One had expected much better from Dabholkar who has adapted the original Pradeep Dalvi play in Marathi Mee Nathuram Godse Boltoy (I am Nathuram Godse speaking). I had seen it more than 25 years ago in Mumbai. Even then people had clapped, I immediately wrote a report for the Times of India where I was working, it was, however, suppressed. The Marathi version was directed by Vinay Apte, who was associated with the Sangh Parivar, and the actor Sharad Ponkshe, playing Godse, remains to this day a great admirer of Godse in real life.

Dabholkar is much better educated than Dalvi, has a much better social exposure with his experience in advertising and other fields; he is financially better off. I have enjoyed some of his humour. Unfortunately, he leaves a a much worse taste in the mouth, with this play, than the earlier one. He claims to be impartial but gave himself away during the bow to the audience after the performance when he announced that those who wanted to see the clothes and other belongings of Godse could see them in Godse’s house in Pune. This clearly shows his bias in favour of Godse. He retains some of the wildest distortions of the original with clearly fake characters and scenes regarding the trial.

As Y.D. Phadke[1], the eminent scholar and political science professor, wrote in response to the Marathi play that characters of inspector Shaikh and sub inspector Sawant simply did not exist in real life, in the trial. There is so much nonsensical fiction thrown into the play, Devdas Gandhi , son of the Mahatma, is shown to be a lawyer who wants to take up the case of Godse, his meetings with Godse are shown. In fact, no such meetings took place and Devdas was not a lawyer. More ludicrous is the scene of a burqa clad Zubeida, showing her great afffection, respect for Godse, and she is the sister of the fictitious inspector Shaikh who also becomes an admirer of Godse! Too many falsehoods to be mentioned here.

A note. Since the issue dealt here is sensitive, comments if any may be moderate in tone. (This was for Meta Facebook where the post appears) Extremists, please look elsewhere if you want to write on this.

The volume, Beyond Doubt, A Dossier on Gandhi’s Assassination, edited and introduced by Teesta Setalvad brings to light the report of the Kapur Commission which was appointed by the Government of India in 1965 to examine the depth and scope of the conspiracy that lay behind the killing of Gandhi.

This three-volume report has been absent from the public domain though it contains invaluable evidence—intelligence reports, oral and documentary evidence—of the extent of complicity behind the hate-driven conspiracy that resulted in the Mahatma’s killing.

On November 12, 1964, at a programme organized in Pune, Dr G.V. Ketkar, the grandson of Bal Gangadhar Tilak, disclosed that six months before the actual criminal act, Nathuram Godse had disclosed his intentions to kill Gandhi. This information was passed on by him via others to the Chief Minister of the then Bombay state, B.G. Kher. Not only was Ketkar arrested but a furore ensued in the Maharashtra State Assembly and the Indian Parliament at the time. In 1965, the Government of India set up a Commission of Inquiry into the Conspiracy to Murder Mahatma Gandhi, headed by Justice Jeevan Lal Kapur, a former judge of the Supreme Court. The commission examined evidence not produced during the trial. Justice Kapur concluded that the facts showed that a clear conspiracy existed on the part of Hindu supremacist groups.

(The author, a senior journalist with The Times of India wrote this on meta/Facebook; https://www.facebook.com/share/p/gnM6x6wsr1ykaXp7/?mibextid=WC7FNe; this version has been edited slightly–Editors)

[1] Communalism Combat, in October 2000 published, in translation, extracts from noted historian, YD Phadke’s book in Marathi, Nathuramayan. This was titled, The murderer as martyr https://sabrang.com/cc/comold/oct00/cover1.htm. It is also available on https://sabrangindia.in/murderer-martyr/#:~:text=In%20independent%20India%2C%20politics%20has,his%20statement%20to%20the%20court. This article by eminent historian YD Phadke had exposed Pradeep Dalvi’s claim about his play, Mee Nathuram Godse Boltoye, being based on historical facts as completely bogus. Nathuramayan is a compilation of a series of incisive articles by the (The article in Marathi was first published in the Marathi eveninger, Apla Mahanagar and translated for us into English by Mukta Rajadhyaksha). 

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The murder of Mahatma Gandhi, or more dramatically put, the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi was the first act of terror committed in independent India, as I wrote in the introduction to the volume, Beyond Doubt-A Dossier on Gandhi’s Assassination (2015, Tulika). It was also, I wrote, a declaration of war and a statement of intent.

