Nathuram Godse was arrested immediately after he assassinatedGandhiji, based on a F. I. R. filed by Nandlal Mehta at the TughlakRoad Police staton at Delhi . The trial, which was held in camera,began on 27th May 1948 and concluded on 10th February 1949. He wassentenced to death. An appeal to the Punjab High Court, then insession at Simla, did not find favour and the sentence was upheld. The statement that you are about to read is the last made by Godsebefore the Court on the 5th of May 1949. Such was the power andeloquence of this statement that one of the judges, G. D. Khosla,later wrote, "I have, however, no doubt that had the audience of thatday been constituted into a jury and entrusted with the task ofdeciding Godse's appeal, they would have brought a verdict of 'notGuilty' by an overwhelming majority".
WHY I KILLED GANDHI
Born in a devotional Brahmin family, I instinctively came to revereHindu religion, Hindu history and Hindu culture. I had, therefore,been intensely proud of Hinduism as a whole. As I grew up I developeda tendency to free thinking unfettered by any superstitious allegianceto any isms, political or religious. That is why I worked actively forthe eradication of untouchability and the caste system based on birthalone. I openly joined anti-caste movements and maintained that allHindus were of equal status as to rights, social and religious andshould be considered high or low on merit alone and not through theaccident of birth in a particular caste or profession. I used publiclyto take part in organized anti-caste dinners in which thousands ofHindus, Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, Chamars and Bhangisparticipated. We broke the caste rules and dined in the company ofeach other. I have read the speeches and writings of Dadabhai Naoroji,Vivekanand, Gokhale, Tilak, along with the books of ancient and modernhistory of India and some prominent countries like England , France ,America and Russia . Moreover I studied the tenets of Socialism andMarxism. But above all I studied very closely whatever Veer Savarkarand Gandhiji had written and spoken, as to my mind these twoideologies have contributed more to the moulding of the thought andaction of the Indian people during the last thirty years or so, thanany other single factor has done.
All this reading and thinking led me to believe it was my first dutyto serve Hindudom and Hindus both as a patriot and as a world citizen.To secure the freedom and to safeguard the just interests of somethirty crores (300 million) of Hindus would automatically constitutethe freedom and the well-being of all India , one fifth of human race.This conviction led me naturally to devote myself to the HinduSanghtanist ideology and programme, which alone, I came to believe,could win and preserve the national independence of Hindustan , myMotherland, and enable her to render true service to humanity as well. Since the year 1920, that is, after the demise of Lokamanya Tilak,Gandhiji's influence in the Congress first increased and then becamesupreme. His activities for public awakening were phenomenal in theirintensity and were reinforced by the slogan of truth and non-violencewhich he paraded ostentatiously before the country. No sensible orenlightened person could object to those slogans. In fact there isnothing new or original in them. They are implicit in everyconstitutional public movement. But it is nothing but a mere dream ifyou imagine that the bulk of mankind is, or can ever become, capableof scrupulous adherence to these lofty principles in its normal lifefrom day to day. In fact, honour, duty and love of one's own kith and kin and countrymight often compel us to disregard non-violence and to use force. Icould never conceive that an armed resistance to an aggression isunjust. I would consider it a religious and moral duty to resist and,if possible, to overpower such an enemy by use of force. [In theRamayana] Rama killed Ravana in a tumultuous fight and relieved Sita..[In the Mahabharata], Krishna killed Kansa to end his wickedness; andArjuna had to fight and slay quite a number of his friends andrelations including the revered Bhishma because the latter was on theside of the aggressor. It is my firm belief that in dubbing Rama,Krishna and Arjuna as guilty of violence, the Mahatma betrayed a totalignorance of the springs of human action. In more recent history, itwas the heroic fight put up by Chhatrapati Shivaji that first checkedand eventually destroyed the Muslim tyranny in India. It wasabsolutely essentially for Shivaji to overpower and kill an aggressiveAfzal Khan, failing which he would have lost his own life. Incondemning history's towering warriors like Shivaji, Rana Pratap andGuru Gobind Singh as misguided patriots, Gandhiji has merely exposedhis self-conceit. He was, paradoxical as it may appear, a violentpacifist who brought untold calamities on the country in the name oftruth and non-violence, while Rana Pratap, Shivaji and the Guru willremain enshrined in the hearts of their countrymen for ever for thefreedom they brought to them.
