[The following is the primary court-room statement by Nathuram Godse,
the young man who assassinated Gandhi, on why he felt compelled to do
so.
After hanging Godse, the Government of India did the expected: it
banned Godse's statement from publication though court proceedings
should have been public, and blamed the entire cross section of Hindu
political opponents, banning them as well!
Here are Godse's own words:]
<http://ngodse.tripod.com/defense.htm>
"Born in a devotional Brahmin family, I instinctively came to revere
Hindu religion, Hindu history and Hindu culture. I had, therefore, been
intensely proud of Hinduism as a whole. As I grew up I developed a
tendency to free thinking unfettered by any superstitious allegiance to
any isms, political or religious. That is why I worked actively for the
eradication of untouchability and the caste system based on birth
alone. I openly joined anti-caste movements and maintained that all
Hindus were of equal status as to rights, social and religious and
should be considered high or low on merit alone and not through the
accident of birth in a particular caste or profession. I used publicly
to take part in organized anti-caste dinners in which thousands of
Hindus, Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, Chamars and Bhangis
participated. We broke the caste rules and dined in the company of each
other.
"I have read the speeches and writings of Dadabhai Naoroji, Vivekanand,
Gokhale, Tilak, along with the books of ancient and modern history of
India and some prominent countries like England, France, America and'
Russia. Moreover I studied the tenets of Socialism and Marxism. But
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.
"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
****vaji that first checked and eventually destroyed the Muslim tyranny
in India. It was absolutely essentially for ****vaji to overpower and
kill an aggressive Afzal Khan, failing which he would have lost his own
life. In condemning history's towering warriors like ****vaji, 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, ****vaji and the Guru
will remain enshrined in the hearts of their countrymen for ever for
the freedom they brought to them.
"The ac***ulating 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
leader****p, 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, sup****ted 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 dictator****p 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 wor****p - 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."
-Nathuram Godse
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