It was a declaration of war by a section of society which remained largely on the fringes during the independence struggle and was committed to religion-based nationhood, and wanted India to become a Hindu rashtra. This was a section that bore visceral dislike toward the idea of composite culture and inclusive nationhood advocated by the Mahatma.

It is this ideology that unashamedly rules India today.

Any discussion on the assassination, therefore, needs to address the issues around the killing, the motives of the assassins. It should also examine further why Gandhi and what he stood for posed such a dire threat to the worldview of the killers.

Whenever the murder is discussed, and the factors responsible for the killing tossed around, public memory can often become carelessly selective, unwarrantedly perhaps spawning a dangerous ambivalence. I refer here specifically to the July 21 article that deliberately or otherwise skips crucial bits of the event. There are also several inaccuracies in the report that has carelessly quoted from earlier published articles.

Setting the record straight
There is need to set the record straight. The killing of Gandhi was not an isolated act but the last successful one of a series of attempts that began as early as 1934. Since the first attack on June 25 1934, there had been a total of five attempts on Gandhi’s life: in July and September 1944, September 1946, and January 20, 1948, ten days before he was actually shot dead.

Nathuram Godse was involved in two of the previous attempts besides the last one – that is, in a total of three, completely upsetting the comfortable narrative of Godse’s actions not being pre-meditated and coldly and carefully planned.

This aspect is completely missing from the article that fails to ask (while superficially relying on a sinister justification for the killing that Godse’s belief that “Gandhi helped create Pakistan” was the reason behind the killing) why some groups of persons found Gandhi and his beliefs so thoroughly repugnant that they had to eliminate him.

It was Gandhi’s commitment to composite nationhood as opposed to a religion-based state (Pakistan or Hindu Rashtra) and his support for the law against untouchability (he made a historic speech in the Central legislature in 1935) that made him enemy No 1 for all those who dreamt then – and conspire even today – to convert India into a Hindu Rashtra.

One of the crucial reasons for editing the volume Beyond Doubt was to bring to readers in English the seminal work of senior journalist and writer Jagan Phadnis who researched the killing back in 1998 as also the important contribution of Chunibhai Vaidya from Gujarat. These works along with historian YD Phadke’s analysis of the Kapoor Commission Report published in Communalism Combat are crucial reading for serious readers on the subject, and are included in the volume.

That the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh was banned by the government of India within two days of the assassination, through a Government Resolution dated February 2, 1948, is surely a critical part of the narrative, which is absent in its recounting 68 years later. The language of this resolution, reproduced in Beyond Doubt, is unequivocal when it speaks of the determination of the government of India

“to root out the forces of hate and violence that are at work in our country and imperil the freedom of the Nation and darken her fair name. In pursuance of this politics [the GR says] the GOI has decided to declare as unlawful the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh in the Chief Commissioner’s Provinces. Similar action is also being taken in the Governor’s provinces.”
The banning of the RSS within five months of India becoming independent and within two days of the dastardly killing of Mahatma Gandhi has been linked to the ‘undesirable and even dangerous activities carried out by individual members of the Sangh who have indulged in acts of violence involving arson, robbery, dacoity and murder and have collected illicit arms and ammunition. They have been found, “circulating leaflets exhorting people to resort to terrorist methods, to collect firearms, to create disaffection against the government and suborn the police and the military….The objectionable and harmful activities of the Sangh have, however, continued unabated and the cult of violence sponsored and inspired by the activities of the Sangh has claimed many victims. The latest and the most precious to fall was Gandhiji himself.” The GR was first published in the August 2004 issue of Communalism Combat, as part of the cover story, titled Hey Ram.

Ban and lifting the ban
The story does not end here. The communications between the Government of India through then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Home Minister Vallabhai Patel with the RSS also show up the falsehoods perpetrated by the Sangh, which has tried to distort even this part of history.

On September 11, 1948, the famous letter written by Patel to RSS chief MS Golwalkar strongly decries the systematic hate tactics of the Sangh before and after Gandhi’s assassination. This letter has been quoted in full in Desraj Goyal’s Rahstriya Swayamsevak Sangh (First published in 1979, Revised edition in 2000, Radhakrishna Prakashan Pvt Ltd, New Delhi).

More importantly, this and another letter written by Patel to the founder of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee dated July 18, 1948 make clear the links between the RSS and the Hindu Mahasabha.
The September 11, 1948 letter is of particular significance as it outlines the kind of activities the RSS was observed to indulge in.

