addressed a few words to Gandhiji. He said he was there to convey the deep concern of the Pakistani people about him and the anxious inquiries they made every day about his health. It was their hearts’ desire that circumstances might soon enable him to break the fast. If there was anything that he could do towards that end he was ready and so were the people of Pakistan. Zaheed Hussain was followed by Khurshid and Randhawa who on behalf of the administration reiterated the assurance that all the conditions mentioned in the citizens’ pledge would be implemented, and no effort would be spared to restore the Indian capital to its traditional harmony and peace. Sardar Harbans Singh endorsed the appeal on behalf of the Sikhs. When Rajendra Prasad said: “I have signed on behalf of the people, please break your fast,” Gandhi replied: “I shall break my fast. Let God’s will prevail. You all be witness today.”

Twelve days later, on January 30, 1948, Gandhi was murdered at his daily prayer meeting.
Read the Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the conspiracy:
http://dilipsimeon.blogspot.in/2012/03/report-of-commission-of-inquiry-into.html

********
The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi are available online, at this link:

Gandhi, M.K., Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi Online.

http://www.gandhiserve.org/cwmg/cwmg.html

Controversy regarding alterations made by the NDA government in the collected works:

http://www.gandhiserve.org/cwmg/cwmg_controversy.html

See also: A White Line and a Mosque:
http://dilipsimeon.blogspot.in/2011/12/white-line-and-mosque.html

The Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi: Inquiry Commission Report (1969)

NB: There are still people who admire Godse for shooting a defenceless, unarmed old man at point blank range in a prayer meeting.. But after all, modern society is awash with extremist belief of all kinds, including support for suicide bombers and Maoist revolutionaries. In the guise of communal ideology & prejudices, extremism has taken  centre-stage. People in high office believe in collective guilt (denouncing entire communities for the sins of a few), controlled mobs, revenge killing and vigilantism. 

The influence of communal hatred extends beyond communal organisations - in 1969 (Gandhi's birth centenary) a Hindi literateur with extreme-left leanings, wrote 'Gandhi benakaab', a pamphlet in which he hailed Godse as a 'true son of India'. It should not surprise us that extremists from left to right coalesce in their hatred for Gandhi (see my article, The Other side of Maoism). Those interested in the continued currency - despite all their deceitful denials - of the Sangh Parivar's hatred of Gandhi may see the web-page: "HinduUnity' below, where Nathuram Godse is referred to as 'our beloved'; along with VD Savarkar's slogan "Hinduize politics and militarize Hindus!" 
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://hinduunity.org/

Justice Jeevan Lal Kapur's account of the murder of Mahatma Gandhi -published by the Ministry of Home Affairs in 1970- is an important document that has been all but forgotten in contemporary India. Read below a short background. ( 'Volume' citations are from Gandhi's Collected Works.)
http://archive.org/details/JeevanlalKapoorCommissionReport

Gandhi had arrived in Delhi from Calcutta in September 1947. He planned to walk to Pakistan, leading Hindu and Sikh refugees back to the homes whence they had fled, and return with Indian Muslims who had left their homes out of fear. He postponed this plan upon realizing the extent of communal violence and hatred in Delhi and its environs. Between January 13 and 18 he undertook a fast – his last, as it turned out – to obtain the return of a shrine to its proper owners. Here's what he said about it on December 22 1947:

“Some eight or ten miles from here, at Mehrauli, there is a shrine of Qutubuddin Bakhtiyar Chisti. Esteemed as second only to the shrine at Ajmer, it is visited every year not only by Muslims but by thousands of non-Muslims too. Last September this shrine was subjected to the wrath of Hindu mobs. The Muslims living in the vicinity of the shrine for the last 800 years had to leave their  homes. I mention this sad episode to tell you that, though Muslims love the shrine, today no Muslim can be found anywhere near it. It is the duty of the Hindus, Sikhs, the officials and the Government to open the shrine again and wash off this stain on us. The same applies to other shrines and religious places of Muslims in and around Delhi. The time has come when both India and Pakistan must unequivocally declare to the majorities in each country that they will not tolerate desecration of religious places, be they small or big. They should also undertake to repair the places damaged during riots.” (Collected Works vol 98, p 98-99).

