Vishnu Ramkrishna Karkare
Encyclopedia
Life imprisonment
Life imprisonment is a sentence of imprisonment for a serious crime under which the convicted person is to remain in jail for the rest of his or her life...
for his role in an attempt to assassinate Mahatma Gandhi
Mahatma Gandhi
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi , pronounced . 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was the pre-eminent political and ideological leader of India during the Indian independence movement...
.
Early life
Vishnu Ramkrishna Karkare was born of Marathi speaking Karhade BrahminKarhade Brahmin
Karhade Brahmins are a predominantly Pancha Dravida Brahmins Marathi and Konkani speaking Hindu community in India.-Etymology and Origin:*The name Karháda or Karáda, is the...
or Chitpavan
Chitpavan
The Chitpavan or Chitpawan, also known as Konkanastha Brahmins , are a Smarta Brahmin community of Konkan, the coastal region of western Maharashtra in India....
parents, which is about all he knew of his early days. He did not even know the date of his birth, because both his parents had died when he was a small child, and he had been brought up in the Northcote Orphanage in Bombay, which put down his approximate date of birth as 1910. As a boy he had received little or no schooling even though later he taught himself to read and write Marathi and Hindi. At the age of ten he began to work as a tea shop drudge in Bombay, and later move to Poona.
Life at Ahmednagar
After fifteen years of hard work, he moved to Ahmednagar from PunePune
Pune , is the eighth largest metropolis in India, the second largest in the state of Maharashtra after Mumbai, and the largest city in the Western Ghats. Once the centre of power of the Maratha Empire, it is situated 560 metres above sea level on the Deccan plateau at the confluence of the Mula ...
. In a disused cowshed near the motor stand, he started his own tea shop. The only food he served beside tea was puris and, to go with it, a chilli concoctions. The tea shop was a success, and Karkare was able to expand it into a cheap hotel and referred it as a ‘lodging and boarding house'. The hotel, too, did well, and Karkare erected his own building to house it. He married, and employed servants to work in his hotel The Deccan Guest House. Prosperity was at his home.
Relief work during partition
During the partition of India and Pakistan a huge hindu muslium tragedy had occurred at Noakhali. So on the day of the "BhaubeejBhaubeej
The festival of Bhau-beej or Bhai Dooj or Bhai Phota is celebrated by Hindus on the on the last day of the five-day-long Diwali festival. This is the second day of the bright fortnight or Shukla Paksha of the Hindu month of Kartika...
" or the Hindu festival of Brothers' day in Marathi on which it is customary for brothers to give presents to their sisters, he called upon the public of Ahmednagar to come to his shop and donate whatever they could for their sisters' in Noakhali. By the end of the day he had collected more than Rs. 3000. He and six Mahasabha workers went off to Noakhali. They wore typically Hindu turbans and dhotis and conspicuous caste-marks daubed on their forehead. Knowing that they were likely to be singled out for attacks, under their shirts they wore chain-mail jackets which they had bought from a man in Poona whom Karkare knew, Digambar Badge. Once in Noakhali, they travelled from village to village, and at places opened up relief centers in the name of ‘Veer Savarkar'.
One of Karkare's associates, Ghanashyam Gilda, borrowed a few lorries from haulage contractors to bring the refugees into town and even managed to find some tin shelters for them. And Karkare took the responsibility to give refugees free meals in his hotel. After a few days, Karkare even managed to borrow some tents from the army and had them set up. For nearly a month, till the Visapur refugee camp was established, Karkare must have given between 30,000 and 35,000 free meals.
After returning from Noakhali, he continued to visiting Poona at least once in every week and ran his Deccan Guest House as well as the Hindu Mahasabha office in Ahmednagar. But routine work no longer interested him or kept him occupied. By then the riots had broken out in the Punjab. During this time his contacts with Narayan Apte
Narayan Apte
Narayan Dattatraya Apte was a Hindu activist and enterpreneur who was executed for his role in the assassination of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi....
and Nathuram Godse
Nathuram Godse
Nathuram Vinayak Godse , from the city of Pune, India was a Hindutva activist and journalist, who was the assassin of Mahatma Gandhi. Along with his brother Gopal Godse and six other co-conspirators, he executed a plot to assassinate Gandhi.-Early life:Nathuram Godse was born in Baramati, Pune...
became even more closer. It was at this lodge where Madanlal Pahwa
Madanlal Pahwa
Madanlal Pahwa came to India in 1947 as a refugee after the partition of India. The plight of refugees intensified his anger against Mahatma Gandhi and other Congress leaders...
arrived asking for shelter to hide, after he had thrown a bomb disrupting a Muslim procession in the post-partition riots in the town. Karkare and Pahwa then became friends where Karkare introduced Pahwa to his other revolutionary colleagues in Poona.
Vishnu Ramkrishna Karkare was arrested in Bombay on14 February 1948 for his involvement in the attempt to assassinate Mahatma Gandhi. He was present at the Birla House
Birla House
Gandhi Smriti formerly known as Birla House or Birla Bhavan, is a museum dedicated to Mahatma Gandhi, situated on Tees January Road, in New Delhi, India. It is the location where Mahatma Gandhi spent the last 144 days of his life and was assassinated on January 30, 1948. It was originally the house...
when the bomb exploded on January 20, 1948. After completing his term in the prison he was released on 13 October 1964. He continued his business at Ahmednagar until he died from a heart attack on April 6, 1974.
List of accused
List of people accused in the attempt and assassination of Mahatma Gandhi- Nathuram Vinayak GodseNathuram GodseNathuram Vinayak Godse , from the city of Pune, India was a Hindutva activist and journalist, who was the assassin of Mahatma Gandhi. Along with his brother Gopal Godse and six other co-conspirators, he executed a plot to assassinate Gandhi.-Early life:Nathuram Godse was born in Baramati, Pune...
- Narayan Dattatraya ApteNarayan ApteNarayan Dattatraya Apte was a Hindu activist and enterpreneur who was executed for his role in the assassination of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi....
- Vishnu Ramkrishna Karkare
- Madanlal Kashmirilal PahwaMadanlal PahwaMadanlal Pahwa came to India in 1947 as a refugee after the partition of India. The plight of refugees intensified his anger against Mahatma Gandhi and other Congress leaders...
- Shankar KistaiyaShankar KistaiyaShankar Kistaiya was an accused in the Mahatama's Gandhi's assassination case. He was sentenced to life imprisonment but was acquitted by the high court.-Early life:...
- Gopal Vinayak GodseGopal GodseGopal Vinayak Godse , was the brother of Nathuram Godse and one of the conspirators in the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi on January 30, 1948. He was the last one to survive and lived his last days in Pune, Maharashtra, India....
- Digambar Ramchandra Badge
- Vinayak Damodar SavarkarVinayak Damodar SavarkarVināyak Dāmodar Sāvarkar was an Indian freedom fighter, revolutionary and politician. He was the proponent of liberty as the ultimate ideal. Savarkar was a poet, writer and playwright...
- Dattatraya Sadashiv Parchure
- Gangadhar Dandavate
- Gangadhar Jadhao
- Suryadeo Sharma
See also
- Noakhali genocide
- Assassination of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi