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"'He Ram (Oh God Rama),' he murmured, and sighed softly as the frail body slumped to the ground." |
Patel and his daughter immediately left the Birla House while Gandhi, a little vexed at being unpunctual, made his way to the prayer meeting. Leaning lightly on the two girls, Manu and Abha, his 'walking sticks', he took a short cut accross the grass, walking briskly to make up for the lost time and then mounted the six low steps upto the level of the prayer ground. As he took a few paces in the direction of the wooden platform on which he sat during services, the crowd opened to enable him to pass through, bowing to his feet as he went by. Gandhi took his arms off the girls' shoulders and for a moment stood there smiling, touching his palms in the traditional greeting-blessing. Just then a stocky young man in a khaki bush jacket jostled through the crowd, and when he was directly in front of Gandhi, he fired three shots into the Mahatma at point blank range. The Mahatma's hands folded in friendly greeting, descended slowly. 'He Ram (Oh God Rama),' he murmured, and sighed softly as the frail body slumped to the ground. The assassin was held by the Police. He was Nathuram Godse, an editor of a Marathi newspaper, Hindu Rashtra and an active and fanatic member of the Hindu Mahasabha. Gandhi was carried indoors, but he was already unconscious. Within a few moments a doctor pronounced him dead. Patel, who lived not far from Birla House, had hardly reached home when he rushed back. A few minutes later Nehru arrived. Soon one of Gandhi's disciples appeared at the door of Birla House to speak to the anxiously waiting crowd: 'Bapuji is finished.' A moan went up from the crowd. An epic in the saga of Indian and world history had ended. The world had lost yet another of its great sons to the hands of religion. A nation's destiny was dead. The world's tutor was dead.
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