The Delhi fast was immensely successful and an agreement emerged for the maintenance of communal harmony. (The story is told elsewhere: see Another time, another mosque). But on January 20, a bomb exploded 75 feet away from the dais at Gandhi’s prayer meeting at Birla House, New Delhi. One Madanlal Pahwa was arrested. Six other men escaped in a taxi. This was the fifth attempt on his life since 1934, and all of them were made by extreme Hindu nationalists.  Gandhi was unruffled. Upon being asked to agree to additional policemen for his meetings, he refused, saying that his life was in the hands of God, that if he had to die, no precautions could save him. He would not agree to restricted entry to his prayer meetings or to anybody coming between his audience and himself. At the next day’s meeting Gandhi said that “the man who exploded the bomb obviously thinks that he has been sent by God to destroy me… He had taken it for granted that I am an enemy of Hinduism. When he says he was doing the bidding of God he is only making God an accomplice in a wicked deed. But it cannot be so… those who are behind him or whose tool he is, should know that this sort of thing will not save Hinduism. If Hinduism has to be saved it will be saved through such work as I am doing. I have been imbibing Hindu dharma right from my childhood” (CW vol 98: 279-81). On January 30, soon after he arrived at his prayer meeting, Nathuram Godse, editor of a Poona-based Marathi journal called Hindu Rashtra, fired three bullets at him at point-blank range and killed him.

On February 4, the Government of India declared the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh unlawful, noting that its members had “indulged in acts of violence involving arson, robbery, dacoity and murder.. carried on under a cloak of secrecy.” It accused the Sangh of “exhorting people to resort to terrorist methods.” The communique – that must have been vetted by Home Minister Sardar Patel - went on: “the cult of violence sponsored & inspired by the activities of the Sangh has claimed many victims. The and most precious to fall was Gandhiji himself”. (D.R. Goyal 1979; Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, p.202)

The trial of eight conspirators including V.D. Savarkar took place through 1948. Godse made a speech stating his belief in in Savarkar’s ideal of Hindu nationalism, and his conviction that Gandhi was “a political and ethical imposter…a traitor to his faith and his country, a curse to India, a force for evil.., and the greatest enemy not only of Hindus, but of the whole nation.” Parts of the speech suggest that Godse saw himself as an agency of Lord Krishna. Godse and Narayan Apte were sentenced to death in February 1949 and hanged in November. They went to the gallows shouting Akhand Bharat amar rahe, (Long Live United India) not realizing that a united India was also Gandhi’s dearest ideal. Unlike them, however, he did not believe that united India could be a Hindu Rashtra - an Indian version of Hitlers Reich. Five conspirators were sentenced to life imprisonment, which in India those days meant fourteen years. Savarkar was acquitted for lack of evidence.

However, doubts remained about the extent of the conspiracy; the behaviour of the Bombay and Delhi police between January 20 and 30; and the evidence of V.D. Savarkar’s involvement. In 1965, the Government of India set up a Commission of Inquiry into the Conspiracy to Murder Mahatma Gandhi, headed by Justice Jivanlal Kapur of the Supreme Court. It examined evidence not produced during the trial, including the testimony of Savarkar's bodyguard Appa Ramachandra Kasar, and his secretary Gajanan Vishnu Damle. Had they testified in 1948, Savarkar would have been convicted. The evidence confirmed Godse and Apte's visits to Savarkar on January 14 and 17, 1948. Kasar told the Commission that they visited Savarkar again on or about January 23, upon their return from Delhi after the bomb incident. Damle stated that Godse and Apte saw Savarkar “in the middle of January and sat with him in his garden.” Justice Kapur's findings were clear. He noted the deadly negligence of the police. And he concluded that the facts taken together undermined “any theory other than the conspiracy to murder by Savarkar and his group.”

Gandhi died standing up, with God’s name on his lips, just as he had wanted to. He had always said that he was prepared to die for his beliefs. His death could have been prevented. Who can say what would have happened if he had been allowed to perform his padyatra to Pakistan? But it was not to be. “In the eyes of too many officials, he was an old man who had outlived his usefulness: he had become expendable. By negligence, by indifference, by deliberate desire on the part of many faceless people, the assassination had been accomplished. It was a new kind of murder – the permissive assassination, and there may be many more in the future” (Robert Payne, The Life and Death of Mahatma Gandhi; 647). In February 2003, the Indian Union’s highest officials unveiled a portrait of V.D. Savarkar in the Central Hall of Parliament. Knowingly or otherwise our leaders and representatives have hailed and honoured the man who was a prime accused in the Gandhi murder case. They continue to do so till this day. When we realise that independent India's criminal justice system was inaugurated by a denial of justice to Gandhi, we need not be surprised at its steady deterioration ever since.