The accumulating provocation of thirty-two years, culminating in hislast pro-Muslim fast, at last goaded me to the conclusion that theexistence of Gandhi should be brought to an end immediately. Gandhihad done very good in South Africa to uphold the rights and well-beingof the Indian community there. But when he finally returned to Indiahe developed a subjective mentality under which he alone was to be thefinal judge of what was right or wrong. If the country wanted hisleadership, it had to accept his infallibility; if it did not, hewould stand aloof from the Congress and carry on his own way. Againstsuch an attitude there can be no halfway house. Either Congress had tosurrender its will to his and had to be content with playing secondfiddle to all his eccentricity, whimsicality, metaphysics andprimitive vision, or it had to carry on without him. He alone was theJudge of everyone and every thing; he was the master brain guiding thecivil disobedience movement; no other could know the technique of thatmovement. He alone knew when to begin and when to withdraw it. Themovement might succeed or fail, it might bring untold disaster andpolitical reverses but that could make no difference to the Mahatma'sinfallibility. 'A Satyagrahi can never fail' was his formula fordeclaring his own infallibility and nobody except himself knew what aSatyagrahi is. Thus, the Mahatma became the judge and jury in his owncause. These childish insanities and obstinacies, coupled with a mostsevere austerity of life, ceaseless work and lofty character madeGandhi formidable and irresistible. Many people thought that hispolitics were irrational but they had either to withdraw from theCongress or place their intelligence at his feet to do with as heliked. In a position of such absolute irresponsibility Gandhi wasguilty of blunder after blunder, failure after failure, disaster afterdisaster.
Gandhi's pro-Muslim policy is blatantly in his perverseattitude on the question of the national language of India. It isquite obvious that Hindi has the most prior claim to be accepted asthe premier language. In the beginning of his career in India, Gandhigave a great impetus to Hindi but as he found that the Muslims did notlike it, he became a champion of what is called Hindustani. Everybodyin India knows that there is no language called Hindustani; it has nogrammar; it has no vocabulary. It is a mere dialect; it is spoken, butnot written. It is a bastard tongue and cross-breed between Hindi andUrdu, and not even the Mahatma's sophistry could make it popular. Butin his desire to please the Muslims he insisted that Hindustani aloneshould be the national language of India. His blind followers, ofcourse, supported him and the so-called hybrid language began to beused. The charm and purity of the Hindi language was to be prostituted toplease the Muslims. All his experiments were at the expense of theHindus. From August 1946 onwards the private armies of the MuslimLeague began a massacre of the Hindus. The then Viceroy, Lord Wavell,though distressed at what was happening, would not use his powersunder the Government of India Act of 1935 to prevent the rape, murderand arson. The Hindu blood began to flow from Bengal to Karachi withsome retaliation by the Hindus. The Interim Government formed inSeptember was sabotaged by its Muslim League members right from itsinception, but the more they became disloyal and treasonable to thegovernment of which they were a part, the greater was Gandhi'sinfatuation for them. Lord Wavell had to resign as he could not bringabout a settlement and he was succeeded by Lord Mountbatten. King Logwas followed by King Stork. The Congress which had boasted of itsnationalism and socialism secretly accepted Pakistan literally at thepoint of the bayonet and abjectly surrendered to Jinnah. India wasvivisected and one-third of the Indian territory became foreign landto us from August 15, 1947. Lord Mountbatten came to be described in Congress circles as thegreatest Viceroy and Governor-General this country ever had. Theofficial date for handing over power was fixed for June 30, 1948, butMountbatten with his ruthless surgery gave us a gift of vivisectedIndia ten months in advance. This is what Gandhi had achieved afterthirty years of undisputed dictatorship and this is what Congressparty calls 'freedom' and 'peaceful transfer of power'. TheHindu-Muslim unity bubble was finally burst and a theocratic state wasestablished with the consent of Nehru and his crowd and they havecalled 'freedom won by them with sacrifice' - whose sacrifice? Whentop leaders of Congress, with the consent of Gandhi, divided and torethe country - which we consider a deity of worship - my mind wasfilled with direful anger. One of the conditions imposed by Gandhi for his breaking of the fastunto death related to the mosques in Delhi occupied by the Hindurefugees. But when Hindus in Pakistan were subjected to violentattacks he did not so much as utter a single word to protest andcensure the Pakistan Government or the Muslims concerned. Gandhi wasshrewd enough to know that while undertaking a fast unto death, had heimposed for its break some condition on the Muslims in Pakistan ,there would have been found hardly any Muslims who could have shownsome grief if the fast had ended in his death. It was for this reasonthat he purposely avoided imposing any condition on the Muslims. Hewas fully aware of from the experience that Jinnah was not at allperturbed or influenced by his fast and the Muslim League hardlyattached any value to the inner voice of Gandhi. Gandhi is beingreferred to as the Father of the Nation. But if that is so, he hadfailed his paternal duty inasmuch as he has acted very treacherouslyto the nation by his consenting to the partitioning of it.
