that even the masthead of their earlier newspaper,
Agrani, had his photograph. Nathuram was a close
associate of Savarkar from 1929 and had been active
in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. But, he left the
RSS later.
Two other conspirators, Vishnu Karkare and
Madanlal Pahwa, met Nathuram and Apte later that
day in the Hindu Mahasabha office in Bombay. Karkare
was the secretary of the Mahasabha in Ahmadnagar.
He had taken Madanlal, a violent young Punjabi refu-
gee from Pakistan, under his wings.
As promised, Badge and his servant Shankar Kistaiya
arrived at the Hindu Mahasabha office with explo-
sives. Badge also joined the conspirators, seeing
in it a business opportunity. After the murder, he
turned against them and testified that Nathuram
and Apte had met Savarkar before flying to Delhi
on January 17.
Gopal Godse reached Delhi with a service
revolver on January 19. The conspirators’
armoury now consisted of a .38mm revolver, a
.32mm revolver, five hand-grenades fitted with
seven-second fuses and two gun-cotton slabs
with 90-second fuses. The plan was to shoot
down Gandhi at his prayer meeting in Birla
House on January 20.[CONVICTED] [CONVICTED] [CONVICTED]
NATHURAM GODSE
Born in Poona on May 19, 1910 to
a postal employee, Nathuram was
brought up as though he were a
girl, as his parents feared that their
male children would die young.
As his nose was pierced to take a
nath, a nose-ring, he got the name
Nathuram—Ram who wears a
nose-ring. His family believed the
child possessed oracular powers.
When he was 19, the family
shifted to Ratnagiri, where he met
V.D. Savarkar. In 1932, he joined
the RSS, but later left it to join the
Hindu Mahasabha.
When a secret organisation,
Hindu Rashtra Dal, was built with
Savarkar’s blessings, Nathuram
was one of the office bearers. Two
years later, in 1944, along with
Narayan Apte, he started a Marathi
newspaper in Poona called Agrani
(The Forerunner). When it was
banned, they renamed it Hindu
Rashtra. He was the only accused
in the assassination case who
owned up the murder. All others
pleaded ‘not guilty’. Nathuram was
hanged to death in Ambala prison
on November 15, 1949.NARAYAN APTE
He flirted, smoked, drank and
was debonair—an exact opposite
of Nathuram Godse, who was
quiet and simple.
Apte was born in Poona in- His father was a historian
and Sanskrit scholar. He took
a science degree from Bombay
University and married from an
affluent family before he could
find a job.
Later, he taught at the
American Mission High School in
Ahmednagar. In 1939, he joined
the Hindu Mahasabha and, two
years later met Nathuram for the
first time. He was also a Hindu
Rashtra Dal office bearer.
In early 1943, the Royal Indian
Air Force appointed him as a
recruiting officer, in the rank of a
flight lieutenant, in Poona. But he
rejected an offer of permanent
commission. When Nathuram
started Agrani, Apte joined him
as manager. He had an extra-
marital affair with a Christian girl,
Manorama Salvi.
Apte was hanged, along with
Nathuram, on November 15, 1949.
VISHNU KARKARE
Karkare was brought up in the
Northcote Orphanage in Bombay.
He didn’t receive formal schooling,
but taught himself to read and
write Marathi and Hindi. He
worked in a tea shop at the age of
ten and later ran away to Poona.
After 15 years of hardwork, he
started a tea shop in a disused
cowshed in Ahmadnagar.
The tea shop soon became a
lodge—Deccan Guest House. It
was Karkare who built the Hindu
Mahasabha unit in Ahmadnagar.
In 1939, when Apte first met him,
Karkare was its district secretary.
He was elected unopposed as
municipal councillor in 1942.
When riots broke out in Noakhali
in Bengal in 1946, Karkare and
six other Mahasabha workers
opened relief centres there. What
he witnessed—killings, rapes and
forced conversions—hardened him.
Karkare was present at
Birla House when Gandhi was
killed. He was sentenced to life
imprisonment and released on
October 13, 1964. He died after a
heart attack on April 6, 1974.THE WEEK NOVEMBER 12, 2017^41