Available in the link below are Parts 1 & 2 of the Report [of the 6 volume document] of the Commission of Inquiry into the Conspiracy to Murder Mahatma Gandhi by Justice Jeevan Lal Kapur [Supreme Court of India]. The commission was established in 1965 & submitted its report on 30 Sept 1969.

http://archive.org/details/JeevanlalKapoorCommissionReport

Also see: 
The Other Side of Maoism

V.D. Savarkar and Gandhi’s murder

Madhu Limaye's (senior socialist leader) observations on the RSS (1979)

RSS Declared Unlawful: GOI communique of February 4, 1948

Text of Government communique dated February 4, 1948 - In their resolution of February 4, 1948, the Government of India declared their determination to root out the forces of hatred and violence that are at work in our country and imperil the freedom of the Nation and darken her fair name. in pursuance of this policy the Government of India have decided to declare unlawful the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh in the Chief Commissioner’s provinces. Similar action is also being taken in the Governor’s provinces.

As democratic governments the Government of India and the provincial governments have always been anxious to allow reasonable scope for genuine political, social and economic activities to all parties and organisations including those whose policies and purposes differ from, or even run counter to their own, subject to the consideration that such activities should not transgress certain commonly recognised limits of propriety and law. The professed aims and objects of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh are to promte the physical, intellectual and moral well-being of the Hindus and also to foster feelings of brotherhood, love and service amongst them. Government themselves are most anxious to improve the general material and intellectual well-being of all sections of the people and have got schemes on hand which are designed to carry out these objects, particularly the provision of physical training and education in military matters to the youth of the country. Government have, however, noticed with regret that in practice members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh have not adhered to their professed ideals.

Undesirable and even dangerous activities have been carried out by members of the Sangh. It has been found that in several parts of the country individual members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh have indulged in acts of violence involving arson, robbery, dacoity, and murder and have collected illicit arms and ammunitions. They have been found circulating leaflets exhorting people to resort to terrorist methods, to collect firearms, to create disaffection against the government and and suborn the police and military. These activities have been carried out under the cloak of secrecy, and the government have considered from time to time how far these activities rendered it incumbent upon them to deal with the Sangh in its corporate capacity. The last occasion when the government defined this attitude was when the Premiers and Home Ministers of provinces met in Delhi towards the end of November.  It was then unanimously agreed that the stage when the Sangh should be dealt with as an association had not yet arrived and that individuals should contiinue to be dealt with sternly as hitherto. The objectionable and harmful activities of the Sangh have, however, continued unabated and the cult of violence sponsored and inspired by the activities of the Sangh has claimed many victims. The latest and most precious to fall was Gandhiji himself.

In these circumstances it is the bounden duty of the government to take effective measures to curb this re-appearance of violence in a virulent form and as a first step to this end, they have decided to declare the Sangh as an unlawful association. Government have no doubt that in taking this measure they have the support of all law-abiding citizens, of all those who have the welfare of the country at heart. (Source: Des Raj Goyal: Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Delhi, 1979; 201-202)

AICC Resolution on Private Armies; dtd November 16, 1947 - “The All India Congress Committee has noted with regret that there is a growing desire on the part of some organizations to build up private armies. Any such development is dangerous for the safety of the State and for the growth of corporate life in the nation. The State alone should have its defence forces or police or home guards. The activities of the Muslim National Guards, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Akali Volunteers and such other organizations represent an endeavour to bring into being private armies, (and) must be regarded as a menace to the hard-won freedom of the country.. (Source: Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, online; vol 97, p 480).

