Daily Times

Who is Nathuram Godse?

In one description, “Nathuram Godse was a boy trapped in a confusion of sexuality. He was brought up as a girl during his toddler years because of a vernacular superstition. His parents were separated. Here was a boy whose childhood was built on the idea of exclusion, a boy for whom religious extremism was above all humanity, and finally, an adult who became the first terrorist in the independent India.”

Recently, Pragya Singh Thakur, a candidate contesting from Bhopal on a BJP ticket, issued a shocking statement, “Nathuram Godse was a patriot and will remain so. People calling him a terrorist should introspect. They will be given a befitting reply in these elections.”

Thakur, herself accused of terrorism, is glorifying the first terrorist of India; this shows the morphology and methodology of politics in India. What sort of a democratic election was this? Thakur’s statement is clearly an attack on the very foundations of India. It is strange that a person having such ideas can ask people for votes to represent them in the Indian parliament. I find it shocking that a person who is glorifying Godse can hope to be a part of the largest parliament in the world. Thakur has since won the seat she contested.

Rahul Gandhi is continuously harassed for an apology whenever any of his party leaders makes an awkward statement, but in this case, none of the media houses asked Narendra Modi or Amit Shah to apologise.

This is not the first time a BJP candidate has made such disgusting remarks. There have been many attempts during the last five years to highlight the ‘patriotic valour’ of Nathuram Godse.

Samuel Jackson said, “Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.” In India, there has been a big debate on patriotism since BJP came into power in 2014. Now there is a new attempt to show Nathuram Godse as a patriot. The BJP government at the helm of affairs has made desperate attempts to glorify Godse

The affection of the Hindu Mahasabha Madhya Pradesh for Mahatma Gandhi’s assassin Godse is not a secret. Six months after setting up a Godse temple in Gwalior, the right-wing group celebrated Godse’s birth anniversary on May 19 in Bhopal. The Godse ‘worshippers’ gathered at the Veer Savarkar Setu in the state capital with a garlanded picture of Gandhi’s murderer, and distributed sherbet to people who were passing by.

The campaign to glorify Godse and demonise Gandhi has gathered momentum with the ascent of a right-wing government at the centre since 2014. Remember, how BJP MP Sakshi Maharaj stirred a huge controversy when he called Godse a nationalist and a patriot on the floor of the house? In October 2014, a Malayalam mouthpiece of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh said, “Nathuram Godse should have killed the former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru and not Gandhi.” This was a BJP leader who had contested the Lok Sabha elections.

It is ominous for India’s integrity that such insane attempts to reclaim pseudo-patriotism are taking place. To glorify a terrorist by calling him a patriot purely on the basis of a religious centrism shows the willingness of members of India’s ruling party’s to demolish India’s secular fabric. The BJP, which is itself the offshoot of an extremist organisation, has done nothing to check such attempts.

Why did Godse assassin Mahatma Gandhi? According to his fans, Gandhi supported the idea of a separate state for Muslims, and thus, in a sense, was responsible for the creation of Pakistan. Secondly, the belligerence of Muslims was a result of Gandhi’s policy of appeasement. Thirdly, in spite of Pakistan’s alleged aggression in Kashmir, Gandhi fasted to compel the then government of India to release an amount of Rs 550 million due to Pakistan.

Anyone familiar with that period of history can see that these allegations are malicious and incorrect. In fact, the idea of communal amity that Gandhi upheld all his life was a complete anathema to the exclusivist, Hindu supremacist worldview of the members of the RSS and Hindu Mahasabha. While the nation was a racial construct in the imagination of the Hindutva forces, for Gandhi and the rest of the nationalists, it was a territorial construct, or a bounded territory, comprising several communities.

Going by Godse’s statement, he was afraid of the idea that there was a mini Pakistan residing in every village in India because of India’s Muslim population. Godse wanted a Hindutva nation and Gandhi opposed it. Godse couldn’t take on the fight of ideas, and eventually silenced Gandhi.

I don’t know where India is headed with the statements meant to demonise Mahatma Gandhi and repair Nathuram Godse’s idea of patriotism. The government’s tolerance of such nonsense amounts to an endorsement of such attempts. India is moving away from the ideas of Gandhi and Nehru.

The writer is a student at GMC Srinagar