Fifty-two years ago, on Jan. 30, 1948, Mohandas Gandhi was shot dead by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu extremist. Godse believed that the Mahatma, or great soul, was responsible for the 1947 partition of India and the creation of Pakistan. Godse and his friend Narayan Apte were hanged. His brother Gopal and two others were sentenced to life imprisonment for their part in the conspiracy. Gopal Godse remained in jail for 18 years and now, at 80, lives with his wife in a small apartment in Pune. He is still proud of his role in the murder. Although Godse is largely ignored in India and rarely talks to journalists, he agreed to speak with TIME Delhi correspondent Meenakshi Ganguly.
TIME: What happened in January 1948?
Godse: On Jan. 20, Madanlal Pahwa exploded a bomb at Gandhi's prayer meeting in Delhi. It was 50 m away from Gandhi. [The other conspirators] all ran away from the place. Madanlal was caught there. Then there was a tension in our minds that we had to finish the task before the police caught us. Then Nathuram [Gopal's brother] took it on himself to do the thing. We only wanted destiny to help us -- meaning we should not be caught on the spot before he acted.
TIME: Why did you want to kill Gandhi?
Godse: Gandhi was a hypocrite. Even after the massacre of the Hindus by the Muslims, he was happy. The more the massacres of the Hindus, the taller his flag of secularism.
TIME: Did you ever see Gandhi?
Godse: Yes.
TIME: Did you attend his meetings?
Godse: Yes.
TIME: Can you explain how he created his mass following? Godse: The credit goes to him for maneuvering the media. He captured the press. That was essential. How Gandhi walked, when he smiled, how he waved -- all these minor details that the people did not require were imposed upon them to create an atmosphere around Gandhi. And the more ignorant the masses, the more popular was Gandhi. So they always tried to keep the masses ignorant.
TIME: But surely it takes more than good publicity to create a Gandhi? Godse: There is another thing. Generally in the Indian masses, people are attracted toward saintism. Gandhi was shrewd to use his saintdom for politics. After his death the government used him. The government knew that he was an enemy of Hindus, but they wanted to show that he was a staunch Hindu. So the first act they did was to put "Hey Ram" into Gandhi's dead mouth.
TIME: You mean that he did not say "Hey Ram" as he died?
Godse: No, he did not say it. You see, it was an automatic pistol. It had a magazine for nine bullets but there were actually seven at that time. And once you pull the trigger, within a second, all the seven bullets had passed. When these bullets pass through crucial points like the heart, consciousness is finished. You have no strength. When Nathuram saw Gandhi was coming, he took out the pistol and folded his hands with the pistol inside it. There was one girl very close to Gandhi. He feared that he would hurt the girl. So he went forward and with his left hand pushed her aside and shot. It happened within one second. You see, there was a film and some Kingsley fellow had acted as Gandhi. Someone asked me whether Gandhi said, "Hey Ram." I said Kingsley did say it. But Gandhi did not. Because that was not a drama.
TIME: Many people think Gandhi deserved to be nominated TIME's Person of the Century. [He was one of two runners-up, after Albert Einstein.]
Godse: I name him the most cruel person for Hindus in India. The most cruel person! That is how I term him. TIME: Is that why Gandhi had to die? Godse: Yes. For months he was advising Hindus that they must never be angry with the Muslims. What sort of ahimsa (non-violence) is this? His principle of peace was bogus. In any free country, a person like him would be shot dead officially because he was encouraging the Muslims to kill Hindus.
TIME: But his philosophy was of turning the other cheek. He felt one person had to stop the cycle of violence...
Godse: The world does not work that way.
TIME: Is there anything that you admire about Gandhi?
Godse: Firstly, the mass awakening that Gandhi did. In our school days Gandhi was our idol. Secondly, he removed the fear of prison. He said it is different to go into prison for a theft and different to go in for satyagraha (civil disobedience). As youngsters, we had our enthusiasm, but we needed some channel. We took Gandhi to be our channel. We don't repent for that.
