Mahatma Gandhi: Assassination of
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Godse’s first attack: 1944 or 1947
Radheshyam Jadhav|Man who `saved' Gandhi in 1944 dies at 98|Jul 20 2017 : The Times of India (Delhi)
Veteran freedom fighter Bhiku Daji Bhilare, popularly referred to as Bhilare Guruji, who is credited in certain accounts with having saved Mahatma Gandhi from an attempt on his life by Nathuram Godse in Panchgani in 1944, passed away in Bhilar near the hill station on Wednesday . He was 98. In interviews given to several writers that have been published in the form of small booklets, Bhilare had said, “Everyone was allowed to attend Mahatma Gandhi's prayer meetings in Panchgani. That day , his associates Usha Mehta, Pyarelal, Aruna Asaf Ali and others were present for the prayers. Godse rushed up to Gandhiji with a knife saying that he had some questions. I stopped him, twisted his hand and snatched the knife. But Gandhiji let him go.“
According to records kept by Gandhi's great-grandson Tushar Gandhi, Godse was overpowered by Bhilare and Manishankar Purohit, proprietor of a lodge.
However, in the opinion of the Kapur Commission, “the correctness of the incident of July 1944 and even its existence is unproven“. In fact, when Purohit deposed before the commission, he said the in cident happened in July 1947 and not 1944; there is no mention of Bhilare appearing before it. The commission, incidentally , referred to only a disturbance created by a group of men during a prayer meeting in July 1944 in Panchgani.
The commission of Supreme Court judge J K Kapur was set up on March 22, 1965 to probe the conspiracy behind Gandhi's assassination. Shortly after his release from the Aga Khan Palace where he was incarcerated in 1944, Gandhi contracted malaria and had gone to Panchgani to take rest on his doctor's advice.
In 2008, Dhirubhai Mehta, president of the Mani Bhavan Gandhi Sangrahalaya in Mumbai, told TOI that “one of the Godse brothers“ had tried to attack Gandhi at Panchgani in July 1944 and that the “attempt was thwarted by an alert youth“. Mehta had said this fact has been documented in the memoirs of Gandhi's close associate Pyarelal. It also finds mention in a book written by another Gandhian, Chuni lal Vaidya, Mehta had said.
N D Patil, veteran freedom fighter and senior Peasants and Workers Party leader, who is in his 90s, told TOI on Wednesday that Bhilare had become a hero for youths like him in those days. “The news of Guruji saving Gandhiji from Godse spread everywhere in Satara. I was 15 then. Many of us students went on our cycles to meet Guruji. He had become an icon for us. He lived a simple life throughout and followed Gandhian principles,“ he said.
Born on November 26, 1919, Bhilare was active in the “parallel government“ movement in Satara district run by revolutionary Nana Patil and others.
After Independence, Bhilare represented Jawali assembly constituency in the state legislature for 18 years.
Sikkim governor and former Satara MP Shrinivas Patil, who hails from Satara and was close to Bhilare, said, “He was a guiding light and a veteran freedom fighter who always kept Gandhiji company . Bhilare Guruji played a great role in shaping my career.“
Bhilare was cremated on Wednesday with leaders from across party lines and common people gathering in huge numbers to pay their last respects.
How the plot to assassinate Gandhi was hatched
Dhirendra K Jha, January 30, 2022: The Times of India
By the end of 1947, Nathuram Godse had no coherent plan for his life. He was getting fatigued with his journalistic career. His newspaper would still have another month to go and some of his most provocative articles had yet to appear. Nevertheless, his interest in it had diminished. Despite the mental turmoil, there was a vague sense of direction, one that seemed to be pointing towards an act big enough to shake the country. But what that act would be was still unclear in his head.
Towards the end of December, Godse was already having a series of lengthy and reflective conversations with Narayan Dattatraya Apte regarding the future course of action. It was in these meetings that the idea to kill Gandhi germinated.
The idea was not new to Godse; he had discussed it five months ago, weeks before India became independent. In a meeting of Hindu activists held at Shiva ji Mandir in Poona, Godse had mentioned that some R S S men who were present in the congregation considered Gandhi and Nehru as roadblocks to a Hindu rashtra and therefore favoured their elimination.
According to an account provided by Gajanan Narayan Kanitkar, a Poona-based Gandhian, the mandir meeting was held in July and was presided over by Apte and addressed by Godse.
“He [Godse] also mentioned that the R S S volunteers who were in the meeting were remarking that Gandhiji and Nehru were thorns in the way of establishment of Hindu Raj and hence they should be removed,” reported Kanitkar.
Himself a witness, he instantly informed BG Kher, the then chief minister of the Bombay Province, about the matter through a letter dated July 23, 1947 — six months before Gandhi was killed. But the idea was not pursued then. Perhaps it got lost in the din created by Partition. Godse and Apte, on their part, had been overtaken in those days by a craze to assassinate Jinnah and hit at some vital establishments of Pakistan. It was a heady time and they had boasted about their plans, and amassed arms and ammunition for the purpose.
However, they could not succeed in executing these plans. Godse took no noticeable part in them. Yet, he felt so attached to them that he was at a loose end following their failure. Afterwards, as he craved to emerge from the anonymity that had so long concealed and depressed him, the idea which had been put on the backburner before Independence resurfaced.
The only question was who would assassinate Gandhi.
