Immediately after Madanlal Pahwa’s failed attempt on
Gandhi’s life on January 20, 1948, suspicion fixed on V.D. Savarkar as
the brain behind the crime. Investigations confirmed the suspicion;
evidence at the trial court all but proved his complicity. He, however,
escaped with an acquittal.
Deputy Prime Minister
Vallabhbhai Patel was convinced of his guilt. In 1969, a Commission of
Inquiry set up on March 22, 1965 comprising a respected Judge of the
Supreme Court, J.K. Kapur, concluded after a thorough probe: “All these
facts taken together were destructive of any theory other than the
conspiracy to murder by Savarkar and his group.”
Freedom At Midnight (1976)
by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre contains a wealth of material
since they had access to police and intelligence records besides
recollections of key surviving players. Madanlal told the police after
his arrest that he had met Savarkar before the attempt and also revealed
Godse’s identity: “Hindu Rashtra, A Marathi daily of Poona. Editor:
N.V. Godse, Proprietor N.D. Apte, a Savarkarite group newspaper.” The
apparel left behind by Madanlal’s accomplices who fled after his failure
bore one common laundry mark, the initials ‘N.V.G.’
No
policeman could have wished for more. Collins and Lapierre remark that
the “inquiry, so well begun, was now to be pursued in a manner so
desultory, so ineffectual, as to inflame controversy three decades
later.” The ineptness of senior officials in New Delhi was in contrast
to the efficiency of the Bombay Police. Jamshid Naganvalla (32), Deputy
Commissioner of Police, in charge of the Bombay CID Special Branch, was
assigned the case by Bombay’s Home Minister, Morarji Desai, after
Madanlal’s attempt. Convinced that Savarkar was behind that, he asked
Morarji for permission to arrest him on the basis of Madanlal’s
confession. Morarji angrily refused. Naganvalla’s Watchers Branch had
kept Savarkar’s house under surveillance. Shortly after the
assassination, Savarkar gave an undertaking to the police on February
22, 1948 not to take part in any “political public activity” for as long
as was desired.
He was prosecuted all the same. The
main witness against him was the approver Digamber Badge. Two other
witnesses corroborated his version on his visits to Savarkar’s house.
Judge Atma Charan found Badge to be a truthful witness.
On
most points his version was corroborated “by independent evidence” but
no corroboration was produced in court on his evidence that Godse and
accomplice Narayan Apte visited Savarkar at his house on January 14 and
17, 1948. On each occasion Badge was asked to stay outside. On the
second occasion he heard Savarkar’s encouraging words to Godse and Apte:
“Yashasvi houn ya” (succeed and come). The two corroborating
witnesses said no more than that the three had got down before the
house; but it had two other residents besides. Since the law requires
independent corroboration of an approver’s testimony, Savarkar was
acquitted.
However, a year or two after Savarkar’s
death, his bodyguard, Apte Ramchandra Kasar, and his secretary Gajanan
Vishnu Damle, filled the loopholes before the Kapur Commission, which
noted: “The statements of both these witnesses show that both Apte and
Godse were frequent visitors of Savarkar at Bombay and at Conferences
and at every meeting they are shown to have been with Savarkar…This
evidence also shows that Karkare was also well known to Savarkar and was
also a frequent visitor. Badge used to visit Savarkar. Dr. Parchure
also visited him. All this shows that people who were subsequently
involved in the murder of Mahatma Gandhi were all congregating some time
or the other at Savarkar Sadan and sometimes had long interviews with
Savarkar. It is significant that Karkare and Madanlal visited Savarkar
before they left for Delhi and Apte and Godse visited him both before
the bomb was thrown and also before the murder was committed and on each
occasion they had long interviews. It is specially to be noticed that
Godse and Apte were with him at public meetings held at various places
in the years 1946, 1947 and 1948.”
Had the two
testified in court, Savarkar would have been convicted. There was no
ambiguity surrounding Godse’s and Apte’s visits to Savarkar on January
14 and 17, 1948. Kasar, Savarkar’s bodyguard, told the Commission that
they visited him on or about January 23 or 24, after the bomb incident.
Damle, Savarkar’s secretary, deposed that Godse and Apte saw Savarkar
“in the middle of January and sat with him [Savarkar] in his garden.”
In
his Crime Report No.1, Nagarvala had stated that “Savarkar was at the
back of the conspiracy” and that “he was feigning illness.” Nagarvala’s
letter of January 31, 1948, the day after the assassination, mentioned
that Savarkar, Godse and Apte met for 40 minutes “on the eve of their
departure to Delhi.” This he did on the strength of what Kasar and Damle
had disclosed to him. “These two had access to the house of Savarkar
without any restriction.” In short, Godse and Apte met Savarkar again,
in the absence of Badge, and in addition to their meetings on January 14
and 17. Why they were not produced as witnesses in court is a mystery.
Vallabhbhai
Patel was vindicated. He had written to Nehru on February 27, 1948: “I
have kept myself almost in daily touch with the progress of the
investigation regarding Bapu’s assassination case.” His conclusion was:
“It was a fanatical wing of the Hindu Mahasabha directly under Savarkar
that [hatched] the conspiracy and saw it through.”
Many years later, the BJP had his portrait hung in Parliament House.
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