Gopal Godse

Gopal Godse
A group photo of people accused in the Mahatma Gandhi's murder case. Standing: Shankar Kistaiya, Gopal Godse, Madanlal Pahwa, Digambar Badge (Approver). Sitting: Narayan Apte, Vinayak D. Savarkar, Nathuram Godse, Vishnu Karkare
Born	(1919-06-12)12 June 1919 Rajgurunagar, Pune district, Bombay Presidency, British India (now in Maharashtra, India)
Died	26 November 2005(2005-11-26) (aged 86) Pune, Maharashtra, India
Known for	One of the conspirators in the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi.

Gopal Vinayak Godse (Marathi: गोपाळ विनायक गोडसे; c. 12 June 1919 – 26 November 2005) was the younger brother of Nathuram Godse and one of the conspirators in the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi on 30 January 1948. He was the last among them to survive and lived his last days in Pune.

Gopal-rao Godse was born in Khed (now Rajgurunagar) in Pune district. He was the third among the four sons of Gopal Godse and Lakshmi who survived infancy. Nathuram was his eldest living brother. His primary education began at Karjat in Raigad District, and continued at Ratnagiri. After his father retired, his family settled at Sangli, and he passed the matriculation exam.

He worked as a volunteer for Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Simultaneously, he worked for the Hindu Mahasabha as well, but without enrolling as a member.

He joined Armed Forces (Indian Army Ordnance Corps) as storekeeper in 1940. When the World War II broke out, he opted for service on the front, and served in Iraq and Iran till year April 1944. After he returned, he was posted at Khadki and got married to Sindhu. They had two daughters, Vidyullata and Asilata. After Gopal was arrested in 1948, Sindhu-tai Godse supported her daughters by working in Gopal's elder brother Dattatraya's workshop called 'Udyam Engineering'. Later she set up a separate home and also started a small workshop of her own named 'Pratap Engineering'. Sindhutai Godse died in 2007, two years after Gopal Godse's death.

At the time of Gopal Godse's death in 2005, his daughter Himani Savarkar (née Asilata Godse) led a Hindu outfit from Pune. She died in 2015 after a long illness.

Godse's brother, Nathuram, shot Mahatma Gandhi and was executed by hanging with co-conspirator Narayan Apte on 15 November 1949. Gopal was arrested on 5 February from his house in Pune and was sentenced to 18 years for his part in the assassination. The three men believed that Gandhi had turned his back on the Indian independence movement, and that his actions led to the Partition of India which in turn led to the inflammation of sectarian strife between Pakistan's Muslims and India's Hindus. In an interview with Rediff.com in 1998, he reiterated that he never regretted Gandhi's killing. He hated what he called Gandhi's "appeasement" of Muslims.