This month we mark the 67th anniversary of Nathuram Godse's murder of India's most famous figure. Why did Godse kill Gandhi?
After Nathuram was arrested, he spotted Gandhi's son, Devdas, who was editor of the Hindustan Times. The encounter was described by Nathuram's brother, Gopal Godse, a co-conspirator and fellow convict – although he was only jailed and not hanged – in his book, Gandhiji's Murder And After. The younger Gandhi had come to the police station on Parliament Street to see his father's killer. Gopal Godse writes that Devdas "had perhaps come there expecting to find some horrid-looking, blood-thirsty monster, without a trace of politeness; Nathuram's gentle and clear words and his self-composure were quite inconsistent with what he had expected to see."
Of course, we do not know if this was the case. Nathuram told Devdas, "I am Nathuram Vinayak Godse, the editor of a daily, Hindu Rashtra. I, too, was present there [at Gandhi's murder]. Today, you have lost your father and I am the cause of that tragedy. I am very much grieved at the bereavement that has befallen you and the rest of your family. Kindly believe me, I was not prompted to do this with any personal hatred, or any grudge or any evil intention towards you."
"Then why did you do it?" Devdas asked.
"The reason is purely political and political alone!" Nathuram replied. He asked for time to explain his case but the police did not allow this. In court, Nathuram explained himself in a statement, but the court banned it. Gopal Godse reprinted Nathuran's will in an annexure to his book. The last line reads: "If and when the government lifts the ban on my statement made in the court, I authorise you to publish it."
Final judge
What is in that statement? In it Godse says that he respects Gandhi. "Above all, I studied very closely whatever Veer Savarkar and Gandhiji had written and spoken, as to my mind these two ideologies have contributed more to the moulding of the thought and action of the Indian people during the last thirty years or so, than any other single factor has done," he writes.
"The accumulating provocation of thirty-two years, culminating in his last pro-Muslim fast, at last goaded me to the conclusion that the existence of Gandhi should be brought to an end immediately," he continues. "Gandhi had done very well in South Africa to uphold the rights and well-being of the Indian community there. But when he finally returned to India, he developed a subjective mentality under which he alone was to be the final judge of what was right or wrong. If the country wanted his leadership, it had to accept his infallibility; if it did not, he would stand aloof from the Congress and carry on his own way."
This led Nathuram to think of taking action against Gandhi because, in his view, "against such an attitude there can be no halfway house. Either Congress had to surrender its will to his and had to be content with playing second fiddle to all his eccentricity, whimsicality, metaphysics and primitive vision, or it had to carry on without him".
Godse contends that Gandhi helped create Pakistan: "When top leaders of Congress, with the consent of Gandhi, divided and tore the country – which we consider a deity of worship – my mind was filled with direful anger. I bear no ill will towards anyone individually but I do say that I had no respect for the present government owing to their policy which was unfairly favourable towards the Muslims. But at the same time, I could clearly see that the policy was entirely due to the presence of Gandhi."
Logical incongruence
The problem with Godse's argument is that he thinks Gandhi was enthusiastic about dividing India when everything in history tells us the opposite was true. He says Gandhi was a tyrant in the Congress but also says Gandhi fasted to get the Congress to see his point of view. Why would a tyrant need to do anything other than just command? Nathuram objects to Gandhi's final fast, against India's refusal to release funds to Pakistan, but that was after India went back on its promise. It was Gandhi who made India act correctly and decently in that instance.
Little of what Nathuram says makes logical sense. It is, contrary to his statement to Devdas, not politics that shaped his actions. It was his hatred of the secular ideology of Gandhi, the true Hindu spirit, having been brainwashed thoroughly by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
No action or teaching of Gandhi is exceptionable, which is why his global reputation as a politician has survived the decades intact.
Writing on Gandhi in 1949, George Orwell said: "One may feel, as I do, a sort of aesthetic distaste for Gandhi, one may reject the claims of sainthood made on his behalf (he never made any such claim himself, by the way), one may also reject sainthood as an ideal and therefore feel that Gandhi's basic aims were anti-human and reactionary: but regarded simply as a politician, and compared with the other leading political figures of our time, how clean a smell he has managed to leave behind!"