Apte was clever enough to steer clear of that part of the debate. Godse, at this stage, could not muster the resolve to perform the act either. It seems that he, like Apte, was less interested in becoming a ‘martyr’ than in creating a movement based on the emotional power of someone else’s ‘martyrdom’.
Godse’s instincts were hardly surprising; he had spent much of his adult life only talking of acts of courage. Even when Apte made plans against Jinnah and Pakistan, Godse only concurred with him and never offered his service.
Godse had put himself forward as the saviour of Hindus, but he was not prepared to assume the task of personally committing the assassination. His views on the use of violence were egregious, a great deal more egregious, in fact, than those held by even the worst of the Hindu fanatics of Poona, and the speeches and writings in which he expressed them were simply appalling. But assassinating Gandhi was different. It required much more courage than authoring threatening articles and giving provocative speeches, the kind of courage that Godse did not exhibit at this point.
The issue, however, was resolved at the beginning of 1948. On January 2, the two friends travelled to Ahmednagar to discuss the issue with Karkare. The closed-door meeting, in which they succeeded in identifying the man who could kill Gandhi, took place in a small room on the top floor of Karkare’s guest house.
“During the discussion about the Congress policy, we came to the conclusion that the policy of the Congress was manipulated as per wishes of Mahatma Gandhi,” recounted Karkare. “Godse also stated that whatever we may do, Mahatma Gandhi will never change his attitude towards the Muslims and as such he decided that Gandhiji should be killed. Apte and myself concurred with this view and promised assistance towards this direction.”
When the issue of who would kill Gandhi was raised, Karkare resolved it quickly. He introduced Godse and Apte to a young refugee who had been cut off from his family, had been staying with him for the last couple of weeks and who would be “ready to perform any daring act” suggested by Karkare.
“I came out of the room and called out to Madanlal [Pahwa], who was somewhere in the hotel,” said Karkare, “I took him to the room where Apte and Godse were seated. I told them that this is the refugee who is known as Madanlal.”
And so Godse set foot on his final course.
Excerpted with permission from Gandhi's Assassin: The Making of Nathuram Godse and His Idea of India, published by Penguin Random House Editor’s note:
- On November 15, 1949, Narayan Dattatraya Apte was hanged for the murder of Mahatma Gandhi along with the main assassin, Nathuram Godse.
- JL Kapur, a retired judge of the Supreme Court, headed a commission of inquiry in 1969, which absolved the R S S’s role in Gandhi’s assassination.
Did Mahatma Gandhi see his death coming?
TNN | Jan 30, 2014
AHMEDABAD: Did Mahatma Gandhi have a premonition of his death just hours before he was shot at by Nathuram Godse? Strangely, there were a number of instances in the last 48 hours of Bapu's life in Delhi's Birla house when the Mahatma indicated to near and dear ones that he wouldn't remain amid them for long.
On the afternoon of January 29, 1948, the day before the assassination, an agitated member of a group of villagers who had been recently rendered homeless due to communal clashes, confronted Gandhiji and claimed that he had done enough damage. "You have ruined us utterly. Leave us alone and take your abode in the Himalayas," the angry person had said. This disturbed Bapu very much. That same evening, while walking to his prayer meeting, he had confided to his grand-niece Manuben, "The pitiful cries of these people is like the voice of God. Take this as a death warrant for you and me."
A few hours later, that afternoon, a four year old Rajiv Gandhi accompanying Krishna Hutheesing, Jawaharlal Nehru's sister and Indira had called on Bapu. Rajiv placed some flowers at Gandhi's feet. To this, Gandhi had playfully chided the little boy and said, "You must not do that. One only puts flowers around dead people's feet." These recorded incidents are part of a new book by Pramod Kapoor, 'My experiment with Gandhi', that explores these and lesser known aspects in the Mahtama's life.
On January 30, Gandhi battled thoughts of death more than just once. Bapu was feeling unwell and had woken up at 3:30 am. He was 'unusually disturbed with the 'darkness' that surrounded him. The darkness being, partition woes and infighting in the Congres. At about 3:45 am, he had surprisingly asked for a rendition of a Gujarati bhajan, 'Thake na thake chhatayen hon/Manavi na leje visramo,Ne jhoojhaje ekal bayen/Ho manavi, na leje visramo (Whether tired or not, O man do not take rest, stop not, your struggle, if single-handed, continues.)," claims Kapoor's book.
Few hours later Bapu was asked to take some penicillin pills that his doctor had left for him to cure a bad cough. "If I were to die of disease or even a pimple, you must shout to the world from the house tops, that I was a false Mahatma. Then my soul, wherever it may be, will rest in peace. But if an explosion took place or somebody shot at me and I received his bullets on my bare chest, without a sigh and with Rama's name on my lips, only then you should say I was a true Mahatma."
Later that day Bapu was in a crucial meeting with Sardar Patel when two leaders from Kathiawar came to visit him unannounced. On being informed of their coming, Gandhi had said, "Tell them that I will see them, but only after the prayer meeting and that too if I am alive."
After finishing his breakfast Bapu rested for a while and got up on his own. When he started to walk towards the bathroom, it was a strange sight for Manuben, his grandniece who helped him walk. "Bapu, how strange you look?" she said, a reference to the fact that he had not gone anywhere recently without her. To this, Gandhi had quoted Rabindranath Tagore, saying "Ekla chalo, ekla chalo (Walk alone, walk alone)". This was eerily accurate as the walk towards the prayer meeting was, in fact, his last lone walk.