I stoutly maintain that Gandhi has failed in his duty. He has proved to be theFather of Pakistan. His inner-voice, his spiritual power and hisdoctrine of non-violence of which so much is made of, all crumbledbefore Jinnah's iron will and proved to be powerless. Brieflyspeaking, I thought to myself and foresaw I shall be totally ruined,and the only thing I could expect from the people would be nothing buthatred and that I shall have lost all my honour, even more valuablethan my life, if I were to kill Gandhiji. But at the same time I feltthat the Indian politics in the absence of Gandhiji would surely beproved practical, able to retaliate, and would be powerful with armedforces. No doubt, my own future would be totally ruined, but thenation would be saved from the inroads of Pakistan . People may evencall me and dub me as devoid of any sense or foolish, but the nationwould be free to follow the course founded on the reason which Iconsider to be necessary for sound nation-building. After having fullyconsidered the question, I took the final decision in the matter, butI did not speak about it to anyone whatsoever. I took courage in bothmy hands and I did fire the shots at Gandhiji on 30th January 1948, onthe prayer-grounds of Birla House. I do say that my shots were firedat the person whose policy and action had brought rack and ruin anddestruction to millions of Hindus. There was no legal machinery bywhich such an offender could be brought to book and for this reason Ifired those fatal shots. I bear no ill will towards anyone individually but I do say that I had no respect for the presentgovernment owing to their policy which was unfairly favourable towardsthe Muslims. But at the same time I could clearly see that the policywas entirely due to the presence of Gandhi.
WHY I KILLED GANDHI
Born in a devotional Brahmin family, I instinctively came to revereHindu religion, Hindu history and Hindu culture. I had, therefore,been intensely proud of Hinduism as a whole. As I grew up I developeda tendency to free thinking unfettered by any superstitious allegianceto any isms, political or religious. That is why I worked actively forthe eradication of untouchability and the caste system based on birthalone. I openly joined anti-caste movements and maintained that allHindus were of equal status as to rights, social and religious andshould be considered high or low on merit alone and not through theaccident of birth in a particular caste or profession. I used publiclyto take part in organized anti-caste dinners in which thousands ofHindus, Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, Chamars and Bhangisparticipated. We broke the caste rules and dined in the company ofeach other. I have read the speeches and writings of Dadabhai Naoroji,Vivekanand, Gokhale, Tilak, along with the books of ancient and modernhistory of India and some prominent countries like England , France ,America and Russia . Moreover I studied the tenets of Socialism andMarxism. But above all I studied very closely whatever Veer Savarkarand Gandhiji had written and spoken, as to my mind these twoideologies have contributed more to the moulding of the thought andaction of the Indian people during the last thirty years or so, thanany other single factor has done.
All this reading and thinking led me to believe it was my first dutyto serve Hindudom and Hindus both as a patriot and as a world citizen.To secure the freedom and to safeguard the just interests of somethirty crores (300 million) of Hindus would automatically constitutethe freedom and the well-being of all India , one fifth of human race.This conviction led me naturally to devote myself to the HinduSanghtanist ideology and programme, which alone, I came to believe,could win and preserve the national independence of Hindustan , myMotherland, and enable her to render true service to humanity as well. Since the year 1920, that is, after the demise of Lokamanya Tilak,Gandhiji's influence in the Congress first increased and then becamesupreme. His activities for public awakening were phenomenal in theirintensity and were reinforced by the slogan of truth and non-violencewhich he paraded ostentatiously before the country. No sensible orenlightened person could object to those slogans. In fact there isnothing new or original in them. They are implicit in everyconstitutional public movement. But it is nothing but a mere dream ifyou imagine that the bulk of mankind is, or can ever become, capableof scrupulous adherence to these lofty principles in its normal lifefrom day to day. In fact, honour, duty and love of one's own kith and kin and countrymight often compel us to disregard non-violence and to use force. Icould never conceive that an armed resistance to an aggression isunjust. I would consider it a religious and moral duty to resist and,if possible, to overpower such an enemy by use of force. [In theRamayana] Rama killed Ravana in a tumultuous fight and relieved Sita..[In the Mahabharata], Krishna killed Kansa to end his wickedness; andArjuna had to fight and slay quite a number of his friends andrelations including the revered Bhishma because the latter was on theside of the aggressor. It is my firm belief that in dubbing Rama,Krishna and Arjuna as guilty of violence, the Mahatma betrayed a totalignorance of the springs of human action. In more recent history, itwas the heroic fight put up by Chhatrapati Shivaji that first checkedand eventually destroyed the Muslim tyranny in India. It wasabsolutely essentially for Shivaji to overpower and kill an aggressiveAfzal Khan, failing which he would have lost his own life. Incondemning history's towering warriors like Shivaji, Rana Pratap andGuru Gobind Singh as misguided patriots, Gandhiji has merely exposedhis self-conceit. He was, paradoxical as it may appear, a violentpacifist who brought untold calamities on the country in the name oftruth and non-violence, while Rana Pratap, Shivaji and the Guru willremain enshrined in the hearts of their countrymen for ever for thefreedom they brought to them.