This is still the case in 2015, while Nathuram Godse's complaints have vanished into the mists of time.
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After Nathuram was arrested, he spotted Gandhi's son, Devdas, who was editor of the Hindustan Times. The encounter was described by Nathuram's brother, Gopal Godse, a co-conspirator and fellow convict – although he was only jailed and not hanged – in his book, Gandhiji's Murder And After. The younger Gandhi had come to the police station on Parliament Street to see his father's killer. Gopal Godse writes that Devdas "had perhaps come there expecting to find some horrid-looking, blood-thirsty monster, without a trace of politeness; Nathuram's gentle and clear words and his self-composure were quite inconsistent with what he had expected to see."
Of course, we do not know if this was the case. Nathuram told Devdas, "I am Nathuram Vinayak Godse, the editor of a daily, Hindu Rashtra. I, too, was present there [at Gandhi's murder]. Today, you have lost your father and I am the cause of that tragedy. I am very much grieved at the bereavement that has befallen you and the rest of your family. Kindly believe me, I was not prompted to do this with any personal hatred, or any grudge or any evil intention towards you."
"Then why did you do it?" Devdas asked.
"The reason is purely political and political alone!" Nathuram replied. He asked for time to explain his case but the police did not allow this. In court, Nathuram explained himself in a statement, but the court banned it. Gopal Godse reprinted Nathuran's will in an annexure to his book. The last line reads: "If and when the government lifts the ban on my statement made in the court, I authorise you to publish it."
Final judge
What is in that statement? In it Godse says that he respects Gandhi. "Above all, I studied very closely whatever Veer Savarkar and Gandhiji had written and spoken, as to my mind these two ideologies have contributed more to the moulding of the thought and action of the Indian people during the last thirty years or so, than any other single factor has done," he writes.
"The accumulating provocation of thirty-two years, culminating in his last pro-Muslim fast, at last goaded me to the conclusion that the existence of Gandhi should be brought to an end immediately," he continues. "Gandhi had done very well in South Africa to uphold the rights and well-being of the Indian community there. But when he finally returned to India, he developed a subjective mentality under which he alone was to be the final judge of what was right or wrong. If the country wanted his leadership, it had to accept his infallibility; if it did not, he would stand aloof from the Congress and carry on his own way."
This led Nathuram to think of taking action against Gandhi because, in his view, "against such an attitude there can be no halfway house. Either Congress had to surrender its will to his and had to be content with playing second fiddle to all his eccentricity, whimsicality, metaphysics and primitive vision, or it had to carry on without him".
Godse contends that Gandhi helped create Pakistan: "When top leaders of Congress, with the consent of Gandhi, divided and tore the country – which we consider a deity of worship – my mind was filled with direful anger. I bear no ill will towards anyone individually but I do say that I had no respect for the present government owing to their policy which was unfairly favourable towards the Muslims. But at the same time, I could clearly see that the policy was entirely due to the presence of Gandhi."
Logical incongruence
The problem with Godse's argument is that he thinks Gandhi was enthusiastic about dividing India when everything in history tells us the opposite was true. He says Gandhi was a tyrant in the Congress but also says Gandhi fasted to get the Congress to see his point of view. Why would a tyrant need to do anything other than just command? Nathuram objects to Gandhi's final fast, against India's refusal to release funds to Pakistan, but that was after India went back on its promise. It was Gandhi who made India act correctly and decently in that instance.
Little of what Nathuram says makes logical sense. It is, contrary to his statement to Devdas, not politics that shaped his actions. It was his hatred of the secular ideology of Gandhi, the true Hindu spirit, having been brainwashed thoroughly by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
No action or teaching of Gandhi is exceptionable, which is why his global reputation as a politician has survived the decades intact.
Writing on Gandhi in 1949, George Orwell said: "One may feel, as I do, a sort of aesthetic distaste for Gandhi, one may reject the claims of sainthood made on his behalf (he never made any such claim himself, by the way), one may also reject sainthood as an ideal and therefore feel that Gandhi's basic aims were anti-human and reactionary: but regarded simply as a politician, and compared with the other leading political figures of our time, how clean a smell he has managed to leave behind!"
This is still the case in 2015, while Nathuram Godse's complaints have vanished into the mists of time.
