Man with a Knife

"My life has been spent in crowds," said Jawaharlal Nehru last month, "and I feel isolated if bodyguards come in the way between me and the people." In the central Indian city of Nagpur last week, a man with a knife came out of a crowd, and for ten seconds there was nothing between Jawaharlal Nehru and death.

"I know most about the incident," said Nehru afterwards, "because I was standing in an open car and therefore commanded a good view. At a turning, a bicycle ricksha was suddenly pushed at the car. I saw the man who pushed the ricksha coming towards the car. I was annoyed at his pushing in this manner, and thought that he probably wanted to hand me a petition . . . The man . . . proceeded on to the running board."

At this point, an alert police superintendent grappled with the stranger, a wiry man in a bright green shirt and red shorts. The superintendent wrenched a rusty, four-inch clasp knife out of his hand, threw him to the ground and whisked him off to the police station before the angry crowd could get at him. Nehru, cool as ice, barely stopped smiling at the crowd and pressing his palms together in the traditional Hindu greeting. "You don't want to take risks?" he told his agitated followers. "Then don't take them." Nehru thought that the would-be assassin, a 33-year-old Hindu ricksha boy called Babu Rao Laxman Kohale, was simply "a cranky person."

For all Nehru's nonchalance, however, his ministers were disturbed. "We had a warning before Gandhi was assassinated," said a senior police official. "We did not take it seriously. We cannot risk it again."

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