Those were the days: When Madras mourned the loss of Mahatma

Mohandas Gandhi was assassinated at 5.17 pm on January 30, 1948. Most Madras citizens heard it on the community radios set up in the parks of Chennai (a private radio set was still a luxury then). Madras relapsed into silence. A sense of pathos spread and the city spent a sleepless night as news spread word of mouth.

In a notification published by Fort St. George Gazette, extraordinary mourning was announced by the government for 13 days. The tricolour in the Fort and the High Court were lowered to a half-mast early next morning.

The Mountbatten’s had been in Madras for over three days and the Governor General had left only that fateful morning. Lady Edwina Mountbatten had numerous events scheduled for the 31st but cancelled them and left by her private aeroplane to Delhi.

The city was shut down in a hartal on January 31 coinciding with the funeral. The usually crowded Mount Road looked absolutely deserted. The railways decided that trains will not move between 10 am and 5 pm and stranded passengers settled down in stations with worried faces till the scheduled departure of 6 pm. Incoming trains were stopped in the nearest station as well.

In genuine grief there was a spate of cancellations of programmes. The flower show at the Agri Horticultural Society and a veterinary conference were cancelled in the city. Many wedding receptions including one in the family of the Advocate General were called off with newspaper advertisements announcing the cancellation.

The Thyagaraja Aradhana in Thiruvaiyaru was cancelled halfway and musicians were unable to wend their way back home. In the following week, though many theatres cancelled the shows, some like the Midland (where Gandhi met students once) were showing Gone With The Wind.

Shops lowered their shutters and when a country liquor shop was kept open presumably for people to drown their sorrows in Washermanpet, Congress volunteers thronged the site and convinced the management to close it down. Mobile patrols were on rounds, but still, trams were damaged by stone pelting near Stanley Medical College.

Politicians and people went on fasting or charkha spinning. Thakkar Baba Vidyalaya in T Nagar had a non-stop spinning day. Kothamangalam Subbu and MS Subbulakshmi sang at the end of the function on the day of the funeral. When news of cremation reached them, thousands of people took their bath in the sea. Mylapore Beach had the largest crowd of over 10,000 people. Chief Minister Ramaswami Reddiar bathed in the Triplicane Beach near the Parthasarathy Temple.

The RSS announced the suspension of all its activities. V Rajagopalachari, Advocate and the President of Madras Province, RSS made the announcement. But on February 4 the state governments all over India banned RSS and Madras complied with it in the Presidency. Searches were made under the Criminal Law Amendment Act in the RSS office, 4, Chitrakula Street, Mylapore. Searches were also done at the houses of its leaders and 12 were arrested. Bundles of literature and lathis were seized. A final year medical student, a teacher, a tailor and surprisingly a butcher called Appadurai were arrested.

Governor Archibald Nye, who was returning from Delhi on February 6, brought an urn of ashes which the provincial ministers took charge of in the airport. The urn containing the ashes was placed in banqueting hall for people to see. February 12 was declared a holiday for people to attend immersion ceremonies.

Dr RM Alagappa Chettiar, who had flown to Delhi to witness the funeral, spoke about it at an event held at Lady MCTM School. Soon enough, films of the cremation were shown in theatres.

On February 12 in a procession from the banquet hall, the ashes were taken to the beach opposite the IG office and immersed in the sea by the Chief Minister. Four trains left from Madras with separate saloons taking a portion of the ashes to Srirangam, Rameshwaram, Cape Comorin and Bezwada. They stopped at every station and thousands viewed the urns.

The Town Planning and Improvement Standing Committee of the Corporation passed a resolution to rename Madras as Gandhipattinam and resolved to request the Mayor to place it before the council at its next meeting. However, as their grief lowered, there seems to be no follow up on the renaming.