The Savarkarist syntax - by Anil Nauriya:

UNDERLYING THE glorification of Savarkarism by the BJP-RSS-Shiv Sena are changes in the nature and objectives of the major political parties, the cynicism induced by the growing nexus between crime and politics, and the collapse of a compact that had facilitated post-independence politics. The first principle of Savarkarism defines the nation on the basis of religious community. This is reflected in Savarkar's declaration on August 15, 1943: "I have no quarrel with Mr. Jinnah's two-nation theory. We Hindus are a nation by ourselves and it is a historical fact that Hindus and Muslims are two nations" (Indian Annual Register1943 vol2 p 10). The second Savarkarist principle condones killing to make religious community-related points. The German versusJew analogy is made in Savarkar's writings when speaking of his notion of the Hindu nation and those outside it.The killer aspect of Savarkarism is noted by Sardar Patel. In his February 27, 1948 letter to Nehru, Patel held the fanatical wing of the Hindu Mahasabha under Savarkar responsible for assassinating Gandhi. The same trigger-happiness was evident in the Gujarat carnage (2002) and its aftermath. Whether a murder may be treated as a crime seems to depend, for Savarkarism, upon the self-perceived religious community interests of the killer.http://hindu.com/2004/09/18/stories/2004091803791000.htm

A Hard Rain Falling (on private armies and political violence in India) (EPW, July 2012)

THE DELHI DECLARATION OF JANUARY 18, 1948
On January 18, Gandhi ended his final fast. Over a hundred representatives of various groups and organizations including the Hindu Mahasabha, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Jamiat-ul-Ulema who had assembled at Rajendra Prasad’s residence, called on Gandhiji at 11.30 a.m. Those present included Jawaharlal Nehru, Abul Kalam Azad, Rajendra Prasad, INA General Shah Nawaz Khan, Hifzur Rahman and Zaheed Hussain, Pakistan’s High Commissioner. Dr. Rajendra Prasad reported that even those who had some doubts on the previous night were confident that they could ask Gandhiji with a full sense of responsibility to break the fast. . As President of the Congress, Rajendra Prasad said that he had signed the document in view of the guarantee which they had all jointly and severally given. Khurshid, the Chief Commissioner and Randhawa, Deputy Commissioner of Delhi, had signed the document on behalf of the administration. It had been decided to set up a number of committees to implement the pledge. Rajendra Prasad hoped that Gandhiji would now terminate his fast. Deshbandhu Gupta described scenes of fraternization between Hindus and Muslims which he had witnessed when a procession of Muslims was taken out that morning in Subzimandi and was received with ovation and offered fruit and refreshments by the Hindu inhabitants. A seven-point declaration in Hindi was read out solemnly affirming the people’s desire for communal harmony and civic peace. This read as follows:

SEVEN-POINT DELHI DECLARATION OF JANUARY 18, 1948

Extracts taken from two CPI pamphlets issued in September/October 1947: ‘Bleeding Punjab Warns’ by PC Joshi and Dhanwantri : “What happened in the Punjab cannot be called a riot. It was a regular war of extermination of the minorities, of the Sikhs and Hindus in Western Punjab and of Muslims in East Punjab. It cannot be compared to Calcutta or Noakhali, Bihar, or even to Rawalpindi for in all these cases it was mobs of one community that took leading part in killing, looting and burning the minority in the area, their communal passions being roused to a pitch of frenzy and savagery.. In the Punjab, however, in the recent biggest killing ever seen, it was the trained bands equipped with firearms and modern weapons that were the main killers, looters and rapers. These were the storm troops of various communal parties such as National Guards of the Muslim League in the Western Punjab, and the Shahidi Dal of the Akalis and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh of the Mahasabha in the Eastern Punjab. They were actively aided and often actually led by the police and the military in committing the worst atrocities.. in violence and in brutality, in the numbers killed (which Syt Shri Prakasha, India’s Ambassador to Pakistan places at 1 ½ lakhs) in the use of plenty of modern deadly weapons, in the devastation spread over 14 districts of the Punjab and in the way in which the police, the military and the entire administration was geared not to stop the riots but to spread it – the Punjab tragedy is without parallel.. p 5-6 of a printed CPI report ‘Bleeding Punjab Warns’ by PC Joshi and Dhanwantri - September 1947. (Comrade Dhanwantri was a comrade of Bhagat Singh; President of the Lahore Distt Congress Committee and communist leader of Punjab)

Gandhi visits the poor people of England in 1931 - Gandhi Video