The Death and Afterlife of Mahatma Gandhi is a ground-breaking and profound analysis of the assassination of the "father of the nation" and its after-effects. Paranjape argues that such a catastrophic event during the very birth pangs of a new nation placed a huge burden of Oedipal guilt on India, and that this is the reason for the massive repression of the murder in India's political psyche. The enduring influence of Gandhi is analysed, including the spectral presence of his portrayal in Indian cinema. The book culminates in Paranjape's reading of Gandhi's last six months in Delhi, where from the very edge of the grave he wrought what was perhaps his greatest miracle, the saving of Delhi and thus of India itself from internecine bloodshed.

Makarand R. Paranjape is Professor of English at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Among his latest monographs is Making India: Colonialism, National Culture, and the Afterlife of Indian English Authority (2012) and Altered Destinations: Self, Society, and Nation in India (2010). His previous work on Gandhi includes Decolonization and Development: Hind Svaraj Revisioned (1993).

Part One

Birth Traumas of the Nation

I: Who Killed Gandhi?

II: The Event

III: The Post-Mortem

IV: The Memorialization

V: The Repression

VI: The Unbearability of Patricide

VII: Oedipus in India

VIII: The Pollution

XIX: The Haunting

X: The Guilt

XI: The Modernity of Patricide

XII: The Mahatma's Endgame

XIII: Gandhism vs. Gandhigiri: The Life and Afterlife of the Mahatma

XIV: Beyond the Monument: Remembering the Mahatma

XV: Gandhi and Anti-Oedipus

Part Two

'My Death is My Message': Mahatma, the Last 133 Days

I: Arrival in Delhi

II: 'Do or Die': An Old Formula in the Capital of New India

III: The Final Yajna

IV: Partitioning Women

V: Gandhi at an RSS Rally

VI: Saving India

VII: Ahimsa: 'Softer than a flower and harder than a stone?'

VIII: Hindu-Muslim Amity

IX: The Art of Dying