New Delhi — January 1948
Winter had sharpened Delhi.
The air cut cleaner now, thinner, carrying less dust and more rumor. The refugee camps still existed, but the nation had begun pretending they were temporary—an optimism that policy papers encouraged and reality rejected.
India looked calmer.
That frightened me.
The file reached my desk just before noon.
Thin. Too thin.
No red stamp. No urgent marking. Just a note clipped to the front in a familiar bureaucratic hand:
"Fragmented intelligence. Unverified."
I had learned, in another life, to fear those words.
The report itself was cautious to the point of cowardice.
Scattered threats.Uncoordinated chatter.Individuals expressing hostility toward Gandhi for his stance on communal harmony and Pakistan.
No organization named.No concrete plan.No dates.
In short—nothing actionable.
The kind of intelligence that never survives archives.
I leaned back in my chair, Nehru's body responding with a practiced stillness that my mind lacked.
I knew this moment.
Not this report—this pattern.
Warnings that came too early to justify action, too late to prevent tragedy.
The historian in me screamed.
The Prime Minister in me hesitated.
I summoned the Home Secretary.
He arrived promptly, carrying the look of a man who understood risk but lived inside procedure.
"These are not new sentiments," he said after reviewing the file. "Gandhiji has enemies on all sides."
"I know," I replied. "That's why this matters."
"We can increase police presence," he offered. "Discreetly."
"Discreet doesn't stop bullets," I said before I could soften it.
He stiffened.
"There is no evidence of an imminent attempt."
There it was.
The sentence that would echo for decades.
Later that afternoon, Patel joined me.
He read the report in silence, jaw tightening slightly with each line.
"This is thin," he said finally.
"Yes."
"And yet you're worried."
"Yes."
He studied me.
"You've been worried since August."
I did not deny it.
"You want more protection for him," Patel said.
"I want him safe."
Patel exhaled slowly.
"Jawahar," he said, "Gandhi refuses security. You know this."
"I also know," I replied, "that refusal doesn't absolve the state."
"He will not cooperate."
"Then we try anyway."
Patel's eyes hardened—not against me, but against inevitability.
"Force him?" he asked.
The question landed heavier than it should have.
I saw it then—the trap.
Protect Gandhi aggressively, and risk turning him into a prisoner of the very state he challenged.
Do nothing, and history would call it negligence.
That evening, I went to see him.
Again.
Birla House was quieter now. Fewer visitors. Less ceremony. More tension in the air.
He was seated exactly as before, spinning wheel humming softly.
"You look troubled," he said.
"I am," I replied.
"You always are these days."
"Because people want you dead," I said plainly.
He did not stop spinning.
"That is not new."
"The threats are increasing."
"So is hatred," he said calmly. "It always does when fear loses its patience."
I sat opposite him.
"I want more protection around you," I said. "Guards. Distance from crowds."
He smiled faintly.
"You want me to stop walking among people," he said. "Because someone among them might kill me."
"Yes."
"And if I do," he asked gently, "what lesson does that teach India?"
I clenched my hands.
"That moral courage ends where danger begins."
He nodded, accepting the answer.
"And is that a lesson you wish to teach at the birth of a nation?"
The historian in me wanted to shout.
To explain consequences.To name dates.To scream that this was not philosophy—it was trajectory.
But history had taught me something else too.
Men like Gandhi were not persuaded by fear of death.
They were propelled by it.
"I will increase security discreetly," I said finally. "Without changing your routine."
"That sounds like deception," he replied mildly.
"That sounds like governance," I said.
He laughed softly.
"Be careful, Jawahar," he said. "You are learning the habits of rulers."
"And you," I replied, "refuse to learn the limits of martyrdom."
The smile faded.
For a moment—just a moment—I thought I saw doubt.
Then it passed.
Three days later, another note arrived.
Even thinner than the first.
Another unverified mention. Another name dismissed as unstable. Another reason to wait.
I signed the orders for additional police presence anyway.
Not enough.
Never enough.
On the morning of 30 January 1948, I woke with a weight in my chest that had nothing to do with Nehru's age.
The date sat in my mind like a loaded weapon.
I told myself I was being dramatic.
Historians were trained to see patterns—even where none existed.
Still, I canceled my morning meetings.
I waited.
History would later say the signs were missed.
That security failed.
That fate intervened.
Sitting alone in my study, watching the clock inch forward, I knew the truth was uglier.
The signs had been seen.
They had simply not been enough.
And as the minutes passed, I realized something with devastating clarity:
Knowing the future does not grant the power to stop it.
It only makes you arrive at the moment of impact fully awake.