Murder of the Mahatma: The Mumbai trail
Let’s Kill Gandhi
Tushar Gandhi
Rupa &Co
Mahatma Gandhi was shot in Delhi. But the plot to assassinate him was hatched here, in what was then called the Bombay Province. It followed, therefore, that the investigation of the murder was placed under the direct charge of the Bombay deputy commissioner of police, Special Branch, J D Nagarwala.
Jimmy Nagarwala was a dashing Parsi officer whom the eminent writer Manohar Malgonkar described in his book The Men Who Killed Gandhi as having a film star’s cut of features.
He was chosen as Special Investigation Officer not only for his investigative skills but also because, fortuitously, he was neither Hindu nor Muslim and therefore had the crucial trump card of communal neutrality. After all, the Mahatma’s killing was as much an act of religious hate as a political one.
But to wind back to the plot itself. It was not as if Nathuram Godse had broken from the crowd in a sudden fit of impulse and fired three bullets into Gandhiji.
The radio announcements, ‘A madman has shot the Mahatma’ gave the erroneous impression of an extempore, wildcard attack, and Godse too, in his statement to the police, claimed that he had acted alone. This was of course proved to be completely untrue.
As it soon emerged, the young Nathuram, who shot, from a crouch of obeisance an old man hurrying to prayer, was no more and no less than the human trigger: behind the barrel of that 9mm Beretta lay months of planning and logistics, and a supporting cast of players.
Bombay, as it turned out, was the city in which three of the conspirators were apprehended; it was also the city in which key links in the assassination plan had been forged, and where the weapon was purchased.
A number of buildings in which the conspirators stayed before and after the murder, where they were arrested, and which were associated with the trial in some way, still stand.
In Tushar Gandhi’s provocatively titled new book Let’s Kill Gandhi (Rupa & Co), which is being launched at the Delhi Habitat Centre on Tuesday, there is detailed information on the Mumbai murder trail.
Tushar Gandhi, with the help of local history scholar Sharada Dwivedi tracked some of the buildings whose names have changed. All the facts in the book are mentioned in police records.
On the anniversary of Gandhi’s death, we go back in time and through this building trail—of hotels, lodges, offices, and even a temple—trace the footsteps of Nathuram Godse and the others from Marine Drive to Parel to Crawford Market and Carnac Road. The information here is from the book.
Four bullet theory: Was Godse not the killer?
Sharan, amicus curiae: No need to probe case again
AmitAnand Choudhary, Need not probe Gandhi case again, SC told, January 9, 2018: The Times of India
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From: AmitAnand Choudhary, Need not probe Gandhi case again, SC told, January 9, 2018: The Times of India
There is no need to re-investigate Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination to ascertain whether a ‘mysterious’ person and a ‘fourth’ bullet claimed his life as Nathuram Godse’s role in the killing has been established beyond doubt, amicus curiae and senior advocate Amarendra Sharan told the Supreme Court on Monday.
Sharan, a noted criminal lawyer, in a 220-page report filed in the SC, said there was no substance in the ‘four bullet theory’ in the case raised by self-confessed Veer Savarkar devotee and founder of ‘Abhinav Bharat’, Pankaj Phadnis. Seeking re-investigation, he had insisted that four shots were fired at Gandhi and claimed it was the fourth bullet fired by a mysterious person that proved to be fatal.
Sharan also brushed aside the allegation that some foreign intelligence agency was behind the January 30, 1948, assassination and told the court that there was no need to re-open the case to conduct a fresh investigation. Assisted by advocates Sanchit Guru and Samarth Khanna, Sharan filed the report after scrutinising voluminous documents including 4,000 pages of trial court records and the Jeevan Lal Kapur Inquiry Commission report of 1969, and told the court that the existence of a second assailant or the firing of a fourth bullet was ruled out.
“The bullets which pierced Gandhi’s body, the pistol from which it was fired, the assailant who fired the said bullets, the conspiracy which led to the assassination and the ideology which led to the said assassination have all been duly identified. No substantive material has come to light to throw any doubt on any of the above requiring either a re-investigation of the Mahatma Gandhi murder case or, to constitute a fresh fact-finding commission with respect to the same,” the report said. Sharan said he had received an affidavit by a doctor who claimed to have treated the alleged second assassin but the statements therein “carry no evidentiary value”.
The Madhya Pradesh link
The "mystery" of the fourth bullet
P Naveen, October 5, 2017: The Times of India
From: P Naveen, October 5, 2017: The Times of India
From: P Naveen, October 5, 2017: The Times of India
From: P Naveen, October 5, 2017: The Times of India
From: P Naveen, October 5, 2017: The Times of India
From: P Naveen, October 5, 2017: The Times of India
HIGHLIGHTS
SC to hear PIL on reopening Gandhi murder case on October 6.
A self-confessed Veer Savarkar devotee, Dr Pankaj Phadnis has filed a PIL in SC, questioning the belief that three bullets were fired at the Mahatma.
BHOPAL: On Mahatma Gandhi's 148th birth anniversary, conspiracy theorists are digging up 'unsolved mysteries' of the assassination+ - which pistol was used to kill him, how many shots were really fired, was there a second shooter?
