Skip to main content

Gandhi and Godse


It was a cold morning on 30 Jan 1948.  Nathuram Godse, Narayan Apte and Vishnu Karkare met together once again in Retiring Room number 6 at Old Delhi Railway Station.

Godse had failed in his two earlier attempts to kill Gandhi.  He did not want to fail again.  “Third time success,” he said half jokingly to his friends.

“There will be heavy police guard for Gandhi especially because of the murder attempt just ten days back,” said Godse. 

Godse suggested they should buy an old camera which needed a tripod and a black hood.  He would pose as a photographer and conceal the pistol inside the base of the camera.

“Nobody uses that sort of a camera nowadays,” said Apte.  He dismissed it as “a bad idea.”

“Disguise yourself as a Muslim woman wearing a burqa,” suggested Karkare.  “There are many Muslim women who attend Gandhi’s prayers.  After all, he is their saviour, isn’t he?”  He spat out his hatred.  

“No,” said Godse having put on the burqa that was brought in.  “The folds are a hindrance.  I won’t ever be able to take out the pistol at the right time.”

“Sometimes the simplest ideas are the best,” said Apte when they had wasted almost the whole morning discussing various ideas.  Apte suggested that Godse should wear a greyish military suit which was very commonly used by people those days.  Its design was such that it could conceal a pistol easily.

They went to the Birla temple.  Apte and Karkare offered prayers to the deities for the success of their mission.  Godse did not enter the temple.  When Apte and Karkare returned having offered their obeisance to goddess Kali, they found Godse standing beside a statue of Shivaji.  “I have had my darshan,” he said curtly.

Godse had been convincing himself that he was indeed doing the right thing by killing Gandhi.  Gandhi had blasphemed Hinduism and its gods.  He had made the Hindus weaklings.  He had let the Muslims get away with what they wanted.  Godse could feel hatred surging in his veins.  Murderous hatred.  His grip on the pistol became tight.

None of the three men had imagined that they could gain entry to the Birla House so easily.  There were no guards at the gate.  5.10 pm.  Gandhi was late.  Finally he came supporting himself on the shoulders of Abha and Manu. 

“Namaste, Gandhiji,” said Godse as he stepped right in front of Gandhi.

“Brother,” said Manu, “Bapu is already ten minutes late...”

Godse pushed her aside fiendishly, took out his pistol and fired three times.

“Hey Ram!”

“All those who believe in the brotherhood of men will mourn Gandhi’s death,” said the French Premier, Georges Bidault, on hearing of the assassination.

“India is for the Hindus,” asserted Godse as he awaited his death in the prison.  He could never understand the meaning of concepts like “brotherhood of men”.


Labels

Labels:

Comments

  1. Brendan DabhiJanuary 30, 2015 at 12:27 PM

    Yes but one cannot truly understand the minds of men even if one understands their ideology

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJanuary 30, 2015 at 1:10 PM

      Mind is more complex than the ideology, I admit. But both are related. A compassionate man can never commit a murder and we wouldn't expect an ideology of compassion from a hard-hearted person.

      Delete
  2. Pooja MahimkarJanuary 30, 2015 at 7:04 PM

    Always found Ghodse interesting.
    Interesting post, following you.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJanuary 31, 2015 at 9:14 AM

      Godse is interesting for a character study. He is the type with high level ambition but low level resourcefulness. Religion becomes an easy tool for such people. Hatred seeps into their hearts easily.

      Delete
  3. K.A. AcharyaJanuary 30, 2015 at 9:15 PM

    I always wonder at the sick mentality of people like Godse. They don't understand humanity. How can they understand the concept of brotherhood of men?
    Moreover, I wonder at the people who applaud this act. Is killing an unarmed, 78 year old man, praiseworthy?
    You have nicely depicted the difference between the feelings of Godse, and the rest of the humanity. Gandhi's death is one of the biggest loss the world has suffered.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJanuary 31, 2015 at 9:16 AM

      Godse is one character I would have relegated into oblivion. Unfortunately my country brings him up again and again even to the horror of instituting him as a deity!

      Delete
  4. Tomichan MatheikalJanuary 31, 2015 at 7:19 PM

    A man like Gandhi could not have died of common cold. Fanatics outlive Gandhi.

    ReplyDelete
  5. UnknownJanuary 31, 2015 at 11:41 PM

    People say to me that Godse did the right thing. I don't understand how. India is for Hindus! If everyone is going to put up weapon and kill others for dangerous notions as this the world shall doom, World has always suffered due to such mentality of some people.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalFebruary 1, 2015 at 7:53 AM

      It is plain lack of understanding of history and some silly selfish motives that drive the Right Wing in India today. We call Obama as Guest but we officially declare hatred of non-Hindus!

      Delete
  6. ManiparnaFebruary 2, 2015 at 2:53 AM

    Sarcastically, Gandhiji hailed from Gujarat too...

    ReplyDelete
  7. ManiparnaFebruary 2, 2015 at 2:53 AM

    By the way, you've narrated the event very well... :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalFebruary 2, 2015 at 11:35 AM

      It's all history, Maniparna. I've relied heavily on 'Freedom at Midnight' for the description.

