SHRI.NATHURAM GODSE"S DEFENCE SPEECH

Godse's Defense Speech
Godse's defense speech in court (a must read confession) This is the speech given by nathuram godse in the court when he was triedfor the murder of mahatma Gandhi....really solid facts?Born in a devotional Brahmin family, I instinctively came to revere Hindureligion, Hindu history and Hindu culture. I had, therefore, been intenselyproud of Hinduism as a whole. As I grew up I developed a tendency to freethinking unfettered by any superstitious allegiance to any isms, politicalor religious. That is why I worked actively for the eradication ofuntouchability and the caste system based on birth alone. I openly joinedanti-caste movements and maintained that all Hindus were of equal status asto rights, social and religious and should be considered high or low onmerit alone and not through the accident of birth in a particular caste orprofession. I used publicly to take part in organized anti-caste dinners inwhich thousands of Hindus, Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, Chamars andBhangis participated. We broke the caste rules and dined in the company ofeach other. I have read the speeches and writings of Dadabhai Naoroji, Vivekanand,Gokhale, Tilak, along with the books of ancient and modern history of Indiaand some prominent countries like England, France, America and' Russia.Moreover I studied the tenets of Socialism and Marxism. But above all Istudied very closely whatever Veer Savarkar and Gandhiji had written andspoken, as to my mind these two ideologies have contributed more to themoulding of the thought and action of the Indian people during the lastthirty years or so, than any other single factor has done. All this reading and thinking led me to believe it was my first duty toserve Hindudom and Hindus both as a patriot and as a world citizen. Tosecure the freedom and to safeguard the just interests of some thirty crores(300 million) of Hindus would automatically constitute the freedom and thewell-being of all India, one fifth of human race. This conviction led menaturally to devote myself to the Hindu Sanghtanist ideology and programme,which alone, I came to believe, could win and preserve the nationalindependence of Hindustan, my Motherland, and enable her to render trueservice to humanity as well. Since the year 1920, that is, after the demise of Lokamanya Tilak,Gandhiji's influence in the Congress first increased and then becamesupreme. His activities for public awakening were phenomenal in theirintensity and were reinforced by the slogan of truth and non-violence whichhe paraded ostentatiously before the country. No sensible or enlightenedperson could object to those slogans. In fact there is nothing new ororiginal in them. They are implicit in every constitutional public movement.But it is nothing but a mere dream if you imagine that the bulk of mankindis, or can ever become, capable of scrupulous adherence to these loftyprinciples in its normal life from day to day. In fact, hunour, duty andlove of one's own kith and kin and country might often compel us todisregard non-violence and to use force. I could never conceive that anarmed resistance to an aggression is unjust. I would consider it a religiousand moral duty to resist and, if possible, to overpower such an enemy by useof force. [In the Ramayana] Rama killed Ravana in a tumultuous fight andrelieved Sita. [In the Mahabharata], Krishna killed Kansa to end hiswickedness; and Arjuna had to fight and slay quite a number of his friendsand relations including the revered Bhishma because the latter was on theside of the aggressor. It is my firm belief that in dubbing Rama, Krishnaand Arjuna as guilty of violence, the Mahatma betrayed a total ignorance ofthe springs of human action. In more recent history, it was the heroic fight put up by ChhatrapatiShivaji that first checked and eventually destroyed the Muslim tyranny inIndia. It was absolutely essentially for Shivaji to overpower and kill anaggressive Afzal Khan, failing which he would have lost his own life. Incondemning history's towering warriors like Shivaji, Rana Pratap and GuruGobind Singh as misguided patriots, Gandhiji has merely exposed hisself-conceit. He was, paradoxical as it may appear, a violent pacifist whobrought untold calamities on the country in the name of truth andnon-violence, while Rana Pratap, Shivaji and the Guru will remain enshrinedin the hearts of their countrymen for ever for the freedom they brought tothem. The accumulating provocation of thirty-two years, culminating in his lastpro-Muslim fast, at last goaded me to the conclusion that the existence ofGandhi should be brought to an end immediately. Gandhi had done very good inSouth Africa to uphold the rights and well-being of the Indian communitythere. But when he finally returned to India he developed a subjectivementality under which he alone was to be the final judge of what was rightor wrong. If the country wanted his leadership, it had to accept hisinfallibility; if it did not, he would stand aloof from the Congress andcarry on his own way. Against such an attitude there can be no halfwayhouse. Either Congress had to surrender its will to his and had to becontent with playing second fiddle to all his eccentricity, whimsicality,metaphysics and primitive vision, or it had to carry on without him. Healone was the Judge of everyone and every thing; he was the master brainguiding the civil disobedience movement; no other could know the techniqueof that movement. He alone knew when to begin and when to withdraw it. Themovement might succeed or fail, it might bring untold disaster and politicalreverses but that could make no difference to the Mahatma's infallibility.'A Satyagrahi can never fail' was his formula for declaring his owninfallibility and nobody except himself knew what a Satyagrahi is. Thus, the Mahatma became the judge and jury in his own cause. These childishinsanities 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 but they had either towithdraw from the Congress or place their intelligence at his feet to dowith as he liked. In a position of such absolute irresponsibility Gandhi wasguilty of blunder after blunder, failure after failure, disaster afterdisaster. Gandhi's pro-Muslim policy is blatantly in his perverse attitude on thequestion of the national language of India. It is quite obvious that Hindihas the most prior claim to be accepted as the premier language. In thebeginning of his career in India, Gandhi