The Triumph of Godse

Book Discussion

Nathuram Godse killed Mahatma Gandhi in order to save Hindus from emasculation. Gandhi was making Hindu men effeminate, incapable of retaliation. Revenge and violence are required of brave men, according to Godse. Gandhi stripped the Hindu men of their bravery and transmuted them into “sheep and goats,” Godse wrote in an article titled ‘Non-resisting tendency accomplished easily by animals.’

Gandhi had to die in order to salvage the manliness of the Hindu men. This argument that formed the foundation of Godse’s self-defence after Gandhi’s assassination was later modified by Narendra Modi et al as: “Hindu khatre mein hai,” Hindus are in danger. So Godse has reincarnated now.  

Godse’s hatred of non-Hindus has now become the driving force of Hindutva in India. It arose primarily because of the hurt that Godse’s love for his religious community was hurt. His Hindu sentiments were hurt, in other words. Gandhi, Godse, and the minority question is the theme of the first chapter of Neeti Nair’s book, Hurt Sentiments: Secularism and belonging in South Asia. 

“Godse’s view on Muslim appeasement forms the bedrock of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s ideology today,” writes Ms Nair. From the time Modi became the prime minister in 2014, India's Muslims have been victimized in ways that far exceed what the Mughals did to the Hindus of their time. The Muslims have had to endure economic, social, and cultural marginalisation. Their population remains disproportionately poor and uneducated. They suffer from impediments in access to the scant social resources available to the poor. Government, police, and the public all discriminate against them whenever possible. They are not given access to jobs in the police and armed forces where they used to find jobs earlier. It was fashionable for certain state governments to bulldoze Muslim houses in 2022, until the supreme court intervened in the matter. The Citizenship Amendment Act particularly targets Muslims.

We can safely say that Godse has had his revenge. The Muslims have become aliens in their homeland for all practical reasons, except the wealthy and powerful few.

Who is right, however: Godse or Gandhi? Neeti Nair explores that question in the first chapter of her book. I’ll discuss a couple of subsequent chapters too in the coming posts. I’m not summarising Nair’s content here. I’m discussing a few of her viewpoints and in the process a lot of my own views make their appearance.

Nair underscores Gandhi’s sane view that all people, irrespective of their religion, who have chosen India as their homeland have an equal right to it as the Hindus. Godse’s view was that India was for Hindus. Since Pakistan was created for Muslims, Muslims should leave India. Godse had no sympathy for other religious communities as well.

Godse’s masculinity lay in hatred of certain people on account of their religion. Nonviolence of the brave that Gandhi preached remained beyond Godse’s puny brain.

It is quite absurd for anyone to imagine that a country should belong to a particular religious community today when people leave their own countries and settle down anywhere at all. More than 200,000 Indians are giving up their citizenship every year now to live abroad happily. Citizenship is relinquished, please digest that. There are 100 million Hindus living outside India. India, with a Muslim population of approximately 200 million, has the world's largest Muslim community in a non-Muslim-majority country. How ridiculously absurd is it to say that India belongs to Hindus and only Hindus!

Even Jawaharlal Nehru wasn’t interested in giving special privileges to the minority communities in the country, Neeti Nair shows. She quotes Nehru: “As a matter of fact nothing can protect such a minority or a group less than a barrier which separates it from the majority.” In other words, Nehru wanted the Muslims and other religious communities in the country to live in a symbiotic relationship with the majority community.

The Muslims, particularly, chose to stay apart, as Ms Nair quotes one K R Malkani who was the editor of The Organiser [Hindu mouthpiece] in India’s toddler days. The Muslim chooses to be different, Malkani argued, with his naming patterns, cow slaughter, circumcision, dress, language… Take away these things from the Muslim, and he is no longer very different from us.

Though Malkani was a hardcore right-winger, there is some truth in what he wrote. The Muslims should make an effort to integrate themselves with the others in the country instead of insisting on being different. I’m not justifying Malkani because his motive wasn’t quite good; he was trying to subsume the Muslim culture under Hinduism which is not acceptable. Let every culture flourish. Let there be diversity. Why are the Hindu right-wingers so much obsessed with oneness as in One Nation, One Religion; and One Nation; One Election? At the same time, the Muslims need to learn to live in harmony with others.

Ms Nair quotes B R Ambedkar: “The minorities in India have agreed to place their existence in the hands of the majority… they have loyally accepted the rule of the majority which is basically a communal majority and not a political majority. It is for the majority to realise its duty not to discriminate against minorities, whether the minorities will continue or will vanish must depend upon this habit of the majority. The moment the majority loses the habit of discriminating against the minority, the minorities can have no ground to exist. They will vanish.”

The minorities will vanish by attaining a symbiosis with the majority. That is the ideal way of solving the conflict. Instead if we all insist on upholding our differences, which aren’t substantial anyway, we will continue to fight ad infinitum, ad nauseam, ad absurdum.

PS. Read a preview of Neeti Nair’s book here.

This post is part of the Bookish League blog hop hosted by Bohemian Bibliophile