Monday, October 10, 2005

Gandhi was a hypocrite

http://www.time.com/time/asia/magazine/2000/0214/india.godse.html

A Interview that is not documented in our History books.

Gopal Godse, co-conspirator in Gandhi's assassination and brother of the assassin, looks back in anger--and without regret

Fifty-two years ago, on Jan. 30, 1948, Mohandas Gandhi was shot dead by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu extremist. Godse believed that the Mahatma, or great soul, was responsible for the 1947 partition of India and the creation of Pakistan. Godse and his friend Narayan Apte were hanged. His brother Gopal and two others were sentenced to life imprisonment for their part in the conspiracy. Gopal Godse remained in jail for 18 years and now, at 80, lives with his wife in a small apartment in Pune. He is still proud of his role in the murder. Although Godse is largely ignored in India and rarely talks to journalists, he agreed to speak with TIME Delhi correspondent Meenakshi Ganguly.

TIME: What happened in January 1948?
Godse: On Jan. 20, Madanlal Pahwa exploded a bomb at Gandhi's prayer meeting in Delhi. It was 50 m away from Gandhi. [The other conspirators] all ran away from the place. Madanlal was caught there. Then there was a tension in our minds that we had to finish the task before the police caught us. Then Nathuram [Gopal's brother] took it on himself to do the thing. We only wanted destiny to help us -- meaning we should not be caught on the spot before he acted.

TIME: Why did you want to kill Gandhi?
Godse: Gandhi was a hypocrite. Even after the massacre of the Hindus by the Muslims, he was happy. The more the massacres of the Hindus, the taller his flag of secularism.

TIME: Did you ever see Gandhi?
Godse: Yes.

TIME: Did you attend his meetings?
Godse: Yes.

TIME: Can you explain how he created his mass following?
Godse: The credit goes to him for maneuvering the media. He captured the press. That was essential. How Gandhi walked, when he smiled, how he waved -- all these minor details that the people did not require were imposed upon them to create an atmosphere around Gandhi. And the more ignorant the masses, the more popular was Gandhi. So they always tried to keep the masses ignorant.

TIME: But surely it takes more than good publicity to create a Gandhi?
Godse: There is another thing. Generally in the Indian masses, people are attracted toward saintism. Gandhi was shrewd to use his saintdom for politics. After his death the government used him. The government knew that he was an enemy of Hindus, but they wanted to show that he was a staunch Hindu. So the first act they did was to put "Hey Ram" into Gandhi's dead mouth.

TIME: You mean that he did not say "Hey Ram" as he died?
Godse: No, he did not say it. You see, it was an automatic pistol. It had a magazine for nine bullets but there were actually seven at that time. And once you pull the trigger, within a second, all the seven bullets had passed. When these bullets pass through crucial points like the heart, consciousness is finished. You have no strength.

When Nathuram saw Gandhi was coming, he took out the pistol and folded his hands with the pistol inside it. There was one girl very close to Gandhi. He feared that he would hurt the girl. So he went forward and with his left hand pushed her aside and shot. It happened within one second. You see, there was a film and some Kingsley fellow had acted as Gandhi. Someone asked me whether Gandhi said, "Hey Ram." I said Kingsley did say it. But Gandhi did not. Because that was not a drama.

TIME: Many people think Gandhi deserved to be nominated TIME's Person of the Century. [He was one of two runners-up, after Albert Einstein.]
Godse: I name him the most cruel person for Hindus in India. The most cruel person! That is how I term him.

TIME: Is that why Gandhi had to die?
Godse: Yes. For months he was advising Hindus that they must never be angry with the Muslims. What sort of ahimsa (non-violence) is this? His principle of peace was bogus. In any free country, a person like him would be shot dead officially because he was encouraging the Muslims to kill Hindus.

TIME: But his philosophy was of turning the other cheek. He felt one person had to stop the cycle of violence...
Godse: The world does not work that way.

TIME: Is there anything that you admire about Gandhi?
Godse: Firstly, the mass awakening that Gandhi did. In our school days Gandhi was our idol. Secondly, he removed the fear of prison. He said it is different to go into prison for a theft and different to go in for satyagraha (civil disobedience). As youngsters, we had our enthusiasm, but we needed some channel. We took Gandhi to be our channel. We don't repent for that.

TIME: Did you not admire his principles of non-violence?
Godse: Non-violence is not a principle at all. He did not follow it. In politics you cannot follow non-violence. You cannot follow honesty. Every moment, you have to give a lie. Every moment you have to take a bullet in hand and kill someone. Why was he proved to be a hypocrite? Because he was in politics with his so-called principles. Is his non-violence followed anywhere? Not in the least. Nowhere.

TIME: What was the most difficult thing about killing Gandhi?
Godse: The greatest hurdle before us was not that of giving up our lives or going to the gallows. It was that we would be condemned both by the government and by the public. Because the public had been kept in the dark about what harm Gandhi had done to the nation. How he had fooled them!

TIME: Did the people condemn you?
Godse: Yes. People in general did. Because they had been kept ignorant.

20 comments:

Gnana Kirukan said...

Very good post! Nice one - there was a very good tamil novel on his story..I forgot the name - my father used to have it - do u know the name?

krishna said...

