On Jan.
30, 1948, shots rang out in New Delhi that plunged the entire Indian
subcontinent into silence. Mahatma Gandhi, architect of India’s freedom
struggle and rigorous practitioner of nonviolent civil resistance, was shot
dead at point-blank range by Hindu nationalist Nathuram Godse.
Ever since, historians have contemplated a vexing
question: Was it just a single man who killed Gandhi, or was the assassination
the goal of an entire ideology? At the time, the Hindu nationalist movement
washed its hands of the murder. But in 2015, nothing demonstrates the loss of
contemporary Hindu nationalism’s moral compass so much as its new campaign to
anoint Godse a national hero.
What was the chief attribute of Godse’s so-called heroism? Perhaps his
persistence. It would be hard to find a more determined stalker in history.
Godse had, with a band of co-conspirators, been shadowing and confronting
Gandhi since the early 1930s and had been part of two previous attempts to
assassinate him. A member first of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (India’s
most powerful Hindu nationalist group then, as now) and then a more radical
outfit called the Hindu Mahasabha, Godse was one with the Hindu nationalists of
his time in their hostility toward Gandhi, a committed but resolutely independent-minded
Hindu.
Like many in the movement, Godse was inflamed by Gandhi’s rejection of
martial resistance to the British colonialists, his insistence on speaking as a
Hindu and, eventually, his (often anguished) part in the disputes and
negotiations that led to British India splitting up into the nation-states of
India and Pakistan in 1947, followed by the bloodbath of Partition.
For Godse, Gandhi’s treachery was so self-evident, and the call of the
motherland to his own soul so insistent, that the murder of Gandhi was the only
way of setting Indian history back on an even keel. At his trial, he charged
Gandhi for having “brought rack and ruin and destruction to millions of Hindus”
and argued that “There was no legal machinery by which such an offender could
be brought to book and for this reason I fired those fatal shots.”
It’s fair to say that in the seven decades since, few Indians have seen
reason to agree with Godse; most have perceived the terrible flaw of logic, not
to mention the moral blindness and messianic self-congratulation, involved in
his progression from diagnosis to solution. This extended even to those who,
ideologically, were on Godse’s side. Many Hindu nationalists were appalled by
Godse’s act, and they belatedly took away from it a lesson more in line with
Gandhi’s own thinking about the destructive effects of violence than of Godse’s
view.
Well, no more. Consider a strident new campaign by today’s Hindu
Mahasabha to rehabilitate Godse as an Indian hero on par with or even higher
than Gandhi. It has identified a site in the north Indian city of Lucknow where
it intends to build a temple in Godse’s name. And on Jan. 30, the organization
plans to release a film called “Patriot Nathuram Godse” to emphasize Godse’s
“immense contribution to nationalism.”
According to this scandalous reasoning, because Godse too was inspired
by “love of his country,” his motives must be seen as more important — and
worthy of emulation — than his crime. The general secretary of the Hindu
Mahasabha said in a report published in the Hindu:
“A distorted picture of Godse has been created in the media because of
the Congress rule in the country. Now, we have a sympathetic government under
Narendra Modi. What better time to make corrections to that negative portrayal
of him (Godse),” Sharma said.
Why give such importance to the deliberately provocative statements of a
fringe organization? Shouldn’t liberals defend the right of their opponents to
statements and actions that they themselves see as inflammatory or wicked?
Certainly, I don’t support the court case now lodged against the Godse
film, one that seeks to stop its release on the grounds that it might “incite
people on communal lines.” Not only is it illogical to try to suppress some
kinds of argument, or art, because they could corrupt adults, but at the end of
the day, Indian society cannot be protected from parts of its own self, too.
But what’s even more interesting is that no other Hindu nationalist
organization, including the RSS — the guiding light of rancorous Hindu
nationalism in India — has uttered a word of criticism of the Hindu Mahasabha’s
recent statements on Godse. The movement is so unwilling to reveal any internal
disagreement that it ends up endorsing, by its silence, the actions of its most
extreme fringe.
Thus, the RSS can’t bring itself to criticize the Hindu Mahasabha’s new
cult of Godse worship and its glorification of violence, although a few sharp
words from one of its top leaders would certainly silence the Mahasabha. And
further up the chain, Narendra Modi, the prime minister of India and a former
member of the RSS, can’t bring himself to say a word against the RSS’s new
campaign to “reconvert” non-Hindus to Hinduism, although its warlike rhetoric
is a tremendous distraction from the development program and economic reforms
that were at the core of his election campaign last year.
A few critical words from Modi in a public forum would at once rein in
the RSS. But that’s apparently too much to expect from the prime minister, who
just in 2008 wrote a book about 16 men who had shaped his life and thought —
all of them members of the RSS.
I don’t have to point out the long-term consequences of this unfolding
movement. Under the umbrella of laissez faire extended by a sympathetic
government for the next four-and-something years, the Hindu nationalist
movement will compulsively become ever more strident, because it can’t stop
itself from allowing the frantic tail from wagging the — admittedly feckless —
dog. Eventually, the fallout will consume the government itself.
If for no reason other than self-interest, the prime minister must, as
custodian of India’s equilibrium, break the negative cycle the Hindu
nationalist movement has inaugurated so early in his tenure. It is hardly
unreasonable to ask (especially from someone who has defended himself
resolutely against serious allegations of religious violence in the past) what
Modi thinks about the arguments of those who feel that as long as they can
insert “love of Hinduism” or “love of nation” into an argument, all actions
that proceed thenceforth are justifiable.
Even the killing, in cold blood, of a peace-loving opponent.
Chandrahas Choudhury, a novelist, is based in New Delhi
By Bloomberg
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