The accumulating provocation of thirty-two years, culminating in hislast pro-Muslim fast, at last goaded me to the conclusion that theexistence of Gandhi should be brought to an end immediately. Gandhihad done very good in South Africa to uphold the rights and well-beingof the Indian community there. But when he finally returned to Indiahe developed a subjective mentality under which he alone was to be thefinal judge of what was right or wrong. If the country wanted hisleadership, it had to accept his infallibility; if it did not, hewould stand aloof from the Congress and carry on his own way. Againstsuch an attitude there can be no halfway house. Either Congress had tosurrender its will to his and had to be content with playing secondfiddle to all his eccentricity, whimsicality, metaphysics andprimitive vision, or it had to carry on without him. He alone was theJudge of everyone and every thing; he was the master brain guiding thecivil disobedience movement; no other could know the technique of thatmovement. He alone knew when to begin and when to withdraw it. Themovement might succeed or fail, it might bring untold disaster andpolitical reverses but that could make no difference to the Mahatma'sinfallibility. 'A Satyagrahi can never fail' was his formula fordeclaring his own infallibility and nobody except himself knew what aSatyagrahi is. Thus, the Mahatma became the judge and jury in his owncause. These childish insanities and obstinacies, coupled with a mostsevere austerity of life, ceaseless work and lofty character madeGandhi formidable and irresistible. Many people thought that hispolitics were irrational but they had either to withdraw from theCongress or place their intelligence at his feet to do with as heliked. In a position of such absolute irresponsibility Gandhi wasguilty of blunder after blunder, failure after failure, disaster afterdisaster.
Gandhi's pro-Muslim policy is blatantly in his perverseattitude on the question of the national language of India. It isquite obvious that Hindi has the most prior claim to be accepted asthe premier language. In the beginning of his career in India, Gandhigave a great impetus to Hindi but as he found that the Muslims did notlike it, he became a champion of what is called Hindustani. Everybodyin India knows that there is no language called Hindustani; it has nogrammar; it has no vocabulary. It is a mere dialect; it is spoken, butnot written. It is a bastard tongue and cross-breed between Hindi andUrdu, and not even the Mahatma's sophistry could make it popular. Butin his desire to please the Muslims he insisted that Hindustani aloneshould be the national language of India. His blind followers, ofcourse, supported him and the so-called hybrid language began to beused. The charm and purity of the Hindi language was to be prostituted toplease the Muslims. All his experiments were at the expense of theHindus. From August 1946 onwards the private armies of the MuslimLeague began a massacre of the Hindus. The then Viceroy, Lord Wavell,though distressed at what was happening, would not use his powersunder the Government of India Act of 1935 to prevent the rape, murderand arson. The Hindu blood began to flow from Bengal to Karachi withsome retaliation by the Hindus. The Interim Government formed inSeptember was sabotaged by its Muslim League members right from itsinception, but the more they became disloyal and treasonable to thegovernment of which they were a part, the greater was Gandhi'sinfatuation for them. Lord Wavell had to resign as he could not bringabout a settlement and he was succeeded by Lord Mountbatten. King Logwas followed by King Stork. The Congress which had boasted of itsnationalism and socialism secretly accepted Pakistan literally at thepoint of the bayonet and abjectly surrendered to Jinnah. India wasvivisected and one-third of the Indian territory became foreign landto us from August 15, 1947. Lord Mountbatten came to be described in Congress circles as thegreatest Viceroy and Governor-General this country ever had. Theofficial date for handing over power was fixed for June 30, 1948, butMountbatten with his ruthless surgery gave us a gift of vivisectedIndia ten months in advance. This is what Gandhi had achieved afterthirty years of undisputed dictatorship and this is what Congressparty calls 'freedom' and 'peaceful transfer of power'. TheHindu-Muslim unity bubble was finally burst and a theocratic state wasestablished with the consent of Nehru and his crowd and they havecalled 'freedom won by them with sacrifice' - whose sacrifice? Whentop leaders of Congress, with the consent of Gandhi, divided and torethe country - which we consider a deity of worship - my mind wasfilled with direful anger. One of the conditions imposed by Gandhi for his breaking of the fastunto death