The weapon riddle leads to Gwalior district of Madhya Pradesh. TOI has copies of a 1948 police document, which show that Dr Dattatraya Parchure of Gwalior - who allegedly provided the Beretta with which Godse fired three shots at the Mahatma - owned a second Beretta whose registration number 719791 was strangely the same as a pistol owned by another Gwalior resident, Uday Chand, at the same time.
The pistol with which Gandhi was shot has the registration number 606824. While Dr Parchure had given this one to Godse, he had refused to give him the second Berretta. Both pistols were seized in the aftermath of the assassination - one from the scene of the shooting and the other from Dr Parchure's home.
TOI has a copy of a document, signed by superintendent of police of the erstwhile Gwalior State on February 15, 1948, showing Dr Parchure and Uday Chand holding pistols with the same serial number. The note bases its data on records of May 2, 1947. TOI approached Dr Parchure's son Upendra, who practices homeopathy in Gwalior, and his grandson Meghdoot for their opinion, but they refused to speak.
Now, a self-confessed Veer Savarkar devotee, Dr Pankaj Phadnis - founder of a modern-day 'Abhinav Bharat' - has filed a PIL in Supreme Court, questioning the belief that three bullets were fired at the Mahatma. He insists four shots were fired and it is the fourth bullet that took his life. An earlier petition of Phadnis seeking reopening of the case was dismissed by a high court earlier, but he is undeterred.
Demanding a fresh probe into Mahatma Gandhi's assassination, he claims that "most newspapers throughout the world" reported that four bullets were fired at Gandhiji and that the "fourth bullet has remained a mystery all along". Phadnis cites an excerpt from Manuben's diary: "Almost 1 'o' clock Bapu was brought inside to bath while taking him to bathroom, all started to cry. Bapu's dhoti, shawl, handkerchief was completely covered with blood from clothes one bullet came out." Manuben, Gandhi's grandniece, was beside him during the assassination.
Phadnis wants to know where this "mystery bullet" came from and who fired it. His petition will be heard on October 6.
There is more to the bullet riddle, and the trail again leads to Gwalior. The petition to reopen the Gandhi assassination case encloses a letter, dated May 6, 1948, from the then IG-police of Delhi province to the director scientific laboratory, East Punjab CID. The IG wants to know if a bullet found in Gwalior matches any of the Berettas seized after the murder. This bullet is alleged to have been fired by the conspirators during a dry run of the assassination.
The laboratory replied that the bullet could not have been fired from the pistol recovered from Godse. TOI has copies of these letters. The question is why did the police feel the need to check out the other Beretta?
Phadnis has also questions why Herbert 'Tom' Reiner, a vice-consul attached to the US embassy, who was the first to nab and disarm Godse, was not made a witness in the case. He wants to know if Gandhi's killing had anything to do with his proposed visit to Pakistan in February 1948, which Pakistan Governor General Jinnah had agreed to.
TOI on gun trail
TOI had on January 1, 2012, published a report on how the trail of ownership of the Beretta pistol used to kill Mahatma Gandhi reached Gwalior but the investigations stopped inconclusive. The pistol had changed many hands in Gwalior till it finally came in possession of Jagdish Prasad Goel, who passed it on to Gangadhar Dandavate who finally handed it to Nathuram Godse. Two of the nine persons charged in the murder plot were executed. The investigation however, remained silent on why trail of the weapon's ownership was never pursued.
Death of Mahatma Gandhi and Alibeg Prisoners
Bal K. Gupta , Death of Mahatma Gandhi and Alibeg Prisoners "Daily Excelsior" 30/1/2016
On January 30, Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated in New Delhi (India). On that horrible day, I was 10 years old and held prisoner in Alibeg concentration camp (Pakistan Administered Kashmir). Following are excerpts from my book “Forgotten Atrocities: Memoirs of a Survivor of 1947 Partition of India”. Hope that those senseless killings are not repeated again.Death of Mahatma Gandhi
“On November 25, 1947, there were nearly twenty five thousand Hindus and Sikhs living in Mirpur (PAK). During the city’s capture by Pakistanis and Pathans, close to twenty five hundred were killed in the infernos that erupted due to Pakistani artillery fire. Another twenty five hundred escaped with the retreating Jammu and Kashmir (Maharaja’s) army. The remaining twenty thousand were arrested by the invading Pakistani army and the Pathans, and marched in a procession towards Alibeg. Along the way, the Pakistanis and Pathans killed about ten thousand of the captured Hindu and Sikh men and kidnapped over five thousand girls and young women. About five thousand Hindus and Sikhs who survived the twenty-mile trek by foot were imprisoned in Alibeg (PAK).
The Alibeg prison was located about two miles from Pakistan’s border. It was originally a large Sikh Gurudwara (temple) that was converted into a prison by the Pakistani army to detain Hindu and Sikhs prisoners. It was outrageous that a Sikh holy shrine was converted into a human slaughterhouse. By the end of December, the Pakistani guards had murdered about two thousand Hindu and Sikh young men. More than one thousand sick prisoners, particularly children and the elderly died of illness, food poisoning, or malnutrition. On average, the death rate was between fifteen to twenty prisoners per day until January 1948, when the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) arrived at the Alibeg prison and helped stop the killing.