TIME: Did you not admire his principles of non-violence? Godse: Non-violence is not a principle at all. He did not follow it. In politics you cannot follow non-violence. You cannot follow honesty. Every moment, you have to give a lie. Every moment you have to take a bullet in hand and kill someone. Why was he proved to be a hypocrite? Because he was in politics with his so-called principles. Is his non-violence followed anywhere? Not in the least. Nowhere.
TIME: What was the most difficult thing about killing Gandhi?
Godse: The greatest hurdle before us was not that of giving up our lives or going to the gallows. It was that we would be condemned both by the government and by the public. Because the public had been kept in the dark about what harm Gandhi had done to the nation. How he had fooled them!
TIME: Did the people condemn you?
Godse: Yes. People in general did. Because they had been kept ignorant
Ghodse was Ok.. but i can tell all these even without having survived then... the reason behind their sentences should have been like this " These 'so called' activists are sentenced for having ignored their duties to serve their motherland, preserve humanities and for having delayed their operation for so many years after having realised the potential danger to the country. As it is feared that their act of negligence would retard the nations growth in all aspects, the court sentences the both the prime accused to be hanged till death and the others imprisonment to life" .........
ReplyDeleteHows that??
That is quite a thought! I am not a religious fanatic and have admired gandhi as a person...i believe in ahimsa.. gandhi is revered all through the world..but touche' i still have 2 agree with few of godse's thoughts...Considering the fact that the mAhatama was a tottering old man with frailing health, due to his batteries of sathyagraha itis virtually impossible to have uttered "hey Ram" after the impact of a bullet. That one is indeed a political concoction... I quite agree with the reasons he gave for the same..
ReplyDeletePeace out
anty
PS: got the link from ur orkut profile..nice 2 meet another KVite
Even in today's age, we need more such people who are ready to do whats right. Irrespective of whether the society agrees upto it or not.
ReplyDeleteWe have lost the importance of our freedom. Here I would like to quote two people
1) In a democracy the people get what the majority deserves.
---James Davidson
My opinion: we indians still to not deserve what we aim for as a majority.. hence we are failing... n time is running.. its not long b4 we are thrown out..
2) Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.
---Ronald Reagan
My comment on the above: how many times in the year are we thankful for the freedom we have?? answer: twice...15 aug and 26 jan
GOD help us !
Dear Mr.Shriram,
ReplyDeleteIf they ignored their duties then who else was doing it??? Who created pakistan and have you gone through the history or you are just blind supporter of gandhi?????????????? like every next ols person is.try to get the facts and just we got the indenpence doesnt mean that everything is tooo good. In 1947, few people whom you call freedon fighters divided the country just to get the powers and you still find their photographs in all the goverment offices...pity.According to you, even bhagat singh was also "so called activist" becoz he was termed as terroist by dear Gandhi. So do you agree with this also????? the person at the age of 21 gave his life but he was not freedom fighter???? non-voilence means only for one side of the coin. Even today, bangladesh kills our soldiers and we cannt do anything...is this you call bloo dy non-voilence? in india,facts are often created....ask soo many people who have lost their children,thousands lost their parents...I ask you a very simple question...if somebody kilss ur parents then will you forgive him and say that non-voilence is best policy...if yes then i dont want to ask you anything more.
Your blog keeps getting better and better! Your older articles are not as good as newer ones you have a lot more creativity and originality now keep it up!
ReplyDeletei could not the belive the words of ghodse because gandhiji was actually a hindu . then how could he do injustice to hindu. then the term non-violence. since gandhi used this non violence which earned us a freedom. if we have not followed the the non-violence then all of the indians would have died by fighting with the british.