Dear Saravana

check out the following URL


"http://krischronicles.blogspot.com/2005/10/136th-birth-anniversary-remembrance-of.html"

TJ said...

Nice to know the otherside of the story!

Ram C said...

The other side of the Coin is always supposed to be known.. since the perceptions differ. But i think Violence is not an answer for Violence... But, under emotional circumstances these things do happen

gP said...

hemm...much have been said about Ghandi. All i can say is, let the dead be in peace, You can go abck and change what had happened, but you can change the future.

Read my current post Sara.

Saravana said...

@Arjuna - No Idea of the novel man

@Krish - Read it and also commented

@tj and ram - Ya I wish we also have the reason for mahatma's killing known to all people. but sometimes yes the truth should be hidden, atleast for the greater things gandhi has done for the society.

@gp - yes man, lets hope for a brighter future, a more refined mahatma.

Anonymous said...

good article.... but at the end of the day; we will never know what the truth was.... some people even say that gandhi was a womeniser...

Jagan said...

how did u come across this . very interesting and pretty controversial ..

ada-paavi!!!! said...

nice post, wanted o read bout godse somewhere

PlanetRandom said...

That's very interesting. It's always nice to hear another side of the story, even if you don't agree with it completely.

Ashok K. Banker said...

Saravana,

great post! Gopal Godse gives up his whole mindset when he criticizes Gandhi for telling Hindus not to kill Muslims. In fact, Gandhi never wanted any killing--he didn't support Muslims to kill Hindus, that's ridiculous.

Another fact which everyone overlooks is that if we all, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, all Indians, had combined to fight the British in one great bloody revolution the way the Americans did, perhaps we would have become more united afterwards. Then again, the Americans still went on to fight a Civil War which was bloodier than their war of Independence.

In the end, whatever the Godses of this world say, I agree with the principle of Ahimsa that one must stop the cycle of violence. What I do not agree with is idolizing Gandhi and making him out to be a martyr. These principles existed since the 24 Jain muni prophets, and Buddha, and even before that. Gandhi did not create the concept of Ahimsa, just as Bruce Lee did not create Kung Fu--they only popularized it in their time!

You have a very good blog. Keep it up!

Eclectic Blogger said...

Great post!

Anonymous said...

The interview shows something I myself always felt.I think Gandhi did Hindus a very great wrong indirectly.By protecting Muslims from slaughter n mass migration to Pakistan while Hindus in Pakistan were being massacred and had to flee to India in great numbers,the muslim population in India is rather consequent compared to the number of Hindus in Pakistan.The result is that today the Muslim population is a thorn in India's foot.

Unknown said...

This is fucking ridiculous ,
gandhi was the man of principle
fuck godse.

Buy Generic Viagra said...

I have a friend that is a great follower of Gandhi he said that he was and incredible man and he didn't deserve to die.

Anonymous said...

Gandhi has accepted all his mistakes in his auto-biography.

Fuck Gandhi and his followers! said...

You ass kissers of Gandhi make me sick with your sucking up to him. He was a hypocrite like what the author of this blog typed.

Specifically, Gandhi was a goody-goody pacifist who secretly encouraged his fellow Indians to let the British walk all over them. Whatever happened to self-defense.

Pacifism makes me sick. I'm all for fighting back. Only extreme do-gooders don't fight back.

Also, Gandhi was never a God. it's sick to worship him when he was human all along.

If you love Gandhi so much, why don't you just fuckin' die with him? It'll save me and my fellow Gandhi haters the trouble of dealing with your Gandhi fanatical bullshit. >:(

Anonymous said...

So Gandhi was a hypocrite because a co-conspirator in his assassination says so? It couldn't have anything to do with the fact that Godse and his co-conspirators were religious extremists who hated Gandhi for his calls for tolerance, and religious freedom could it? Oh, and I suppose it couldn't have had anything to do with Godse trying to justify his actions.. now could it?

Please don't try blowing smoke up my ass, save that for ignorant fools who will believe anything.

Gandhi's response to tyranny were non-cooperation, non-violence and peaceful resistance. He lived like a pauper, he went on hunger strikes, he went to prison, yet he never called for bloodshed, and by so doing he inspired a movement which liberated India from the yoke of British colonialism. It was the teachings and example of Gandhi which inspired Martin Luther King Jr. in his struggle for civil rights.

He was a far, far better man than you will ever be, and you should be ashamed of yourself for attempting to smear his memory. Shame on you!

An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it.-- Mohandas Gandhi

Anonymous said...

@Anonymous - it could be that Gandhi should have taken different views towards women as now the mentality is of the whole country. The treatment of women should be equal but generally speaking India has a very sexist viewpoint of women. See this story for more details.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/27/mohandas-gandhi-women-india

Anonymous said...

The way this guy talks, the way he justifies the murder, how he weaves this tail of psychological conspiracy(sounds so familiar) the way he talks about the violence in India like just Hindus are the victims(though they are victims of themselves), bottom line he is a psychopathic animal. There are a lot of them in the world. Muslims (converted Indians) hated. Hindus hated. Gandhi tried to stop the hate. He said a lot of things that those who hate didn't like. That's why they plotted the murder. Beast men pure and simple.