Back in New Delhi (India), Mahatma Gandhi was trying to stop the massacre of Muslims by Hindu and Sikh refugees who had arrived in India from Pakistan. These refugees were retaliating at the senseless killing and rapes, which they had suffered at the hands of Pakistani Muslims. Mahatma Gandhi had gone on a fast until death if the Hindus and Sikhs did not stop killing Indian Muslims. Hindu and Sikh leaders and refugees listened to the Mahatma’s call and stopped killing Muslims in India. Consequently, Mahatma Gandhi broke his fast.
On January, 27, 1948 a delegation of Mirpur refugees in Delhi met Mahatma Gandhi to liberate Hindu prisoners from Alibeg. This delegation was led by Sardar Lal Singh Kakkar, a Sikh whose brother was killed in Alibeg prison, along with many Hindu refugees from Mirpur. Pandit Nehru, Indian Prime Minister, was also present in this meeting. They told Mahatma Gandhi about the killing of Hindus and Sikhs in Mirpur and Alibeg and asked them to send army to liberate Alibeg prisoners. But Mahatma Gandhi told them that it was difficult for Indian army to go forward in those areas because of snow covered roads. Sardar Kakkar explained to the Mahatma that it never snowed in Alibeg and areas around Mirpur. Pandit Nehru, Indian Prime Minister, only listened and did not make any comment. In the evening prayer meeting, Mahatma Gandhi made an appeal to Hindus and Muslims of the subcontinent to stop killing of Hindus (in Pakistan) and Muslims (in India). This meeting did not bring any military action to liberate Alibeg prisoners. The delegation did not get a second chance for a follow up meetings with the Mahatma to press Alibeg prisoners’ case more forcefully. Unfortunately, on January 30, 1948, Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated.
In Alibeg prison, Pakistani soldiers and prison guards broke the news of Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination to the Hindu and Sikh prisoners. We felt sorrow on the tragic death of the Mahatma but did not have the liberty for a condolence meeting. We did not know the full details of Mahatma Gandhi’s death because we had been cut off from the rest of the outside world. The Pakistani soldiers placed the entire blame of the assassination on the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh. The Hindus and Sikhs in the prison were very sad to know that the killer of Mahatma Gandhi was a Hindu. The only news we ever got was from the discarded Pakistani Urdu newspapers that we picked up from the Muslim grocery stores of Alibeg.”
Why Godse killed the Mahatma
Why Exactly Did Godse Kill Gandhi?
It was his hatred of the secular ideology of Gandhi, the true Hindu spirit.
Aakar Patel
India's most famous figure was assassinated on 30 January 1948 by Nathuram Godse. So why exactly did Godse kill Gandhi?
After his arrest, he spotted Gandhi's son Devdas who was editor of Hindustan Times. The encounter was described by Nathuram's brother and co-conspirator and fellow convict (though he was only jailed and not hanged) Gopal Godse, in his book Gandhiji's Murder And After. The younger Gandhi has come to the police station in 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 tells 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."
Devdas replies: "Then why did you do it?"
Nathuram says "the reason is purely political and political alone!" He asks for time to explain his case but the police do not allow this. In court, Nathuram explained himself in a statement, but the court banned it. Gopal Godse reprints 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."
So what is in that statement? In it Godse makes the following points:
That he respected Gandhi and "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."
Godse felt about Gandhi that "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. 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 to thought of action against Gandhi because, in Nathuram's 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."
The other charge is 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."
There is a problem with Godse's argument and it is this. He thinks Gandhi was enthusiastic about dividing India when everything in history tells us the case was the opposite. He says Gandhi was a tyrant in 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 sense by way of logic. 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, that he is finally opposed to, having been brainwashed thoroughly by [right-wing Hindu 'nationalists'].
The fact is that there is no action and no teaching of Gandhi that is exceptionable and this 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 the 21st century, while Nathuram Godse's complaints have vanished in the mists of time.
Godse’s statement
WHY I KILLED GANDHI – Nathuram Godse's Final Address to the Court.
Nathuram Godse was arrested immediately after he assassinated Gandhiji, based on a F. I. R. filed by Nandlal Mehta at the Tughlak Road Police staton at Delhi . The trial, which was held in camera, began on May 27, 1948 and concluded on February 10, 1949. He was sentenced to death.
An appeal to the Punjab High Court, then in session at Simla, did not find favour and the sentence was upheld. The statement below is the last one made by Godse before the Court on the May 5, 1949.
WHY I KILLED GANDHI
“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.
“All this reading and thinking led me to believe it was my first duty to serve Hindudom and Hindus both as a patriot and as a world citizen. To secure the freedom and to safeguard the just interests of some thirty crores (300 million) of Hindus would automatically constitute the freedom and the well-being of all India , one fifth of human race. This conviction led me naturally to devote myself to the Hindu Sanghtanist ideology and programme, which alone, I came to believe, could win and preserve the national independence of Hindustan , my Motherland, 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 became supreme. His activities for public awakening were phenomenal in their intensity and were reinforced by the slogan of truth and non-violence which he paraded ostentatiously before the country. No sensible or enlightened person could object to those slogans. In fact there is nothing new or original in them.. They are implicit in every constitutional public movement. But it is nothing but a mere dream if you imagine that the bulk of mankind is, or can ever become, capable of scrupulous adherence to these lofty principles in its normal life from day to day.