ReplyDeleteactually gandhiji said this we should act according to the situations
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ReplyDeleteThe fourth attempt took place in June 1946. Gandhi was traveling to Poona by a special train. They had hatched a plot to derail the train in that dark night between Neral and Karjat by putting huge stones on the rail track. Thanks to the engine driver's vigilance and skill the tragedy was averted although the engine was damaged. At that time also partition was not on the agenda. Why was even then a plot to kill him? Later on, mentioning this incident in a prayer meeting Gandhi said: "So far I have been saved from seven attempts on my life. But I am not going to end up that way. I hope to live for 125 years. Nathuram Godse responded retortingly in his journal, "Agrani" : "But, who will let you live?" This implies that he had already determined to kill Gandhi, long before the partition which was used as a pretext for what they call 'Gandhi-vadh.'
ReplyDeleteOn January 20,'48 one fanatic, Madanlal Pahwa, had hurled a bomb at Gandhi at the prayer meeting. It missed him, and Gandhi continued his prayers unperturbed. At last, on January 30, ten days later, Godse assassinated Gandhi on the prayer ground. Let us not forget that the problem of fifty-five crores etc. had cropped up only after January 12 and not earlier. But over a long span of years attempts by the Hindu fundamentalists to eliminate Gandhi were afoot. All they were looking for was a chance to do so; any excuse was good enough to assassinate Gandhi, and they spared no pain to find or fabricate it.
ReplyDeleteThere are three stages of the process that divides man and man. It starts off with a sense of discrimination between "ours" and "others" as we call it. That is exactly where you have the seed of separation. There stems from it verbal conflict eventually leading to isolation or separation. So far as the maintenance of the country's integral unity was concerned, Gandhi and the other nationalists were as much concerned or even more than the Hindu fundamentalists. They had all stood up against the partition of the country. But the ways of the two were different, diametrically opposite. The Hindu fundamentalists considered the Muslims 'mlechchha' -aliens and saw no way to live with them in harmony. They contended that the land was theirs alone. They seemed to be saying: "This land is Bharatvarsh. You are aliens, but you don't have to part. We are the masters of the land, and you have got to live here the way we want" Gandhiji and the other nation list leaders warned them against continually dubbing the Mahomedans as aliens or outsiders, for that was apt to intensify their sense of alienation or not belonging. Nor would it suffice to call them "ours" only superficially. Only if they were accepted wholeheartedly that their sense of alienation would go and they would imbibe a sense of belonging. Working unitedly and thus living together, our sense of oneness will be reinforced genuinely. In the passage of time, wounds could be healed or festered. What do we really want to do? To heal it or add salt to the sore? The fundamentalists kept on adding salt to the sore whereas Gandhi and his associates endeavoured to heal it.
ReplyDeleteasteism, discrimination between the ‘high' and the 'low' prevalent in the Hindu society also played a part. How come, there is such a large Muslim population in India, much higher than in any Islamic country barring Indonesia? Because of the discrimination between the 'high' and the 'low' and idolatry of multiple deities some Hindus themselves courted Islam. Some of them, who were treated and condemned as untouchables, underwent conversion with a sense of bitterness, whereas there were many of them who were coerced into conversion. Later on, quite a few of them desired to return to Hinduism but the doors were closed on them. Most of the Muslims today in India and even in Pakistan and Bangladesh were, once upon a time, Hindus. A very few of them, a microscopic minority, hailed from Arabia.
ReplyDeleteGandhi is accused of appeasing the Muslims, and they say, the partition was only the result of this attitude. But it is far from truth. Much prior to Gandhi's return home from South Africa the efforts were on to bring the Mahomedans into the mainstream of the nation. For instance, during the fiftieth anniversary of 1857, way back in 1907 in England, Savarkar had described the Mahomedans in India as one of the hues of the rainbow. By the Lucknow Pact in 1916 the Muslims were given greater measure of representation in proportion to their population. Gandhi had indeed arrived but he was then a new entrant in the public life of the country. He had no share in the Lucknow negotiations. Who were then the leaders? Annie Besant, Lokmanya Tilak and Mahomed Ali Jinnah.
ReplyDelete