All India Radio, New Delhi — Night of 30 January 1948
The studio smelled of dust and old cables.
It was too small for what was about to pass through it.
A single microphone stood at the center of the room—black, unremarkable, indifferent. The kind of object history loved because it survived when people didn't.
I sat down slowly.
The chair creaked.
Someone adjusted the levels. Someone else whispered that we were live in thirty seconds.
I nodded.
I had spoken to the nation before.
Never like this.
The script lay in front of me.
Three paragraphs. Carefully drafted. Neutral. Controlled.
A historian could already imagine how it would read in textbooks.
Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru announced the death of Mahatma Gandhi…
I pushed the paper aside.
This was not a moment for archives.
The red light blinked on.
For a heartbeat, there was nothing.
Then I spoke.
"Friends and comrades…"
The words caught.
I hadn't expected that.
I tried again.
"Friends and comrades, the light has gone out of our lives…"
The sentence landed heavier than it ever had on paper.
"And there is darkness everywhere."
I paused.
Not for effect.
Because my chest refused to move.
"My beloved Bapu," I continued, voice lower now, slower, "has been taken from us."
The room was silent except for the faint hum of electricity.
"He was the father of our nation."
That word—father—opened something I had been holding shut since the gunshots.
"And we, his children, are lost."
I swallowed.
Not because of tears.
Because of anger.
"The light that shone in this country was no ordinary light," I said. "It illuminated this land for many years and will continue to illuminate it for many years to come."
I knew this line.
I had read it in anthologies.
Now it felt like a promise I was not sure I could keep.
"He showed us the way to live."
A pause.
"And he showed us how to die."
That sentence was not in the script.
It came from somewhere older than scholarship.
There was a long silence.
Someone shifted behind the glass.
I did not acknowledge it.
I imagined people listening across the country—in homes that still smelled of smoke,in camps lit by oil lamps,in trains that had not stopped moving since August.
They were waiting for strength.
I had none to spare.
So I gave them honesty instead.
"We may never see his like again," I said quietly.
"And perhaps that is the price we pay for having seen him at all."
My hands were trembling now.
I did not hide it.
"To the youth of India," I said, lifting my gaze toward nothing in particular, "I say this—do not answer this loss with hatred."
The word tasted bitter.
"Hatred is easy. It feels powerful. It feels righteous."
I exhaled.
"It is also lazy."
"He spent his life fighting without violence," I continued. "If we abandon that now—if we decide his ideals were too fragile to survive—then we will have killed him a second time."
The room felt smaller.
Or perhaps I did.
The final words came slower.
Almost unwillingly.
"The task before us is harder now."
Not comforting.
Not inspiring.
Just true.
"But if we fail it—if we turn away from the path he walked—then this freedom we celebrated will become something unrecognizable."
I leaned closer to the microphone.
"And that," I said softly, "would be the real tragedy."
The red light went dark.
No applause.
No relief.
Just a hollow quiet that followed me as I stood.
Someone offered me the script again.
I did not take it.
Later that night, back at my residence, I stood alone on the balcony.
Delhi was unnaturally quiet.
No slogans.
No celebration.
Just a city holding its breath.
I knew what would happen next.
Arrests.Investigations.Anger looking for shape.
And beneath it all—a question no broadcast could answer.
Had India lost its conscience?
Or had it just handed it to someone unready to carry it alone?
I rested my hands on the railing.
For the first time since waking in this body, I did not think like a historian.
I did not think about legacy.
Or judgment.
Or interpretation.
I thought only this:
From tonight onward, every decision would be made in the absence of the one man who could shame us into choosing better.
And that absence—
that was the real inheritance