“In fact, honour, duty and love of one’s own kith and kin and country might often compel us to disregard non-violence and to use force. I could never conceive that an armed resistance to an aggression is unjust. I would consider it a religious and moral duty to resist and, if possible, to overpower such an enemy by use of force. [In the Ramayana] Rama killed Ravana in a tumultuous fight and relieved Sita.. [In the Mahabharata], Krishna killed Kansa to end his wickedness; and Arjuna had to fight and slay quite a number of his friends and relations including the revered Bhishma because the latter was on the side of the aggressor. It is my firm belief that in dubbing Rama, Krishna and Arjuna as guilty of violence, the Mahatma betrayed a total ignorance of the springs of human action.
“In more recent history, it was the heroic fight put up by Chhatrapati Shiva ji that first checked and eventually destroyed the Muslim tyranny in India . It was absolutely essentially for Shiva ji to overpower and kill an aggressive Afzal Khan, failing which he would have lost his own life. In condemning history’s towering warriors like Shiva ji, Rana Pratap and Guru Gobind Singh as misguided patriots, Gandhiji has merely exposed his self-conceit. He was, paradoxical as it may appear, a violent pacifist who brought untold calamities on the country in the name of truth and non-violence, while Rana Pratap, Shiva ji and the Guru will remain enshrined in the hearts of their countrymen for ever for the freedom they brought to them.
“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. Gandhi had done very good 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.
“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. He alone was the Judge of everyone and every thing; he was the master brain guiding the civil disobedience movement; no other could know the technique of that movement. He alone knew when to begin and when to withdraw it. The movement might succeed or fail, it might bring untold disaster and political reverses but that could make no difference to the Mahatma’s infallibility. ‘A Satyagrahi can never fail’ was his formula for declaring his own infallibility and nobody except himself knew what a Satyagrahi is. Thus, the Mahatma became the judge and jury in his own cause. These childish insanities and obstinacies, coupled with a most severe austerity of life, ceaseless work and lofty character made Gandhi formidable and irresistible.
“Many people thought that his politics were irrational but they had either to withdraw from the Congress or place their intelligence at his feet to do with as he liked. In a position of such absolute irresponsibility Gandhi was guilty of blunder after blunder, failure after failure, disaster after disaster. Gandhi’s pro-Muslim policy is blatantly in his perverse attitude on the question of the national language of India . It is quite obvious that Hindi has the most prior claim to be accepted as the premier language. In the beginning of his career in India , Gandhi gave a great impetus to Hindi but as he found that the Muslims did not like it, he became a champion of what is called Hindustani.. Everybody in India knows that there is no language called Hindustani; it has no grammar; it has no vocabulary. It is a mere dialect, it is spoken, but not written. It is a bastard tongue and cross-breed between Hindi and Urdu, and not even the Mahatma’s sophistry could make it popular. But in his desire to please the Muslims he insisted that Hindustani alone should be the national language of India . His blind followers, of course, supported him and the so-called hybrid language began to be used. The charm and purity of the Hindi language was to be prostituted to please the Muslims. All his experiments were at the expense of the Hindus.
“From August 1946 onwards the private armies of the Muslim League began a massacre of the Hindus. The then Viceroy, Lord Wavell, though distressed at what was happening, would not use his powers under the Government of India Act of 1935 to prevent the rape, murder and arson. The Hindu blood began to flow from Bengal to Karachi with some retaliation by the Hindus. The Interim Government formed in September was sabotaged by its Muslim League members right from its inception, but the more they became disloyal and treasonable to the government of which they were a part, the greater was Gandhi’s infatuation for them. Lord Wavell had to resign as he could not bring about a settlement and he was succeeded by Lord Mountbatten. King Log was followed by King Stork. The Congress which had boasted of its nationalism and socialism secretly accepted Pakistan literally at the point of the bayonet and abjectly surrendered to Jinnah. India was vivisected and one-third of the Indian territory became foreign land to us from August 15, 1947.
“Lord Mountbatten came to be described in Congress circles as the greatest Viceroy and Governor-General this country ever had. The official date for handing over power was fixed for June 30, 1948, but Mountbatten with his ruthless surgery gave us a gift of vivisected India ten months in advance. This is what Gandhi had achieved after thirty years of undisputed dictatorship and this is what Congress party calls ‘freedom’ and ‘peaceful transfer of power’. The Hindu-Muslim unity bubble was finally burst and a theocratic state was established with the consent of Nehru and his crowd and they have called ‘freedom won by them with sacrifice’ – whose sacrifice? 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.
“One of the conditions imposed by Gandhi for his breaking of the fast unto death related to the mosques in Delhi occupied by the Hindu refugees. But when Hindus in Pakistan were subjected to violent attacks he did not so much as utter a single word to protest and censure the Pakistan Government or the Muslims concerned. Gandhi was shrewd enough to know that while undertaking a fast unto death, had he imposed for its break some condition on the Muslims in Pakistan , there would have been found hardly any Muslims who could have shown some grief if the fast had ended in his death. It was for this reason that he purposely avoided imposing any condition on the Muslims. He was fully aware of from the experience that Jinnah was not at all perturbed or influenced by his fast and the Muslim League hardly attached any value to the inner voice of Gandhi.