gave a great impetus to Hindi butas he found that the Muslims did not like it, he became a champion of whatis called Hindustani. Everybody in India knows that there is no languagecalled Hindustani; it has no grammar; it has no vocabulary. It is a meredialect, it is spoken, but not written. It is a bastard tongue andcross-breed between Hindi and Urdu, and not even the Mahatma's sophistrycould make it popular. But in his desire to please the Muslims he insistedthat Hindustani alone should be the national language of India. His blindfollowers, of course, supported him and the so-called hybrid language beganto be used. The charm and purity of the Hindi language was to be prostitutedto please the Muslims. All his experiments were at the expense of theHindus. From August 1946 onwards the private armies of the Muslim League began amassacre of the Hindus. The then Viceroy, Lord Wavell, though distressed atwhat was happening, would not use his powers under the Government of IndiaAct of 1935 to prevent the rape, murder and arson. The Hindu blood began toflow from Bengal to Karachi with some retaliation by the Hindus. The InterimGovernment formed in September was sabotaged by its Muslim League membersright from its inception, but the more they became disloyal and treasonableto the government of which they were a part, the greater was Gandhi'sinfatuation for them. Lord Wavell had to resign as he could not bring abouta settlement and he was succeeded by Lord Mountbatten. King Log was followedby King Stork. The Congress which had boasted of its nationalism and socialism secretlyaccepted Pakistan literally at the point of the bayonet and abjectlysurrendered to Jinnah. India was vivisected and one-third of the Indianterritory became foreign land to us from August 15, 1947. Lord Mountbattencame to be described in Congress circles as the greatest Viceroy andGovernor-General this country ever had. The official date for handing overpower was fixed for June 30, 1948, but Mountbatten with his ruthless surgerygave us a gift of vivisected India ten months in advance. This is whatGandhi had achieved after thirty years of undisputed dictatorship and thisis what Congress party calls 'freedom' and 'peaceful transfer of power'. TheHindu-Muslim unity bubble was finally burst and a theocratic state wasestablished with the consent of Nehru and his crowd and they have called'freedom won by them with sacrifice' - whose sacrifice? When top leaders ofCongress, with the consent of Gandhi, divided and tore the country - whichwe consider a deity of worship - my mind was filled with direful anger. One of the conditions imposed by Gandhi for his breaking of the fast untodeath related to the mosques in Delhi occupied by the Hindu refugees. Butwhen Hindus in Pakistan were subjected to violent attacks he did not so muchas utter a single word to protest and censure the Pakistan Government or theMuslims concerned. Gandhi was shrewd enough to know that while undertaking afast unto death, had he imposed for its break some condition on the Muslimsin Pakistan, there would have been found hardly any Muslims who could haveshown some grief if the fast had ended in his death. It was for this reasonthat he purposely avoided imposing any condition on the Muslims. He wasfully aware of from the experience that Jinnah was not at all perturbed orinfluenced by his fast and the Muslim League hardly attached any value tothe inner voice of Gandhi. Gandhi is being referred to as the Father of the Nation. But if that is so,he had failed his paternal duty inasmuch as he has acted very treacherouslyto the nation by his consenting to the partitioning of it. I stoutlymaintain that Gandhi has failed in his duty. He has proved to be the Fatherof Pakistan. His inner-voice, his spiritual power and his doctrine ofnon-violence of which so much is made of, all crumbled before Jinnah's ironwill and proved to be powerless. Briefly speaking, I thought to myself and foresaw I shall be totally ruined,and the only thing I could expect from the people would be nothing buthatred and that I shall have lost all my honour, even more valuable than mylife, if I were to kill Gandhiji. But at the same time I felt that theIndian politics in the absence of Gandhiji would surely be proved practical,able to retaliate, and would be powerful with armed forces. No doubt, my ownfuture would be totally ruined, but the nation would be saved from theinroads of Pakistan. People may even call me and dub me as devoid of anysense or foolish, but the nation would be free to follow the course foundedon the reason which I consider to be necessary for sound nation-building.After having fully considered the question, I took the final decision in thematter, but I did not speak about it to anyone whatsoever. I took courage inboth my hands and I did fire the shots at Gandhiji on 30th January 1948, onthe prayer-grounds of Birla House. I do say that my shots were fired at the person whose policy and action hadbrought rack and ruin and destruction to millions of Hindus. There was nolegal machinery by which such an offender could be brought to book and forthis reason I fired those fatal shots. I bear no ill will towards anyone individually but I do say that I had norespect for the present government owing to their policy which was unfairlyfavourable towards the Muslims. But at the same time I could clearly seethat the policy was entirely due to the presence of Gandhi. I have to saywith great regret that Prime Minister Nehru quite forgets that hispreachings and deeds are at times at variances with each other when he talksabout India as a secular state in season and out of season, because it issignificant to note that Nehru has played a leading role in theestablishment of the theocratic state of Pakistan, and his job was madeeasier by Gandhi's persistent policy of appeasement towards the Muslims. I now stand before the court to accept the full share of my responsibilityfor what I have done and the judge would, of course, pass against me suchorders of sentence as may be considered proper. But I would like to add thatI do not desire any mercy to be shown to me, nor do I wish that anyone elseshould beg for mercy on my behalf. My confidence about the moral side of myaction has not been shaken even by the criticism levelled against it on allsides. I have no doubt that honest writers of history will weigh my act andfind the true value thereof some day in future.
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