Police ‘miserably failed’ to prevent Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination, said the trial court in 1949

Mahatma Gandhi's assassination trial reveals police negligence, conspirators' plot, and the court's verdict on the accused.

Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination on January 30, 1948 was independent India’s first high profile criminal case. A look into the trial court verdict delivered in the case on February 10, 1949 throws up interesting historical facts on how the presiding judge had lamented about the police having “miserably failed” to prevent the murder of the father of the nation despite being provided with specific inputs.

“I may bring to the notice of the Central Government, the slackness of the police in investigation of the case during the period between January 20, 1948 (when the first assassination attempt failed) and January 30, 1948,” wrote Special Judge Atma Charan in his verdict and highlighted that the then Home Minister Morarji Desai was made aware of the conspiracy immediately after the first attempt.

The judge pointed out that the conspirators had gone to Birla House in Delhi, where Mahatma Gandhi was residing, on January 20, 2023 in order to assassinate him by exploding a guncotton slab on the campus and also by throwing a hand grenade. As per plan, Punjabi refugee Madanlal K. Pahwa was supposed to explode the guncotton slub near the back compound wall of the Birla House to distract the gathering.

When the attention of the crowd during Mahatma Gandhi’s prayer meeting in the open grounds gets diverted towards the blast, Digambar R. Badge (an illegal arms dealer who later turned into an approver in the case and was granted pardon) was supposed to fire at Mahatma Gandhi with a revolver and also hurl a hand grenade through the trelliswork of a room located close to the prayer platform.

However, at the eleventh hour, Badge got scared to enter the room. He feared that he might get caught inside and would not be able to escape after committing the crime. In the meantime, Pahwa ignited the guncotton slab and a large number of people caught hold of him immediately after the blast. The other conspirators, including Nathuram V. Godse, Narayan D. Apte and Badge, took to their heels and fled from the scene.

J.C. Jain, a professor of Ardhamagadhi and Hindi at the Ruia College in Bombay read a news report regarding the Delhi Birla House explosion and sought an appointment with the Premier B.G. Kher at the secretariat on January 21, 1948. The Home Minister was also present in the meeting when Jain disclosed that he had certain crucial information related to a plot being hatched to assassinate Mahatma Gandhi.

The professor said that he had rendered monetary assistance to the refugee Pahwa in the past and that the latter had told him, around the first week of January, about the plan being hatched by his friends to take the life of Mahatma Gandhi. Jain said that he did not report the matter earlier to the authorities because he did not take it seriously and thought that it was just the anguish of a refugee.