Why I Killed Gandhi

Nathuram Godse

Contents

Preface

Why I Killed Gandhi

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Preface

Nathuram Godse assassinated Gandhi on 30 January 1948. ​The trial began on 27 May 1948 and concluded on 10 February ​1949. He was sentenced to death. An appeal to the Punjab ​High Court, then in session at Simla, did not find favour and ​the sentence was upheld. This statement is the last made by ​Godse before the Court on 5 May 1949, Punjab High Court, ​Peterhoff, Simla, India.

PREFACE

Why I Killed Gandhi

Born in a devotional Brahmin family, I instinctively came to ​revere Hindu religion, Hindu history and Hindu culture. I ​had, therefore, been intensely proud of Hinduism as a whole. ​As I grew up I developed a tendency to free thinking unfet- ​tered by any superstitious allegiance to any -isms — political ​or religious. That is why I worked actively for the eradica- ​tion of untouchability and the caste system based on birth ​alone. I openly joined RSS wing of anti-caste movements ​and maintained that all Hindus were of equal status as to ​rights — social and religious, and should be considered high ​or low on merit alone and not through the accident of birth ​in a particular caste or profession.

I used publicly to take part in organized anti-caste din-

ners in which thousands of Hindus — Brahmins, Kshatriyas,

Vaisyas, Chamars and Bhangis — participated. We broke

the caste rules and dined in the company of each other. I

have read the speeches and writings of Ravana, Chanakiya,

Dadabhai Naoroji, Vivekanand, Gokhale, Tilak, along with

the books of ancient and modern history of India and some

prominent countries like England, France, America and Rus-

WHY I KILLED GANDHI

sia. Moreover I studied the tenets of Socialism and Marxism.

But above all I studied very closely whatever Veer

Savarkar and Gandhiji had written and spoken, as to my

mind these two ideologies have contributed more to the

moulding of the thought and action of the Indian people

during the last thirty years or so, than any other single

factor has done.

All this reading and thinking led me to believe it was my

first duty to serve Hindudom and Hindus both as a patriot

and as a world citizen. To secure the freedom and to safe-

guard the just interests of some thirty crores (300 million) of

Hindus would automatically constitute the freedom and the

well-being of all India, one fifth of human race. This convic-

tion led me naturally to devote myself to the Hindu Sangh-

tanist ideology and programme, which alone, I came to be-

lieve, could win and preserve the national independence of

Hindustan, my Motherland, and enable her to render true

service to humanity as well.

WHY I KILLED GANDHI

these lofty principles in its normal life from day to day.

In fact, honour, duty and love of one’s own kith and

kin and country might often compel us to disregard non-

violence and to use force. I could never conceive that an

armed resistance to an aggression is unjust. I would con-

sider it a religious and moral duty to resist and, if possible, to

overpower such an enemy by use of force [In the Ramayana].

[In the Mahabharata] Rama killed Ravana in a tumul-

tuous fight and relieved Sita.

Krishna killed Kansa to end his wickedness; and Arjuna

had to fight and slay quite a number of his friends and re-

lations including the revered Bhishma because the latter

was on the side of the aggressor. It is my firm belief that in

dubbing Rama, Krishna and Arjuna as guilty of violence, the

Mahatma betrayed a total ignorance of the springs of human

action.

In more recent history, it was the heroic fight put up

by Chhatrapati Shivaji that first checked and eventually de-

stroyed the Muslim tyranny in India. It was absolutely es-

sentially for Shivaji to overpower and kill an aggressive Afzal

Khan, failing which he would have lost his own life. In

condemning history’s towering warriors like Shivaji, Rana

Pratap and Guru Gobind Singh as misguided patriots, Gand-

hiji has merely exposed his self-conceit. He was, paradoxi-

cal as it may appear, a violent pacifist who brought untold

calamities on the country in the name of truth and non-

violence, while Rana Pratap, Shivaji and the Guru will re-

main enshrined in the hearts of their countrymen forever for

the freedom they brought to them.

WHY I KILLED GANDHI

The accumulating provocation of thirty-two years, cul- ​minating in his last pro-Muslim fast, at last goaded me to the ​conclusion that the existence of Gandhi should be brought ​to an end immediately. Gandhi had done very good in South ​Africa to uphold the rights and well-being of the Indian com- ​munity there. But when he finally returned to India he de- ​veloped a subjective mentality under which he alone was to ​be the final judge of what was right or wrong. If the country ​wanted his leadership, it had to accept his infallibility; if it ​did not, he would stand aloof from the Congress and carry ​on his own way.

