Buried deep in Indian history is a story that is rarely told... well,
rarely told properly. Manohar Malgonkar's meticulously researched "The Men Who Killed Gandhi" is a biography of the consortium of men that
claimed Gandhi's life and is thus, one of the key missing bridges in
India's history.
If you read school (or perhaps even college?) history textbooks alone, where Gandhi's assassination is passed off as a simple statement, you would believe Godse and his fellows to be a band of maniacs. Or alternately, to believe that Gandhi died simply because he was killed by Godse. Reading the book just makes you wonder just how many more such incredible stories are our history textbooks hiding.
The book reads like a taut thriller but what floored me about the book were the photographs of the men, the places in the story, the receipts of train and air tickets (costing all of hundred rupees from one end of the country to the other!), the police records, etc.
Highly recommended.
If you read school (or perhaps even college?) history textbooks alone, where Gandhi's assassination is passed off as a simple statement, you would believe Godse and his fellows to be a band of maniacs. Or alternately, to believe that Gandhi died simply because he was killed by Godse. Reading the book just makes you wonder just how many more such incredible stories are our history textbooks hiding.
The book reads like a taut thriller but what floored me about the book were the photographs of the men, the places in the story, the receipts of train and air tickets (costing all of hundred rupees from one end of the country to the other!), the police records, etc.
Highly recommended.
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