Among the towering political figures who shaped the national identities of the Indian subcontinent, Mahatma Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman occupy distinctive places. Their political visions were markedly different, as were the circumstances surrounding their deaths. Gandhi and Bangabandhu were assassinated by gunmen, while Jinnah, the founder and first Governor-General of Pakistan, died from illness. Yet his final hours were marked by physical suffering, loneliness and a deeply distressing failure of arrangements.
Gandhi was assassinated in New Delhi on 30 January 1948 by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu nationalist who opposed Gandhi’s approach to communal reconciliation. His death came only months after the Partition of British India had created India and Pakistan amid widespread communal violence, mass displacement and enormous human suffering.
Gandhi had consistently advocated the protection of Muslims in India and worked tirelessly to restore communal harmony. His position on the release of 550 million rupees owed to Pakistan by India also became a source of intense controversy. In January 1948, he undertook a fast in Delhi, pressing for measures to end communal violence and for India to honour its financial obligations to Pakistan. Godse considered Gandhi’s policies excessively conciliatory towards Muslims. On the evening of 30 January, he approached Gandhi during a prayer meeting and shot him at close range.
Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman met an equally violent end, although in a very different political setting. On 15 August 1975, a group of army officers staged a coup in Bangladesh and assassinated Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and most members of his family at his residence in Dhaka. The country had been facing severe political and economic difficulties since independence in 1971. The government was under growing criticism over shortages, administrative failures, political instability and the increasingly authoritarian character of the political system.
The assassination therefore occurred amid a period of profound national crisis. Unlike Gandhi’s death, which came in the turbulent aftermath of Partition, and Jinnah’s death, which resulted from illness, Bangabandhu’s murder was directly connected to a violent political overthrow of the government of an independent state.
Jinnah’s final days followed a different and deeply poignant course. He had been suffering from serious health problems for some time, and by July 1948 his condition had deteriorated considerably. He was staying at Ziarat, a hill resort in Balochistan, where the cooler climate was considered beneficial to his health. As his condition worsened, he was subsequently moved to Quetta.
In early September, Jinnah developed pneumonia, further weakening an already fragile constitution. His doctors became increasingly concerned about his condition. On 11 September, he decided to return to Karachi.
The journey back to the capital was to be his last.
Jinnah arrived in Karachi aboard a Viking aircraft on the afternoon of 11 September 1948. His arrival was reportedly kept discreet, with the Governor-General’s insignia on the aircraft concealed. The absence of senior officials at the airport added to the poignancy of the scene. Even Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan was not present to receive him.
Jinnah was carried from the aircraft on a stretcher. He was extremely weak and, according to accounts of the journey, raised his hand over his eyes to shield them from the glare of the sun. He was then placed in a military ambulance.
What happened next became one of the most painful episodes associated with the final hours of Pakistan’s founding leader.
The ambulance broke down some distance from the airport. Jinnah, gravely ill and physically exhausted, was left waiting while arrangements were made for another vehicle. The scene was made even more distressing by the heat and surrounding conditions. Flies reportedly gathered around his face, while a nurse, identified in accounts as Sister Dunham, tried to keep them away.
After a considerable delay, another ambulance arrived. Jinnah was eventually taken to Government House, where he died at about 10.30 pm on 11 September 1948, just over a year after Pakistan came into existence.
His death was natural, but the circumstances of his final journey have remained a striking reminder of how vulnerable even the most powerful political figures can become when confronted by illness and institutional shortcomings.
The contrasting deaths of Gandhi, Jinnah and Bangabandhu also invite a broader examination of the national identities that emerged from the political upheavals of the subcontinent.
Indian nationalism developed through a complex combination of territory, political history, anti-colonial struggle and a remarkably diverse cultural landscape. The creation of Pakistan, meanwhile, was rooted principally in the political demand that Muslims of the subcontinent constituted a distinct nation whose interests required a separate state. Religion consequently became a central element of Pakistani national identity, alongside territory and political history.
The emergence of Bangladeshi nationalism followed a substantially different trajectory. Language and culture were central to the development of Bengali political consciousness. The Language Movement of 1952 demonstrated the strength of that sentiment, while subsequent struggles for political autonomy and economic rights increasingly transformed cultural identity into a powerful political force.
The Six-Point Movement, the mass uprising of 1969 and the Liberation War of 1971 all formed part of that longer evolution. At the centre of the process stood the demand that Bengalis should have greater control over their political and economic destiny.
This is one reason why the deaths of the three leaders cannot simply be placed within a single historical framework. Gandhi represented a vision of a plural and religiously diverse India, even though his political choices generated fierce opposition. Jinnah became the principal architect of a separate Muslim homeland and played the decisive political role in the creation of Pakistan. Bangabandhu, meanwhile, became the central figure in the political movement that transformed Bengali nationalism into an independent state.
Language occupies a particularly powerful position in this history. A person may move from one place to another, emigrate to another country or even change religious affiliation. Language, however, is often far more deeply embedded in personal and collective identity.
The experience of Michael Madhusudan Dutt illustrates this point in literary terms. Although he converted to Christianity and was profoundly influenced by English literature, he ultimately produced one of the defining works of nineteenth-century Bengali literature, Meghnad Badh Kavya, in Bengali. His example reflects the complex relationship between language, culture and identity.
For that reason, Bengali nationalism cannot be understood solely through geography or religion. Its development was closely tied to a shared language, cultural memory and historical experience. That linguistic consciousness helped bridge social divisions and provided a common framework through which people from different backgrounds could identify themselves as part of a larger political community.
The three deaths therefore stand as more than three separate tragedies. Gandhi was killed by an assassin at a moment when the wounds of Partition were still fresh. Jinnah died from illness after seeing the state he had fought to establish become a reality, but his final journey was marked by painful isolation. Bangabandhu was murdered in a violent political upheaval only four years after leading Bangladesh to independence.
Their legacies remain contested, complex and historically distinct. Yet their lives demonstrate how profoundly individuals can influence the formation of national identities. Their deaths, each in its own way, reveal the enormous human cost that can accompany the birth, consolidation and political transformation of states in South Asia.
