New book claiming fresh evidence around the Mahatma's assasination to be launched on October 1

A new book based on previously unseen intelligence reports and police records of Mahatma Gandhi's assassination will release on October 1, publisher HarperCollins India announced on Wednesday.

Written by investigative journalist Appu Esthose Suresh and Gates Cambridge scholar Priyanka Kotamraju, "The Murderer, the Monarch and the Fakir" recreates the circumstances of Gandhi's murder, the events leading up to it and the investigation afterwards.

Relying on investigative journalism and new evidence set in an academic framework, the book examines the potential role of "princely states, hypermasculinity and a militant right-wing in the context of a nation that had just won her independence".

Talking about the book, the author duo said that it presents new evidence that goes against popular narrative. "Arguably modern India's biggest political development, the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi finds a desultory mention in our history textbooks. This holds relevance today as in recent years, we have become preoccupied with either vigorously opposing or enthusiastically supporting the rehabilitation of central figures of the conspiracy, whereas our real aim should be the rehabilitation, critically and empathetically, of Gandhian thought," they said.

They added that the book is an attempt to understand the political assassination in the context of new evidence to unpack its significance for our present and future. Mahatma Gandhi's assassination was a cataclysmic event for a newly independent nation, the resonances of which remain till today.

"At a time when India is celebrating her seventy-fifth year of independence, it is imperative that we try and uncover more of the truth behind the murder of one of the country's foremost founding fathers," Swati Chopra, executive editor, HarperCollins India, said.