related to the mosques in Delhi occupied by the Hindurefugees. But when Hindus in Pakistan were subjected to violentattacks he did not so much as utter a single word to protest andcensure the Pakistan Government or the Muslims concerned. Gandhi wasshrewd enough to know that while undertaking a fast unto death, had heimposed for its break some condition on the Muslims in Pakistan ,there would have been found hardly any Muslims who could have shownsome grief if the fast had ended in his death. It was for this reasonthat he purposely avoided imposing any condition on the Muslims. Hewas fully aware of from the experience that Jinnah was not at allperturbed or influenced by his fast and the Muslim League hardlyattached any value to the inner voice of Gandhi. Gandhi is beingreferred to as the Father of the Nation. But if that is so, he hadfailed his paternal duty inasmuch as he has acted very treacherouslyto the nation by his consenting to the partitioning of it.
I stoutly maintain that Gandhi has failed in his duty. He has proved to be theFather of Pakistan. His inner-voice, his spiritual power and hisdoctrine of non-violence of which so much is made of, all crumbledbefore Jinnah's iron will and proved to be powerless. Brieflyspeaking, I thought to myself and foresaw I shall be totally ruined,and the only thing I could expect from the people would be nothing buthatred and that I shall have lost all my honour, even more valuablethan my life, if I were to kill Gandhiji. But at the same time I feltthat the Indian politics in the absence of Gandhiji would surely beproved practical, able to retaliate, and would be powerful with armedforces. No doubt, my own future would be totally ruined, but thenation would be saved from the inroads of Pakistan . People may evencall me and dub me as devoid of any sense or foolish, but the nationwould be free to follow the course founded on the reason which Iconsider to be necessary for sound nation-building. After having fullyconsidered the question, I took the final decision in the matter, butI did not speak about it to anyone whatsoever. I took courage in bothmy hands and I did fire the shots at Gandhiji on 30th January 1948, onthe prayer-grounds of Birla House. I do say that my shots were firedat the person whose policy and action had brought rack and ruin anddestruction to millions of Hindus. There was no legal machinery bywhich such an offender could be brought to book and for this reason Ifired those fatal shots. I bear no ill will towards anyone individually but I do say that I had no respect for the presentgovernment owing to their policy which was unfairly favourable towardsthe Muslims. But at the same time I could clearly see that the policywas entirely due to the presence of Gandhi.
Posted by DEEPAK TRALSHAWALA at 8:58 AM 1 comments:
Venu said...
It appears from Nathuram Godse's final address to the Court that the reason he decided to kill Gandhi was by that he hoped the policies of Muslim appeasement followed by the Congress government would cease. Alas, nothing of that sort happened. In fact, the Congress government went on to institutionalize the art of appeasement and today it is on the brink of introducing reservations on religious basis, a move that is but a plot to destroy national identity in India. Not only did Godse err in judging the result of his action, he actually contributed to strengthening the very result he feared. Had the Mahatma continued to live, the Congress would have sidelined him and the sheen on Congress itself would have worn off. In all probability "Hindu Sanghtanist ideology" would have come on its own and challenged Congress. But instead, Godse managed to discredit them and give a long lease of life to the Congress and its Muslim appeasement policies.
July 13, 2010 2:29 AM
It appears from Nathuram Godse's final address to the Court that the reason he decided to kill Gandhi was by that he hoped the policies of Muslim appeasement followed by the Congress government would cease. Alas, nothing of that sort happened. In fact, the Congress government went on to institutionalize the art of appeasement and today it is on the brink of introducing reservations on religious basis, a move that is but a plot to destroy national identity in India. Not only did Godse err in judging the result of his action, he actually contributed to strengthening the very result he feared. Had the Mahatma continued to live, the Congress would have sidelined him and the sheen on Congress itself would have worn off. In all probability "Hindu Sanghtanist ideology" would have come on its own and challenged Congress. But instead, Godse managed to discredit them and give a long lease of life to the Congress and its Muslim appeasement policies.
July 13, 2010 2:29 AM
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