A review of the book 'The Death and Afterlife of Mahatma Gandhi' written by Makarand R. Paranjape.
The Death and Afterlife of Mahatma Gandhi written by Makarand R. Paranjape is an explosive and original analysis of the assassination of the 'Father of the Nation'. Who is responsible for the Mahatma's death? Just one determined zealot, the larger ideology that supported him, the Congress-led government that failed to protect him or a vast majority of Indians and their descendants who considered Gandhi irrelevant, and endorsed violence instead?
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Coming up: A review of the book 'The Death and Afterlife of Mahatma Gandhi' written by Makarand R. Paranjape.
Namaste Friends. My name is 'Shinil Subramanian Payamal' and you are listening to the Historylogy podcast.
Before I proceed, a full disclosure: This book was bought with my own money and not been provided to me by the author or publisher.
Little bit about the author:
Makarand R. Paranjape is a critic, poet, novelist and public intellectual. He was educated at St Stephen’s College, University of Delhi, and at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he earned a master’s and a PhD in English.
Currently Professor of English at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, he was the inaugural Erich Auerbach Visiting Chair in Global Literary Studies at the University of Tubingen in Fall 2014 and the ICCR Chair in Indian studies at the National University of Singapore (2010-11).
Beyond The Death and Afterlife of Mahatma Gandhi, his bibliography is extensive. Some of his other books are:
Swami Vivekananda: Hinduism and India's Road to Modernity, Cultural Politics in Modern India: Postcolonial Prospects, Colourful Cosmopolitanism, Global Proximities, Making India: Colonialism, National Culture, and the Afterlife of Indian English Authority and Swami Vivekananda: A Contemporary Reader.
Let me read a brief description of the book:
QUOTE
The Death and Afterlife of Mahatma Gandhi is an explosive and original analysis of the assassination of the 'Father of the Nation'. Who is responsible for the Mahatma's death? Just one determined zealot, the larger ideology that supported him, the Congress-led government that failed to protect him or a vast majority of Indians and their descendants who considered Gandhi irrelevant, and endorsed violence instead?
Paranjape's meticulous study culminates in his reading of Gandhi's last six months in Delhi where, from the very edge of the pyre, he wrought what was perhaps his greatest miracle—the saving of Delhi and thus of India itself from the internecine bloodshed of Partition. The author, taking a cue from the Mahatma himself, also shows us a way to expiate our guilt and heal the wounds of an ancient civilization torn into two. This is a brilliant, far-reaching and profound exploration of the meaning of the Mahatma's death.
UNQUOTE
This book (published in 2014/2015 by Penguin Random House India, with editions also under Routledge) is not a standard biography or hagiography of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Instead, Paranjape focuses on the metaphysics of his martyrdom and how his assassination on 30th January, 1948, fundamentally shaped the identity of modern India.
The book's central premise is bold: Gandhi's assassination was not merely the act of a lone extremist or a fringe ideological group but a collective failure of the nascent Indian nation, laden with profound "Oedipal guilt."
Paranjape draws on psychoanalytic frameworks (notably Freudian ideas of patricide and generational conflict) alongside Hindu concepts of karma and sacrifice to argue that the murder placed an immense burden on India's moral psyche.
The book is divided roughly into two parts:
1. Birth traumas of the nation: The Assassination and Its Psycho-Cultural Fallout
This part explores broader socio-political and psychological dimensions: the links between Partition's violence, the failures of security apparatuses (especially after the 20th January, 1948 bomb attempt), and the misreadings of Gandhi's philosophy that fueled Godse's act. Paranjape does not shy away from assigning shared responsibility—to political factions, communal tensions, and even the Congress leadership's handling of the crisis.
2. Gandhi’s Last 133 Days
This part offers a close reading of Gandhi's final six months in Delhi, portraying this period as his greatest "miracle": fasting to quell communal riots and effectively saving the city (and perhaps India) from further bloodshed, even as he sensed his own end approaching. Paranjape interprets Gandhi's death not as passive victimhood but as a conscious fulfillment of his lifelong ethic of ahimsa and self-offering.
As the author has suggested, a Mahatma may be defined as one whose afterlife is greater than his life. The latter may be cut short, but the former persists, even in adversity. Every attack on Gandhi, hence, invites us actually to re-examine, debate and discuss what he lived and died for. In that sense, not only his life, but his death is his message. This book tries to decode that message.
This book argues that the overwhelming question no official history of Gandhi or India is willing fully to confront is what the murder of the Mahatma really means to Indians, especially Hindus. No understanding of contemporary India or Hinduism can be complete without addressing it. No attempt to fetishize or forget, venerate or re-execute Gandhi can cover up the great disturbance and unresolved shock that this event produced. Instead of trying to deny or displace this distress, we need to come to terms with it and realize its truly transformative potential. Only then can the twin birth traumas of the (Indian) subcontinent - the Partition and Gandhi’s assassination - be healed. I believe that this book tries to show the way.
Gandhi’s death has been commonly viewed both as murder and martyrdom. Nathuram Godse murdered him but the Mahatma martyred himself. Gandhi was not a passive victim, but an active participant. He resisted tighter security at Birla House in spite of an attempt on his life. He continued to insist on the recitation of verses from the Koran in his multi-religious prayer meetings even after members of his audience protested and he was greeted by angry slogans such as ‘Death to Gandhi’ by irate refugees from West Punjab, now Pakistan. He kept asking Hindus not to retaliate against the wrongs they had suffered or vent their revenge on the Muslims of Delhi, who were not responsible for what had happened on the other side of the bloody border. He fasted to restore communal harmony in Delhi. It was only after all parties had pledged their support to such a truce that Muslims, who had chosen to remain in Delhi but had fled their homes and locked up their shops for fear of reprisals, returned to their abandoned properties. Against all calculations of strategic leverage against the invading Pakistan-backed mercenaries in Kashmir, he also insisted on and succeeded in the Government of India’s repatriating Rs 55 Crore of Pakistan’s share of the national asset after the Partition. What is more, he refused to accept that Muslims and Hindus were two nations or that a nation could be formed on the basis of religion alone.
Final Verdict:
The Death and Afterlife of Mahatma Gandhi is a brilliant, if haunting, look at how a single figure can dominate a nation’s conscience. It is an "explosive" analysis that ultimately protects the Gandhi myth, pathologises Hindu resistance, and forces collective national shame on the very civilisation that suffered most from Partition.
I give this book 3.5/5.
The book is currently available in Hardcover, Paperback and Kindle formats. It is yet to be made available in Audible format. I have given the respective buy link in the show notes. Please check it out for the latest price.
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