Against such an attitude there can be no halfway house.

Either Congress had to surrender its will to his and had to

be content with playing second fiddle to all his eccentricity,

whimsicality, metaphysics and primitive vision, or it had

to carry on without him. He alone was the Judge of every-

one and everything; he was the master brain guiding the

civil disobedience movement; no other could know the tech-

nique of that movement. He alone knew when to begin and

when to withdraw it. The movement might succeed or fail,

it might bring untold disaster and political reverses but that

could make no difference to the Mahatma’s infallibility. ‘A

Satyagrahi can never fail’ was his formula for declaring his

own infallibility and nobody except himself knew what a

Satyagrahi is. Thus, the Mahatma became the judge and jury

in his own cause. These childish insanities and obstinacies,

coupled with a most severe austerity of life, ceaseless work

and lofty character made Gandhi formidable and irresistible.

Many people thought that his politics were irrational

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WHY I KILLED GANDHI

but they had either to withdraw from the Congress or place ​their intelligence at his feet to do with as he liked. In a po- ​sition of such absolute irresponsibility Gandhi was guilty ​of blunder after blunder, failure after failure, disaster after ​disaster. Gandhi’s pro-Muslim policy is blatantly in his per- ​verse attitude on the question of the national language of ​India. It is quite obvious that Hindi has the most prior claim ​to be accepted as the premier language. In the beginning ​of his career in India, Gandhi gave a great impetus to Hindi ​but as he found that the Muslims did not like it, he became a ​champion of what is called Hindustani. Everybody in India ​knows that there is no language called Hindustani; it has ​no grammar; it has no vocabulary. It is a mere dialect, it is ​spoken, but not written. It is a bastard tongue and cross- ​breed between Hindi and Urdu, and not even the Mahatma’s ​sophistry could make it popular. But in his desire to please ​the Muslims he insisted that Hindustani alone should be the ​national language of India. His blind followers, of course, ​supported him and the so-called hybrid language began to ​be used. The charm and purity of the Hindi language was ​to be prostituted to please the Muslims. All his experiments ​were at the expense of the Hindus.

WHY I KILLED GANDHI

formed in September was sabotaged by its Muslim League ​members right from its inception, but the more they became ​disloyal and treasonable to the government of which they ​were a part, the greater was Gandhi’s infatuation for them. ​Lord Wavell had to resign as he could not bring about a set- ​tlement and he was succeeded by Lord Mountbatten. King ​Log was followed by King Stork. The Congress which had ​boasted of its nationalism and socialism secretly accepted ​Pakistan literally at the point of the bayonet and abjectly ​surrendered to Jinnah. India was vivisected and one-third of ​the Indian territory became foreign land to us from August ​15, 1947.

occupied by the Hindu refugees. But when Hindus in Pak- ​istan were subjected to violent attacks he did not so much ​as utter a single word to protest and censure the Pakistan ​Government or the Muslims concerned. Gandhi was shrewd ​enough to know that while undertaking a fast unto death, ​had he imposed for its break some condition on the Mus- ​lims in Pakistan, there would have been found hardly any ​Muslims who could have shown some grief if the fast had ​ended in his death. It was for this reason that he purposely ​avoided imposing any condition on the Muslims. He was ​fully aware of from the experience that Jinnah was not at all ​perturbed or influenced by his fast and the Muslim League ​hardly attached any value to the inner voice of Gandhi.

WHY I KILLED GANDHI

nation would be saved from the inroads of Pakistan. Peo- ​ple may even call me and dub me as devoid of any sense or ​foolish, but the nation would be free to follow the course ​founded on the reason which I consider to be necessary for ​sound nation-building.

WHY I KILLED GANDHI

such orders of sentence as may be considered proper. But I ​would like to add that I do not desire any mercy to be shown ​to me, nor do I wish that anyone else should beg for mercy ​on my behalf. My confidence about the moral side of my ​action has not been shaken even by the criticism levelled ​against it on all sides. I have no doubt that honest writers ​of history will weigh my act and find the true value thereof ​some day in future.

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