Place · Gandhi cremation memorial · India
Rajghat, New Delhi
Also known as Gandhi's cremation memorial, New Delhi, Rajghat, Raj Ghat, Gandhi Samadhi, Raj Ghat, Delhi
The Rajghat memorial on the Yamuna in Delhi — the black-marble platform marking Mahatma Gandhi's cremation site. Gandhi was cremated here on 31 January 1948, the day after his assassination at Birla House. The simple black marble platform with the inscription 'He Ram' (Gandhi's last words) was designed by Vanu G. Bhuta and built in 1951. The surrounding 44-hectare park was landscaped by B.B. Chowdhury. The eternal flame at the memorial burns continuously since 1951. The adjacent samadhi complex includes the memorials of Jawaharlal Nehru (Shantivan, 1964), Lal Bahadur Shastri (Vijay Ghat, 1966), Indira Gandhi (Shakti Sthal, 1984), Rajiv Gandhi (Vir Bhumi, 1991), Charan Singh (Kisan Ghat, 1987), Giani Zail Singh (Ekta Sthal, 1994) and other Indian national leaders — making Rajghat the primary national memorial complex of modern India. Visiting Rajghat is a traditional protocol for foreign heads of state.
- Date
- 1948–None
- Function
- Burial and funerary
- Patron dynasty
- Indian Union
- Tradition
- Standard reference; INTACH, ASI and municipal records; institutional histories.
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 28.642, 77.249
Connections (3)
- Same eventGandhi Smriti, New Delhi
Gandhi was shot at Birla House on the evening of 30 January 1948 on his way to the prayer meeting, and cremated the next day at Rajghat before a crowd estimated at a million. The two sites are three kilometres apart. He had been fasting a fortnight earlier to stop the communal killing in Delhi and to force the payment of Pakistan's share of the treasury, which is part of why Godse shot him.
- Site withinDelhi
Rajghat, New Delhi sits inside Delhi and forms one piece of its layered sacred, royal or civic landscape. The city carries this entry as one of the sites that make its urban fabric legible — a shrine, monument, institution or craft tradition specifically anchored at this location — and the city's broader history reads better when the stop is seen in its context rather than in isolation. The surrounding streets, markets and other heritage ensembles around it belong to the same single city.
- Samadhi atMohandās Karamchand Gandhi
Gandhi was shot by Nathuram Godse at Birla House on the evening of 30 January 1948 and cremated the next afternoon on a sandalwood pyre on the west bank of the Yamuna at the spot now marked by the black marble platform at Rajghat. His last words, hē rām, are inscribed at one end. Lord Mountbatten walked at the head of the funeral procession; two million people lined the five-mile route from Birla House.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Rajghat”. Archaeological Survey of India and State Archaeology monument records, and the standard regional literature.
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