L ast Sunday, in a nondescript building in the India city of Gwalior, miles south of Delhi, a large crowd of men gathered. Most wore bright saffron hats and scarves, a colour evoking Hindu nationalism, and many held strands of flowers as devotional offerings.
The devotional yellow and pink flowers were laid around a black and white photograph of Godse, the centrepiece of the room.
On 30 January , Godse stepped out in front of Gandhi and shot him three times at point-blank range. The library is just one of many recent efforts to memorialise and revere Godse. Whether the Indian State accommodate this murder in that idea of India is an open-ended question.
Second, Godse was not a mass murderer. He murdered one man, and surrendered then and there. He further requested the court not to show any mercy at him while reading out his statement. However, as per Godse, Gandhi was a mass murderer. He accused Gandhi of being pro-Muslim and anti-Hindu in his political activities and positions. Nathuram considered Gandhi to be solely responsible for the riots in India during , and until his death in According to Godse, if Gandhi was not at the helm of Indian politics during the freedom struggle and thereafter, Partition, the resultant bloodbath could have been avoided.
Gandhi claimed that his final fasting days were for Hindu-Muslim unity. But Godse invoked a different context altogether. After Partition, Pakistan was due to get an amount of Rs 55 crore from the imperial treasury as part of the deal. But Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel held it up from his end until the Kashmir issue was solved. Godse accused Gandhi of blackmailing the Indian government using his fasts, and interfering in State affairs.
Godse alleged that it was not only undemocratic, but dictatorial in the sense that Gandhi's own understanding had to prevail no matter what. This action made India weak at bargaining on Kashmir. He finally decided to eliminate Gandhi by assassination when he sat for his final satyagraha.
Third, Godse considered Gandhi to be a hypocrite at statecraft and his method of satyagraha a total failure in practical terms. Gandhi should be acknowledged for his deep study of Indian philosophy and relating it to the 20th Century social context and also leading a very innovative movement. Ahimsa is an ancient idea propagated by Buddhism for ages. But Gandhi was a barrister at British law.
He loved it. He was not a saint trying to be a politician, but a politician trying to be a saint. His method of non-violent yet unconstitutional resistance was the result of deep study and integration of both Indian philosophy as well as British law. The British Raj in India was proud of its hegemonic rule of law, which was a first for India in almost 3, years of its history. To fight against such a rule, neither armed resistance nor constitutional dialogue worked.
Gandhi chose the middle path and shook the entire establishment. But this was only possible when both parties respected the rule of law. How can anyone tolerate such trends about our greatest leader?
She added that when Prime Minister Narendra Modi often talks highly about Gandhi whenever he was abroad, it was sad to see that such kinds of trends supporting a terrorist were trending on the social media. Facebook Twitter Linkedin EMail.
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