On January 31, 1948, at around 5:17 pm, after Mahatma Gandhi stepped out of the Birla House where he was then staying, after concluding his evening multi-faith prayers, Nathuram Godse confronted him and shot three bullets from his Beretta semi-automatic pistol. Ever since then, his identity has been that of a Hindu fanatic, who killed a man who was the apostle of peace and non-violence. However, his act has also been used to target the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), by stating that it was the RSS that was involved in the assassination. So, what is the truth?
Gandhian Non-Violence In Practice
While Gandhi remained one of the most popular leaders from 1920 to 1948 and had a strong say in the way the Congress functioned, not everyone subscribed to his ideology. His ideology of non-violence involved self-restraint even in the event where one is certain to be a victim of extreme physical hostility, which might even lead to the loss of life. It is this thought-process, which led him to call off the Non-Cooperation Movement because in Chauri Chaura, people who had taken out a procession, after being fired at by the police, had subsequently set the police station on fire leading to the death of 23 policemen.
The Trigger For Assassination
While apparent contradictions in Gandhi’s stances certainly alienated several groups of people, what prompted Nathuram Godse to decide on the extreme measure was a fast that Gandhi undertook in January 1948. At that point, the Indian government was planning to defer the payment of the second instalment of Rs. 55 crores (out of a total of Rs. 75 crores of which Rs. 20 crores were already paid), which had to be made to Pakistan. Also, there were rumours that the government was planning to settle Hindu and Sikh refugees from West Pakistan into the houses that Muslims in Delhi had vacated to take shelter in a dargah in Mehrauli. Gandhi began a fast unto death, which supposedly was for the latter, but several sections of the people got the impression that it was for the release of the second instalment of Rs. 55 crores to Pakistan.
Mr N. V. Gadgil, a minister in the first central cabinet of independent India met several people in Maharashtra who were unhappy with Gandhi’s behaviour, to whom he supposedly said that the government had ‘purchased Gandhiji’s life with 55 crores of rupees, a cheap bargain’. Again, the Kapur commission report has several junctures where it says that the fast unto death undertaken by Gandhi was done for both of the aforementioned objectives. Thus, we cannot be certain about whether it was only for one cause or it was for both. However, at least in the public perception, it was for both, and the millions of refugees along with various other factions of the population were seething with anger against Gandhi. It was this act of Gandhi that finally led the cabal of people, which included Nathuram Godse, to arrive at a conclusion that for the sake of the nation’s good, the worldly existence of Gandhi should be finished.
Nathuram Godse, Savarkar, RSS, And Hindu Mahasabha
Born in a Marathi Chitpavan Brahmin family, Nathuram Godse remained unmarried so as to serve without binding in matrimonial responsibilities, the cause that he had set unto himself – the cause of Hindu nationalism. Having been a member of the Hindu Mahasabha, he joined the RSS in 1932. In 1942, he formed his own organization, the ‘Hindu Rashtra Dal’. He also started a Marathi language newspaper called the Agrani, later renamed to ‘Hindu Rashtra’, which served as the mouthpiece of the Hindu Mahasabha. However, in 1946, he had a souring of relations with members of the RSS and Hindu Mahasabha, and he quit the two organizations citing a softening of stance from the same. Godse was deeply influenced by the revolutionary leader Vinayak Damodar Savarkar.
Because of such associations, even today, the assassination of Gandhi is blamed on Savarkarite ideology, the RSS, and the Hindu Mahasabha. And, it is also true that on February 4, 1948, the RSS was banned by the Home Ministry.
Moving a few years ahead in time, in 1966, an inquiry commission was set up under the retired judge Jeevan Lal Kapoor, which came to be referred to as the ‘Kapur Commission’. The commission took three years before it could produce its report, which was presented in two volumes.
However, Savarkar’s culpability in Gandhi’s assassination has not been accepted by any court in India as of today. Now we move back to 1948 again, where we deal with the issue of RSS ban. After the RSS was banned, the then Sarsanghchalak, Dr. Golwalkar was jailed, post which he had some letter-based communication with different persons in the government. There is a lot of talk about how Sardar Patel, while agreeing to remove the ban on RSS, also made it agree on several punishing conditions. This could not be further from the truth. In fact, the communication between the government and Dr. Golwalkar reveal that Dr. Golwalkar had been steadfast in the defence of the organization he commanded, and wherever it was apt, wrote in severe criticism and satire against the government action.
Finally, this piece has not been written to whitewash the acts of Nathuram Godse, but to place them in perspective. Of course, murdering anyone is unethical, but at least this one was not committed for a selfish purpose, as we can comprehend through Godse’s testimony. Moreover, through this article, we can see the RSS did not have a role to play in the assassination of Gandhi, as has been alleged.