Nathuram Vinayak Godse
Nathuram Vinayak Godse is best known as the assassin of Mahatma Gandhi, a pivotal figure in India's independence movement. Born into a strict Brahman family in colonial India, he developed early interests in politics and oratory, which would later shape his controversial views. As a young man, Godse became involved with Hindu nationalist ideologies, aligning himself with figures like Veer Savarkar and joining organizations such as the Hindu Mahasabha and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (R.S.S.). His political activism intensified after World War II, where he opposed Gandhi’s perceived concessions to minority groups and blamed him for the violence that accompanied the partition of India.
On January 30, 1948, Godse assassinated Gandhi in New Delhi, citing moral justifications for his actions during his subsequent trial. He was convicted and executed in 1949, and his writings, which offered insight into his motivations, were suppressed for many years. Godse's legacy remains contentious, particularly as historical narratives around Hindu nationalism have evolved, with some viewing him as a martyr within certain circles. The impact of his actions continues to resonate, influencing political discourse and shaping the relationship between communal identities in contemporary India.
Subject Terms
Nathuram Vinayak Godse
Hindu nationalist assassin
- Born: May 19, 1910
- Birthplace: Baramati, India
- Died: November 15, 1949
- Place of death: New Delhi, India
Major offense: Assassination of Indian independence leader Mohandas Gandhi
Active: January 30, 1948
Locale: Birla House, New Delhi, India
Sentence: Death by hanging
Early Life
Nathuram Vinayak Godse (NAHTH-ew-rahm VIHN-ah-yahk GAWD-say) grew up in a strict Brahman family in colonial India in the Poona District of Maharashtra. His father was employed in the post office, where he earned fifteen rupees a month. Godse began his primary education at Barainatri, but after completing the fourth grade he moved to Poona, a larger city, to live with an aunt and study in an English-language school. As a student, Nathuram developed a strong interest in politics and oratory and was noted for his ability to memorize long Marathi (the local language) poems. While still a youngster, Nathuram saved the life of an untouchable (the lowest caste) child who had fallen into a well, an event that might have influenced his later becoming a strong opponent of the caste system.
Political Career
In 1929, Godse’s father was transferred to the coastal town of Ratnagiri, where he moved his family. There Nathuram dropped out of high school and became a disciple of a Hindu scholar and revolutionary, Veer Savarkar, whom the government had just released from confinement in Ratnagiri because of his advocacy of armed rebellion to liberate India from the British. Godse become an activist with a political party espousing Hindu nationalism, the Hindu Mahasabha, and started a Marathi newspaper, Agrani (later called Hindurashtra), for that organization. He settled in Poona, traveled widely with Savarkar, wrote articles for newspapers, and swayed crowds with his fiery speeches.
Godse also was active in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (R.S.S.), a fundamentalist Hindu organization that sought to protect the Hindu masses from “cultural invasions” and to protect and advance Hindu civilization. The R.S.S. was especially opposed to the separatist politics of the All India Muslim League.
Godse soon became a devoted follower of Mohandas Gandhi, one of the principal figures in the movement for Indian independence, and participated in Gandhi’s campaigns of civil disobedience. After leading a “passive resistance” demonstration in Hyderabad in 1938, Godse was arrested and imprisoned for one year. Gandhi and Godse had some characteristics in common. Both were extreme ascetics pledged to celibacy, although Godse admitted to enjoying two luxuries in life: coffee and Perry Mason films.
As India moved toward independence after World War II, Godse and his mentor Savarkar criticized what they believed to be Gandhi’s sacrificing of Hindu interests in efforts to appease minority groups. They blamed Gandhi for the partition of India, even though he had strongly opposed it. In scathing articles in Hindurashtra, Godse condemned Gandhi for his “pro-Muslim bias” and even found fault with the doctrine of ahimsa, or nonviolence.
The massive population exchange of Hindus and Muslims between the new nations of India and Pakistan resulted in violence and bloodshed. Godse and his allies blamed Gandhi for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Hindus in this exodus and demanded revenge.
On January 13, 1948, Gandhi announced that he would fast to the death unless the Indian government paid Pakistan 550 million rupees (a sum that had been specified in the partition agreement but the Indian government had refused to pay because of the ongoing war in the disputed state of Kashmir). The Indian government immediately agreed to pay, a decision that infuriated Godse and his cohorts. Gandhi’s hunger strike also caused divisions within the ruling Indian Congress Party as well as the general public. Refugees whose families had been killed in the partition chanted “Let him die!” outside Gandhi’s lodging.
Godse decided to assassinate Gandhi as the Mahatma made his way to evening prayers at Birla House, the mansion of an industrialist millionaire in New Delhi. On January 30, 1948, as Gandhi made his way through a garden to the prayer grounds, Godse approached him and, after making obeisance, shot him three times at close range with a Beretta pistol.
Legal Action and Outcome
The assassin did not try to escape and was immediately arrested. Seven other men, including Savarkar, were rounded up and, along with Godse, tried for conspiracy. Godse claimed sole responsibility for the politically motivated murder. During his trial before a three-judge court, Godse read for five hours a ninety-page treatise justifying his decision to kill Gandhi as a moral, though illegal, act. He was condemned to die and was hanged in the courtyard of Ambala prison on November 15, 1949. Savarkar was acquitted for lack of evidence.
Millions of Indians mourned Gandhi’s assassination. Rioters attacked Hindu activists in Maharashtra, and the R.S.S. was banned for a year, even though there was no evidence that the organization was involved in Godse’s plot. Godse’s writings explaining his motives for killing Gandhi were subsequently banned by the government of India for many years.
Impact
In 1951, Hindu nationalists organized a political wing that eventually became the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 1980. The BJP ruled India in 1996 and again from 1998 to 2004, when it was defeated by a revived Congress Party. Fundamentalist Hindus played a larger role in the new political climate, and historical revisionists reevaluated Nathuram Vinayak Godse’s place in Indian history. In July, 1998, a Marathi drama titled I, Nathuram Godse Speaking opened in Mumbai and was shortly thereafter banned by the government. The play, based on Godse’s defense in court, highlighted what many observers believe was a deepening struggle over the meaning of Gandhi’s principles. Passive resistance had been replaced by nuclear arms; relations between India and Pakistan remained strained; secularism had been replaced by Hindu nationalism. After ultraconservative political parties claimed significant power, Godse was no longer dismissed as a fanatic killer.
Bibliography
Collins, Larry, and Dominique Lapierre. Freedom at Midnight. London: HarperCollins, 1997. A highly readable account of the year 1947, when India gained its freedom from the British Raj. The concluding six chapters give a detailed account of Gandhi’s assassination.
Godse, Gopal. “His Principle of Peace Was Bogus.” Time Asia 155, no. 6 (February 14, 2000). The brother of the assassin and coconspirator in Gandhi’s assassination, who was sentenced to life imprisonment but released after eighteen years, talks about the murder, without regret.
Godse, Nathuram. Why I Assassinated Mahatma Gandhi. Delhi, India: Surya Bharti, 2003. The impassioned courtroom plea of the assassin, long banned in India.
Khosla, Gopal Das. Murder of the Mahatma and Other Cases from a Judge’s Notebook. Bombay: Jaico, 1968. The former chief justice of the Punjab High Court in India reminisces about ten cases, including the trial of Godse for the murder of Gandhi.
Wolpert, Stanley. Nine Hours to Rama. New York: Random House, 1962. A gripping novel based on the nine hours leading up to the assassination of Gandhi; another book that was banned in India.