# Nathuram Godse shoots Gandhi at Birla House, New Delhi

Date: 1948

## The fact

On 30 January 1948 Nathuram Godse shot Gandhi at Birla House, New Delhi, during a prayer meeting. Gandhi died the same evening.

## Context

Godse’s justification, in court, attacked Gandhi’s conciliation toward Muslims after Partition. That is evidence about the killer’s politics. It is not a finding that Gandhi caused Partition. The 13 January Delhi fast sits on another row.

[Mahatma Gandhi](/people/mahatma-gandhi) is not the sole author of every later object, law, or museum label that uses the name. Shared work with courts, excavators, printers, spouses, officials, and later states does not erase a documented role, and it does not make an ancient person the signer of a twentieth-century statute.

## Evidence and sources

Gandhi Smriti, the site of the killing, and the New York Times contemporaneous report independently date 30 January 1948.

Official or archival record: Gandhi Smriti and Darshan Samiti (https://gandhismriti.gov.in/; Gandhi Smriti / Government of India).

## Significance

Polarisation-and-violence path. High confidence.

A martyrdom is not a rebate to Chauri Chaura or to caste rows. Keep the date on the killing.

## What is established and what is not

Established: Godse shot Gandhi on 30 January 1948 and he died that day. Not established: a unique national body-count caused by the shot alone.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions.

The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit.
Later competitions, monuments, translations, UNESCO listings, and museums are not converted into extra lifetime acts. The attached driver is [political-polarization](/drivers/political-polarization). The welfare reading used in this dossier is worsening. That reading is an impact-path choice, not a property stored on the Fact itself. Confidence is stated on the impact path. A later English edition is not a recovered autograph. If a number is not in the two records named above, it is not supplied here.

## People

- Mahatma Gandhi: https://factrail.ai/people/mahatma-gandhi

## Drivers

- Political Polarization: https://factrail.ai/drivers/political-polarization

## Sources

- https://www.nytimes.com/1948/01/31/archives/gandhi-is-killed-by-a-hindu-assassin-india-shaken-world-mourns-60.html
- https://gandhismriti.gov.in/

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/ga-assassination-1948