Again Gandhi book, Which narrates State of Saurashtra

Three minutes before Mahatma Gandhi was killed at Birla House in New Delhi on January 30, 1948, he had said, “I have an appointment with god.” A new book written by Gandhi’s great grandson Rajmohan Gandhi reveals these as the words spoken by Gandhi to two persons, one being U N Dhebar, the first Chief Minister of the Saurashtra state, the south western part of Gujarat and the other, Rasiklal Parikh who succeeded Dhebar.

The book, ‘Prince of Gujarat: The extraordinary story of Prince Gopaldas Desai’, where this finds mention, is a biography of Gopaldas Desai, a former prince of Dhasa in the Saurashtra. He was the only Patidar prince in Gujarat, from the community of landowners, commonly called ‘Patels’. Very little is written about Gopaldas, and the book’s jacket says, “With the surge of interest in personalities from Gujarat, not least because of the election of the controversial Narendra Modi as PM of India, there is no better time for a biography of a great son of Gujarat and one of India’s forgotten heroes”.

The book recounts how Gopaldas was heading the Saurashtra Congress and Dhebar who considered him his mentor, wanted him to become the first CM of the Saurashtra state, but Gopaldas refused. The CM was to be installed on February 15, 1948 and Gopaldas wanted “Gandhi, a son of Kathiawad (or Saurashtra), to inaugurate the new state. For this, Dhebar and Rasiklal Parikh went to Delhi to invite Gandhi on January, 30 at Birla House.”

“Dhebar and Parikh arrived at Birla house in the afternoon. As Gandhi had a 4 pm appointment with Vallabhbhai Patel and his prayer meeting was at 5 pm, he asked his grand niece Manu to give a message to the pair : ‘I will meet you after the prayers, God willing’.”

The meeting with Vallabhbhai went on till 10 minutes after 5 pm. Unhappy that his prayer-meeting had been delayed, Gandhi walked rapidly towards the spot where it was to take place, past the duo waiting outside the guest-room.

The book then says: “I have an appointment with God, Gandhi, it seems, said to Dhebar and Parikh as he hurried past them. Three minutes or so later, the Mahatma was killed by Nathuram Godse, who first bent down as if to venerate Gandhi and then fired point-blank repeatedly into his unprotected chest,” the book narrates