“But the objectionable part arose when they, burning with revenge, began attacking Mussalmans. Organising Hindus and helping them is one thing but going in for revenge for its sufferings on innocent and helpless men, women and children is quite another thing……..All their speeches were full communal poison. It was not necessary to spread poison and enthuse the Hindus and organise for their protection. As a final result of the poison, the country had to suffer the sacrifice of the valuable life of Gandhiji. Even an iota of sympathy of the Government or of the people no more remained for the RSS. In fact the opposition grew. Opposition turned more severe, when the RSS men expressed joy and distributed sweets after Gandhiji’s death. Under these conditions it became inevitable for the Government to take action against the RSS.”

A government of India press note of November 14, 1948 relates to the outright rejection of a representation by Golwalkar to lift the ban on the RSS by the Home Ministry, refers to the “anti-national, often subversive and violent activities of the RSS”.

This press note, also obtained from the archives of the government of India, was first published in the August 2004 issue of Communalism Combat, as part of the cover story, titled Hey Ram.

The government of India took into account the considered opinion of provincial governments before arriving at its decision to ban the RSS. An article of The Indian Express dated February 7, 1948 reports that an RSS leader from Nagpur who had presented Godse with the revolver with which he killed Gandhi had been arrested. Other persons arrested included Professor Varahadpande of the City College, Nagpur.

This news report states that another professor of Nagpur had told his students a day before the assassination that “Gandhiji would be murdered”. An associate of the gang of conspirators, Devendra Kumar, was reported by the same newspaper to have surrendered to the District Magistrate, Mirzapur and taken to Lucknow under armed escort.

There is more such material which forms part of the annexes to the Kapoor Commission which will form part of the second volume of Beyond Doubt that I am currently annotating and editing. For the record, towards the end of the judgement in the Gandhi Murder case, Special Judge Atmacharan made the following remarks in regards to the conduct of the police with relation to the bomb attack on Gandhi on January 20, barely ten days before the day he died.

“ I may bring to the notice of the Central Government the slackness of the police in the investigation of the case during the period between January 20-30,1948… Had the slightest keenness been shown in the investigation of the case at that stage, the tragedy could have been averted.”

The terms of reference to the Kapoor Commission clearly show that it was not within its ambit to investigate whether or not the RSS was involved in the murder. It would be pertinent to again quote from the Government communiqué dated 11 July, 1949 provided in Appendix IV to Desraj Goyal’s Rahstriya Swayamsevak Sangh which laid down the conditions for lifting the ban on the RSS.

“The RSS leader has undertaken to make the loyalty to the Union Constitution and respect for the National Flag more explicit in the Constitution of the RSS and to provide clearly that persons believing or resorting to violent and secret methods will have no place in the Sangh..”

Among other conditions was that the RSS would function only as a cultural organisation.

Hindu rashtra

A genuine understanding of the motivations behind the ideology that killed Gandhi cannot skirt around the fundamental issue of religion-based nationhood. The contempt for the Indian Constitution is writ large in MS Golwalkar’s Bunch of Thoughts, which is proudly available on the RSS website even today (for example, see Page 119).

Despite its assurances to the government of India, the Indian tricolour remained anathema to the Sangh for 52 years after India became independent. It was only on January 26, 2002, that the RSS hoisted the tricolour on its headquarters. Until then it was always the bhagwa dhwaj, representing the Hindu nation.

In fact, the English organ of the RSS, Organiser (dated August 14, 1947) carried a feature titled “Mystery behind the bhagwa dhawaj” which, while demanding hoisting of the saffron flag at the ramparts of Red Fort in Delhi, openly denigrated the choice of the Tri-colour as the National Flag in the following words:

“The people who have come to power by the kick of fate may give in our hands the Tricolour but it never be respected and owned by Hindus. The word three is in itself an evil, and a flag having three colours will certainly produce a very bad psychological effect and is injurious to a country.”

It became even more brazen once the first RSS-driven government in New Delhi under Atal Behari Vajpayee came into power as the organisation’s mouthpiece Organiser proudly advertised the books published by Surya Bharati Prakashan, Gandhi Ji’s Murder and After by co-accused and brother of the assassin, Gopal Godse, as also May It Please Your Honour, by Nathuram Godse.

Both the RSS and the Hindu Mahasabha have made money by glamourising the killer of Gandhi and claimed proud privilege for the reasons for the killing.

The crux of the issue for the Sangh and those who have opposed its supremacist ideology has always been about who has or has not the right to equal rights and citizenship in the India of today. On this issue Gandhi and the RSS stood on the extreme opposites ends of the spectrum. Not only can no one deny this, but it is this crucial issue that remains central to the debate around which forces were responsible for the murder of the Mahatma.