“Gandhi is being referred to as the Father of the Nation. But if that is so, he had failed his paternal duty inasmuch as he has acted very treacherously to 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 the Father of Pakistan. His inner-voice, his spiritual power and his doctrine of non-violence of which so much is made of, all crumbled before Jinnah’s iron will and proved to be powerless. Briefly speaking, I thought to myself and foresaw I shall be totally ruined, and the only thing I could expect from the people would be nothing but hatred and that I shall have lost all my honour, even more valuable than my life, if I were to kill Gandhiji. But at the same time I felt that the Indian politics in the absence of Gandhiji would surely be proved practical, able to retaliate, and would be powerful with armed forces. No doubt, my own future would be totally ruined, but the nation would be saved from the inroads of Pakistan . People may even call me and dub me as devoid of any sense or foolish, but the nation would be free to follow the course founded on the reason which I consider to be necessary for sound nation-building.
“After having fully considered the question, I took the final decision in the matter, but I did not speak about it to anyone whatsoever. I took courage in both my hands and I did fire the shots at Gandhiji on 30th January 1948, on the prayer-grounds of Birla House. I do say that my shots were fired at the person whose policy and action had brought rack and ruin and destruction to millions of Hindus. There was no legal machinery by which such an offender could be brought to book and for this reason I fired those fatal shots. 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.
“I have to say with great regret that Prime Minister Nehru quite forgets that his preachings and deeds are at times at variances with each other when he talks about India as a secular state in season and out of season, because it is significant to note that Nehru has played a leading role in the establishment of the theocratic state of Pakistan, and his job was made easier by Gandhi’s persistent policy of appeasement towards the Muslims. I now stand before the court to accept the full share of my responsibility for what I have done and the judge would, of course, pass against me such orders of sentence as may be considered proper. But I would like to add that I do not desire any mercy to be shown to me, nor do I wish that anyone else should beg for mercy on my behalf. My confidence about the moral side of my action has not been shaken even by the criticism levelled against it on all sides. I have no doubt that honest writers of history will weigh my act and find the true value thereof some day in future.”
Justice GD Khosla's memoir
Page 16 ...(H)e expressed his willingness to appear before a magistrate and repeat his statement. He was tendered a conditional pardon and thus he became King's evidence. The examination of the witnesses and the recording of their evidence was concluded on November 6. The prisoners made long st atements when asked to explain the evidence produced by the prosecution, b ut they chose not to call any witnesses, though a number of documents were pl aced before the court by way to defence. Arguments of counsel lasted a whole month, and the court pronounced judgment on February 10, 1949. Out of th e men Charged. Savarkar was acquitted, two, viz. Nathuram Godse and his fri end Apte, were sentenced to death and the remaining five were awarded senten ces of imprisonment for life. The trial judge, at the time of announcing hi s order, informed the convicted persons that if they wished to appeal fro m his order, they should do so within fifteen days. Four days later appeals wer e filed in the Punjab High Court on behalf of all the seven convicted persons. Godse did not challenge his conviction upon the charge of murder, not did he qu estion the propriety of the death sentence. His appeal was confined to the find ing that there was a conspiracy. He assumed complete and sole responsibi lity for the death of Mahatma Gandhi, and vehemently denied that anyone e lse had anything to do with it. An appeal in a murder case is, according to High Co urt Rules and Orders, heard by a Division Bench consisting of two judges, but o wing to the unique position which the deceased had occupied, the complexity and volume of the evidence which would have to be considered and appraised and the unprecedented interest aroused by the case, the Chief Justice dec ided to constitute a bench of three judges to hear the appeal by Godse and his ac complices. The judges were Mr. Justice Bhandari, Mr. Justice Achhruram and mys elf. We decided that as a special measure we should resume the old practice o f wearing wigs, and that on our entry into the court-room we should, as in t he olden days, be preceded by our liveried ushers carrying silver-mounted staf fs
Page 20
capacity for remaining open till the last word in a
cause has been uttered,
eminent judges are notoriously obstinate and diffic
ult to dislodge from their
beliefs and convictions. I have known judges who co
me to court even more fully
prepared than the lawyers engaged by the parties. I
have a suspicion that they
do this partly from a sense of their high duty, but
also because of their desire
to make an exhibition of their industry and eruditi
on. No matter how learned
and experienced the judge, if he has made a deep st
udy of a case he will
inevitably have formed an opinion regarding its mer
its before he comes to
court. So, he will start with a bias and it will be
difficult to displace him from
his position, for his subconscious mind will refuse
to admit that something
important escaped his close study of the case or th
at a certain piece or
evidence was erroneously interpreted. A truly liqui
d mind is a very rare
commodity among high judicial dignitaries.
My friend and colleague Mr. Justice Achhruram has a
lways been a very
industrious lawyer. He commanded an extensive and l
ucrative practice at the
bar before he was raised to the bench, and he broug
ht with him his inimitable
capacity for hard work and his deep knowledge of ci
vil law. Criminal law and
procedure had remained comparative strangers to him
, though he had often sat
on a bench dealing with criminal matters. For weeks
before the appeal of
Godse and his accomplices came up for hearing, he h
ad been studying the bulky
volumes in which the entire evidence, oral and docu
mentary, was contained.
There were -in all 1,131 printed pages of foolscap
size and a supplementary
volume of 115 pages of cyclostyled foolscap paper.
