Mahatma Gandhi (1948)

Nathuram Godse's assassination of Mahatma Gandhi on 30 January 1948 removed the sole figure capable of restraining the communal violence that had killed over 1 million people during Partition. Gandhi's death shocked the world and temporarily suppressed Hindu nationalist extremism in India — yet the ideology that produced his killer has now governed the nation for over 15 years, a resurgence that makes this assassination more prescient than #8 Lumumba's in long-term political impact.