      Delete
  8. CRDFebruary 2, 2015 at 10:57 PM

    I've come across quite a number of people who admire Godse...and even Hitler. No wonder then that history never encounters a dearth of dimwits. Every era has its special nutcase.

    I have an 'unconventional' (read less accepted) view of our extremist freedom fighters too. All of them were young, immature, half-educated guys who set out to seek vengeance for British oppression, but more often than not ended up killing the wrong guys. Srange that history sometimes makes heroes out of nincompoops

    Loved this post :)

    Do drop by mine

    Cheers
    CRD

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalFebruary 3, 2015 at 8:03 AM

      Bhagat Singh is an example of the young and hot-blooded type that you mention. He regretted later that he used violence and denounced the use of violence for attaining noble objectives. But many youngsters of today are not aware of the latter part of Bhagat Singh's views.

      Delete
  9. AmitaFebruary 3, 2015 at 11:41 AM

    "brotherhood of men" is one term even terrorists need to understand the meaning of.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalFebruary 3, 2015 at 5:11 PM

      This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    2. Tomichan MatheikalFebruary 3, 2015 at 5:15 PM

      Godse said he would kill Gandhi even in his next birth. That is terrorism.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...
16 comments
Read more

Ayodhya: Kingdom of Sorrows

T he Sarayu carried more tears than water. Ayodhya was a sad kingdom. Dasaratha was a good king. He upheld dharma – justice and morality – as best as he could. The citizens were apparently happy. Then, one day, it all changed. One person is enough to change the destiny of a whole kingdom. Who was that one person? Some say it was Kaikeyi, one of the three official wives of Dasaratha. Some others say it was Manthara, Kaikeyi’s chief maid. Manthara was a hunchback. She was the caretaker of Kaikeyi right from the latter’s childhood; foster mother, so to say, because Kaikeyi had no mother. The absence of maternal influence can distort a girl child’s personality. With a foster mother like Manthara, the distortion can be really bad. Manthara was cunning, selfish, and morally ambiguous. A severe physical deformity can make one worse than all that. Manthara was as devious and manipulative as a woman could be in a men’s world. Add to that all the jealousy and ambition that insecure peo...
39 comments
Read more

Liberated

Fiction - parable Vijay was familiar enough with soil and the stones it turns up to realise that he had struck something rare.   It was a tiny stone, a pitch black speck not larger than the tip of his little finger. It turned up from the intestine of the earth while Vijay was digging a pit for the biogas plant. Anand, the scientist from the village, got the stone analysed in his lab and assured, “It is a rare object.   A compound of carbonic acid and magnesium.” Anand and his fellow scientists believed that it must be a fragment of a meteoroid that hit the earth millions of years ago.   “Very rare indeed,” concluded the scientist. Now, it’s plain commonsense that something that’s very rare indeed must be very valuable too. All the more so if it came from the heavens. So Vijay got the village goldsmith to set it on a gold ring.   Vijay wore the ring proudly on his ring finger. Nobody, in the village, however bothered to pay any homage to Vijay’s...
47 comments
Read more

Bharata: The Ascetic King

Bharata is disillusioned yet again. His brother, Rama the ideal man, Maryada Purushottam , is making yet another grotesque demand. Sita Devi has to prove her purity now, years after the Agni Pariksha she arranged for herself long ago in Lanka itself. Now, when she has been living for years far away from Rama with her two sons Luva and Kusha in the paternal care of no less a saint than Valmiki himself! What has happened to Rama? Bharata sits on the bank of the Sarayu with tears welling up in his eyes. Give me an answer, Sarayu, he said. Sarayu accepted Bharata’s tears too. She was used to absorbing tears. How many times has Rama come and sat upon this very same bank and wept too? Life is sorrow, Sarayu muttered to Bharata. Even if you are royal descendants of divinity itself. Rama had brought the children Luva and Kusha to Ayodhya on the day of the Ashvamedha Yagna which he was conducting in order to reaffirm his sovereignty and legitimacy over his kingdom. He didn’t know they w...
30 comments
Read more

Dharma and Destiny

  Illustration by Copilot Designer Unwavering adherence to dharma causes much suffering in the Ramayana . Dharma can mean duty, righteousness, and moral order. There are many characters in the Ramayana who stick to their dharma as best as they can and cause much pain to themselves as well as others. Dasharatha sees it as his duty as a ruler (raja-dharma) to uphold truth and justice and hence has to fulfil the promise he made to Kaikeyi and send Rama into exile in spite of the anguish it causes him and many others. Rama accepts the order following his dharma as an obedient son. Sita follows her dharma as a wife and enters the forest along with her husband. The brotherly dharma of Lakshmana makes him leave his own wife and escort Rama and Sita. It’s all not that simple, however. Which dharma makes Rama suspect Sita’s purity, later in Lanka? Which dharma makes him succumb to a societal expectation instead of upholding his personal integrity, still later in Ayodhya? “You were car...
28 comments
Read more