Assassination and Its Aftermath
On January 30, 1948, Nathuram Godse shot Gandhi at point-blank range. The killing and its aftermath revealed fractures in Indian society that independence had not healed.
January 30, 1948
Gandhi was walking to his evening prayer meeting at Birla House in New Delhi when Nathuram Vinayak Godse, a 37-year-old Hindu nationalist from Pune, stepped forward and shot him three times at close range with a Beretta pistol. Gandhi fell, reportedly saying 'He Ram' (Oh God). He died within minutes. He was 78 years old.
Godse was a member of the Hindu Mahasabha and a former member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Hindu nationalist organization. He was motivated by what he saw as Gandhi's appeasement of Muslims, particularly his January 1948 fast demanding that India pay Pakistan the 550 million rupees owed under the Partition agreement. In Godse's view, Gandhi had consistently sacrificed Hindu interests for Muslim ones and had weakened the Hindu nation through his insistence on nonviolence and communal harmony.