Courtesy: Scroll.in

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January 30^th 1948 will remain etched forever in the conscience of the nation. On that fateful day at evening prayer, Mahatma Gandhi fell to the bullets of his assassin Nathuram Godse, in Delhi. Godse represented the fascist, fanatic, fundamentalist and ‘feku’ forces, which abhorred the values which Gandhi espoused all his life and particularly the idea of an inclusive, pluralistic and secular India. These forces unfortunately are still very alive in India and in several parts of the world today!
 
There are certainly those who disagreed with Gandhi during his lifetime and there are many who disagree with his philosophy and his methodology even today. Nevertheless, few will be able to contest the fact that Gandhi was a man of principles who lived and died for a cause. His life was frugal and exemplary and unlike several politicians today, he did not care leave alone crave, for the privileges and the trappings of power.
 
In his lifetime, he internalized and propagated two cherished values: truth (Satyagraha) and non-violence (Ahimsa). This twin doctrine is today more than ever needed, as sizeable sections of India and other parts of the world fall easy prey to falsehood and hate; to divisiveness and violence.
 
Gandhi believed in the spirituality of inclusiveness. For him, the Hindu Scriptures ‘the Bhagvad Gita’ and Jesus’ “Sermon on the Mount” (particularly the section on the ‘Beatitudes’) had to be read and meditated upon simultaneously since he was convinced that they resonated with one another. He refers to this in his autobiography, My Experiment with Truth.

There was plenty of violence and bloodshed in the run –up to India’s independence. Gandhi truly desired an undivided India, in which Hindus and Muslims would live in peace and harmony.

The world today is in a turmoil as never before. In ways both subtle and direct; through discriminatory policies and executive orders; through manipulations and coercions, we witness the gradual break-up of our world, even as hasty and unwanted walls are built to keep people out.

In October 1946, he spent weeks in Naokhali (today in Bangla Desh) literally bringing to a halt, in a non-violent way, massacres and mayhem between the two communities.

On August 15 1947, as India celebrated her independence, there were no celebrations for Gandhi; he was back in Calcutta with his protégé Abdul Ghaffar Khan. He encouraged people to be non-violent and peaceful; he himself prayed, fasted and spun yarn. Those actions of his had a profound impact on the people- peace was restored.

When C Rajagopalachari, the first Governor- General of Independent India, visited and congratulated Gandhi for restoring peace in the city, Gandhi said he would not be satisfied "until Hindus and Muslims felt safe in one another's company and returned to their own homes to life as before." He sincerely cared for those who were forcibly displaced.

On the day Gandhi was assassinated, Pandit Nehru, India’s Prime Minister in an emotional address to the nation said, “the light has gone out of our lives and there is darkness everywhere!” He was just stating a fact.

Darkness continues to envelop a good part of the world today; the very forces that murdered Gandhi continue to murder all that he epitomized. True there are some hypocritical gestures like usurping the place of Gandhi at the spinning wheel, for a picture on an official calendar. Gandhi never subscribed to showmanship nor was he arrogant. He fought against sectarianism and racism and would have left no stone unturned today to take sides with the refugees and other forcibly displaced people of the world.

Indian Catholics will observe a “Day of Peace” on January 30^th. Significantly, in a message for the Fiftieth World Day of Peace (celebrated officially on January 1^st 2017) entitled, ‘Nonviolence: A Style of Politics for Peace’, Pope Francis emphatically states that, “violence is not the cure for our broken world.” 

He calls for a new style of politics built on peace and non-violence, and at the same time for disarmament and the eradication of nuclear weapons. Both Mahatma Gandhi and Abdul Ghaffar Khan are referred to in this message as icons of non-violence and peace. We certainly have much to learn from them.

The world today is in a turmoil as never before. In ways both subtle and direct; through discriminatory policies and executive orders; through manipulations and coercions, we witness the gradual break-up of our world, even as hasty and unwanted walls are built to keep people out.

We need to do all we can to prevent the triumph of these forces who are inimical to the cherished ideals and values of Gandhi, the Apostle of Nonviolence. We must cry halt to their murderous march now!

(Fr Cedric Prakash sj is a human rights activist. He is currently based in Lebanon, engaged with the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) in the Middle East on advocacy and   communications… Contact: cedricprakash@gmail.com)             
 
 

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When I see the fundamentalists of today proclaiming their version of nationalism, I wonder whether the pluralism for which our forefathers fought has disappeared. My first encounter with the predecessors of today’s Desh Bakths was on  January 31, 1948 when some of them went round distributing sweets to celebrate Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination the previous day.

