Mohandas Gandhi

Shot on 30 January 1948 in New Delhi by Nathuram Godse; the apostle of nonviolence was murdered walking to evening prayer.

Overview

Gandhi had led India to independence through satyagraha, and in the dawn of that independence was fasting against the communal slaughter of partition and for Pakistan rights, which Hindu nationalists read as betrayal. Walking across the lawn of Birla House for a prayer meeting, he was greeted by Godse, editor of a Hindu Mahasabha paper, who bowed and fired three shots into his chest; Gandhi died almost instantly with the name of God on his lips. Godse was tried with conspirators including Narayan Apte and hanged in November 1949, refusing pleas for commutation from the government and the two Gandhi sons who asked for mercy. The murder scarred the new republic and ended the last brake on retaliatory politics; Gandhi example of nonviolent struggle outlived his killers across the century.