He had taken pains to look
up a number of reported cases dealing with some leg
al aspects of the trial, and
had made a note of these rulings. So, when he came
to court on the morning of
May 2, he showed a complete understanding of the fa
cts of the case as well as
of the points of law raised in the memoranda of app
eals.
Page 28
two insurance policies of Rs. 2,000/- and Rs. 3,000
/- respectively on his life. On
January 13 he nominated Apte's wife as the benefici
ary under the first policy,
and on the following day he similarly assigned the
second policy for Rs. 3,000/-
to his brother's wife. Then, accompanied by Apte, h
e left Poona for Bombay,
with his mind a little easier in, at least, one res
pect.
Page 36
all 'Hindu- minded'. He had organised a volunteer c
orps to devend Hindus and,
in particular, the refugees. On one occasion in the
beginning of January he
spoke, with a mysterious air, of a plot to murder a
leader. Dr. Jain thought the
young man was merely boiling over with indignation,
and did not believe that
there was any truth in what he said. But the next t
ime he met Pahwa ne asked
with the name of the leader who was to be the victi
m of their plot, and when
Pahwa revealed the name or Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. Jain
, though still
increduious, gave him some fatherly advice, telling
him not to behave like a
foolish child. 'You are a refugee,' he said, 'you h
ave suffered a great deal in the
Punjab riots. Begin yourself a victim of violence,
you should not seek your
remedy in violence,' and so on at great length in t
his strain. When Pahwa let
him, Dr. Jain believed that he had converted the yo
ung man, if indeed there
was any basis of truth in the story of the plot, an
d dismissed the matter from
this mind as a thing of small consequence.
But when only a week later he read of the outrage a
t Birla house and the arrest
of Madan Lai Pahwa, he was indignant with himself f
or having remained so
criminally complacent, and at once telephoned Sarda
r Vallabhbhai Patel, the
Minister for Home Affairs, who was present at Bomba
y, and Mr.S.K. Patil,
President of the Bombay Provincial Congress Committ
ee. Neither of them was
available, but he was able to speak to Mr. Kher, th
e Chief Minister of Bombay,
first on the telephone and then personally in his o
ffice. He also saw Mr. Morarji
Desai, who was then the Home minister of Bombay Sta
te. He told them the
story of the plot to assassinate Mahatma Gandhi jus
t as he had heard it from
Pahwa. The police at once took the matter up and be
gan a vigorous search for
the persons who were reported to be Pahwa's associa
tes.
Godse and Apte arrived at Delhi, by plane, at 12.40
p.m. on January 27. The
same afternoon they left for Gwalior by train, reac
hing there at 10.38 p.m.
They drove in a tonga to the house of Dr. Parchure,
and stayed the night with
him. The object of their visit was to procure a pis
tol which would fire
accurately. In this they were successful, and a pis
tol was obtained from one
Goel who was a member of Dr. Parchure's volunteer c
orps. Godse and Apte then
Page 45
could make no difference to the Mahatma's infallibi
lity. 'A Satyagrahi can never
fail' was his formula for declaring his own infalli
bility and nobody except he
himself knew who a Satyagrahi was. Thus Gandhiji be
came the judge and the
counsel in his own case. These childish inanities a
nd obstinacies coupled with a
most severe austerity of life, ceaseless work and l
ofty character made Gandhiji
formidable and irresistible. Many people thought hi
s politics were it- rational,
but they had either to withdraw from the Congress o
r to place their
intelligence at his feet to do what he liked with i
t. In a position of such
absolute irresponsibility Gandhiji was guilty of bl
under after blunder, failure
after failure and disaster after disaster. No one s
ingle political victory can be
claimed to his credit during 33 years of his politi
cal predominance.
- * *
So long as Gandhian method was in the ascendance, f rustration was the only inevitable result. He had, throughout, opposed ever y spirited revolutionary, radical and vigorous individual or group, and const antly boosted his Charka, non-violence and truth. The Charka had, after 34 ye ars of the best efforts of Gandhiji, only led to the expansion of the machine- run textile industry by over 200 per cent. It is unable even now to clothe even one per cent of the nation. - As regards non-violence, it was absurd to except 40 crores of people to regulate their lives on such a lofty plane and it broke down most conspicuously in 1942. As regards truth the least I can say is that the tr uthfulness of the average Congressman is by no means of a higher order than t hat of the man in the street, and that very often it is untruth, in reali ty, masked by a thin veneer of pretended truthfulness.
- * *
Gandhiji's inner voice, his spiritual power and his doctrine of non-violence, of which so much is made of, all crumbled before Mr. J innah's iron will and proved to be powerless
Page 50
Appendix (A) Letters appeared in times of India Jul
y
-1998
GANDHI Vs GODSE
It is indeed depressing to note that a dastardly mu
rderer of the father of our
nation who successfully led us to freedom is being
depicted as a national hero
like Bhagat Singh or Rani of Jhansi in a drama enac
ted at Mumbai. Every murder
is a crime irrespective of its motive, and the murd
er of a world figure who was
an apostle of peace and love, and to whom the whole
nation owes its deep
respect and veneration, is the most despicable and
cowardly crime. Its
glorification not only hurts the national ethos and
culture, but also encourages
intolerance in public life, and incites that class
of people who are not ready to
tolerate the opposite view in public affairs, to re
sort to violence to settle the
scores.
See also
Mahatma Gandhi: In South Africa
Mahatma Gandhi: Assassination of