Like those who celebrate Godse today, they too did not want the diversity that Gandhi and the freedom fighters stood for. One has, therefore, to ask whether the Hindu Rashtra that the rightist forces would like to build will allow diversity. Or is it to be exclusive like Hitler’s Germany? I was just six when the world war ended so I did not know much about Hitler but I studied about him at school.

And I ask myself whether I am imagining what look like parallels between his Nazism and what the rightist forces propagate in my country today. Is their nationalist exclusive and the opposite of the inclusive nationalism amid unity in diversity that independent India stood for? Hitler’s exclusive Nazism was founded on a Germany that belonged only to the Aryan race which he defined as blonde and tall though he himself was short and somewhat on the darker side.

Those who did not belong to his pure race, for example Jews and gypsies, and others like trade unionists and Communists who disagreed with him, were jailed or sent to the gas chambers. The difference with the “nationalists” of today’s India is that they are ready to tolerate Muslims, Christians, Dalits, Tribals and Women in their Bharat, as long as they accept to be subordinate second class citizens under the “owners” of the country.

My first encounter with the predecessors of today’s Desh Bakths was on  January 31, 1948 when some of them went round distributing sweets to celebrate Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination the previous day. 

The events of the last few days and weeks make me wonder whether there is a second similarity. Hitler and his propagandist Himmler created an army of hooligans to attack their opponents.

They would first create myths showing their opponents in a bad light as anti-national and then attack them. One sees it happening in our country too. Those who shout slogans or write what the “nationalists” do not like are called traitors. Some of them like Pansare and Kalburgi have been eliminated, a few others like Prof. Kancha Illaiah, Dr Sandeep Pandey and Dr Sai Baha have been ostracised after accusing them of being Naxalites or anti-national.

Many others, for example the teachers and students of JNU and journalists who were covering their case, have been beaten up by lawyers and law makers. The freedom fighters stood for a different type of nationalism. The instructions of Gandhi to his followers were to exhibit their nationalism in the service of the poor.

That is what I witnessed in my childhood in persons like our neighbour homeopathic doctor Shastri (cricketer Ravi Shastri’s grandfather). He was the ward Congress president but he gave up politics and spent his life serving the poor particularly children in whose medicines he specialised.
The spirit of nationalism was thus shared in service, not imposed through violence and today’s “nationalists” seem to think that they should do. The police look the other way when they beat up their opponents even in a court of law as it happened in the premises of Patiala House.

The Nazis came to power by using the democratic system. Once in power they used the army of hooligans to destroy its institutions. One sees a similar process in India today. 

It is difficult to believe that the police can behave the way they did without instructions from those who control their department. The “nationalists” first created a myth that anti-national slogans were raised by the students of JNU and then beat up the “traitors”. The police arrested some students for sedition despite a Supreme Court judgement that slogans do not constitute sedition and that only a call for violence does.

That call has come from the “nationalists” some of whom have gone on record that they are ready to repeat their violent acts and even shoot some traitors. All that the police have done is to issue arrest warrants against some lawyers. They have not been arrested though they are highly visible and are staging demonstrations. They arrested an MLA, gave him tea and snacks and let him off after fifteen minutes. But some of those whom the “nationalists” accuse of being traitors are in jail or are under threat of being arrested because they made statements that the self-styled protectors of Bharat dislike.

Thirdly the Nazis came to power by using the democratic system. Once in power they used the army of hooligans to destroy its institutions. One sees a similar process in India today.

Dissent that is a basic feature of a democracy is considered sedition. People are beaten up inside the court premises thus preventing the judiciary from doing their duty. Their position of power is used to take control of the educational and research institutions because all thinking has to support their concept of nationalism.

Universities that encourage students and teachers to think for themselves become subversive. A democratic principle is that dissent has to be tolerated even when it goes beyond what moderate elements may consider unacceptable as long as it does not preach or encourage violence. But today’s “nationalists” invent sedition in all forms of dissent of questioning of established positions. Violence takes the place of debate and lawlessness overtakes law abiding citizens.

These developments should challenge people who love the country to come together and reflect on the type of India they want. India has the option of behaving as a civilised nation that encourages debate, dissent and creative thinking or join the banana republics in which creative thinking is sedition.

(The author is a former founder-director of North Eastern Social Research Centre, Guwahati is at present senior fellow in the same institution; this article also appeared in the Shillong Times)

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