Speech of Godse

8/3/2019 Speech of Godse

1/16

Speech by Nathuram Godse in the court

(Assassinated Mahatma Gandhi)

JANUARY 30th, 1949 - The Mahatma was

assassinated by a man called NaturamGodse. After he shot him, instead ofrunning away, he stood his groundand surrounded. He said, "No one shouldthink that Gandhi was killed by a madman"

One of the best speeches of All time, whichis compared to Socrates's speech in histrial. The Judge was astonished by hisspeech and commented that if India

had followed the Jury system of giving judgments, Godse would havbeen adjudicated as "Not Guilty" by theJury, cause after the speech, the wholeaudience was in tears.

This is the speech given by NathuramGodse in the court in his last trial for themurder of Mahatma Gandhi

Born in a devotional Brahmin family, I


2/16

instinctively came to revere Hindu religion,Hindu history and Hindu culture. I had,therefore, been intensely proud of Hinduismas a whole. As I grew up I developed atendency to free thinking unfettered by any

superstitious allegiance to any isms,political or religious. That is why I workedactively for the eradication of untouchabilityand the caste system based on birth alone.I openly joined anti-caste movements andmaintained that all Hindus were of equalstatus as to rights, social and religiousand should be considered high or low onmerit alone and not through the accident ofbirth in a particular caste or profession. Iused publicly to take part in organized anti-caste dinners in which thousands of Hindus,Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, Chamarsand Bhangis participated. We broke thecaste rules and dined in the company

of each other.

I have read the speeches and writings ofDadabhai Nairoji, Vivekanand, Gokhale,


3/16

Tilak, along with the books of ancient andmodern history of India and someprominent countries like England, France,America and' Russia. Moreover I studiedthe tenets of Socialism and Marxism.

But above all I studied very closelywhatever Veer Savarkar and Gandhiji hadwritten and spoken, as to my mind thesetwo ideologies have contributed more tothe moulding of the thought and action ofthe Indian people during the last thirtyyears or so, than any other single factorhas done.

All this reading and thinking led me tobelieve it was my first duty to serveHindudom and Hindus both as a patriot andas a world citizen. To secure the freedomand to safeguard the just interests of

some thirty crores (300 million) of Hinduswould automatically constitute the freedomand the well being of all India, one fifth ofhuman race. This conviction led menaturally to devote myself to the


4/16

Hindu Sanghtanist ideology andprogramme, which alone, I came tobelieve, could win and preserve the nationalindependence of Hindustan,my Motherland, and enable her to render

true service to humanity as well.

Since the year 1920, that is, after thedemise of Lokamanya Tilak, Gandhiji'sinfluence in the Congress first increasedand then became supreme. His activities forpublic awakening were phenomenal intheir intensity and were reinforced by theslogan of truth and non-violence, which heparaded ostentatiously before the country.No sensible or enlightened person couldobject to those slogans. In fact thereis nothing new or original in them. They areimplicit in every constitutional public

movement. But it is nothing but a meredream if you imagine that the bulk ofmankind is, or can ever become, capable ofscrupulous adherence to these loftyprinciples in its normal life from day to day.


5/16

In fact, honour, duty and love of one's ownkith and kin and country might oftencompel us to disregard non-violence andto use force. I could never conceive that anarmed resistance to an aggression is

unjust. I would consider it a religious andmoral duty to resist and, if possible, tooverpower such an enemy by use of force.[In the Ramayana] Rama killed Ravana in atumultuous fight and relieved Sita. [In theMahabharata], Krishna killed Kansa to endhis wickedness; and Arjuna had to fight andslay quite a number of his friends andrelations including the revered Bhishmabecause the latter was on the side of theaggressor. It is my firm belief that indubbing Rama, Krishna and Arjuna as guiltyof violence, the Mahatma betrayed a totalignorance of the springs of human action.

In more recent history, it was the heroicfight put up by Chhatrapati Shivaji that firstchecked and eventually destroyed the

Muslim tyranny in India. It was absolutelyessentially for Shivaji to overpower and kill


6/16

an aggressive Afzal Khan, failing which hewould have lost his own life. In condemninghistory's towering warriors like Shivaji,Rana Pratap and Guru Gobind Singh asmisguided patriots, Gandhiji has merely

exposed his self-conceit. He was,paradoxical, as it may appear, a violentpacifist who brought untold calamities onthe country in the name of truth and non-violence, while Rana Pratap, Shivaji and theGuru will remain enshrined in the hearts oftheir countrymen forever for the freedomthey brought to them.

The accumulating provocation of thirty-twoyears, culminating in his last pro-Muslimfast, at last goaded me to the conclusionthat the existence of Gandhi should bebrought to an end immediately. Gandhi had

done very well in South Africa to uphold therights and well being of the Indiancommunity there. But when he finallyreturned to India he developed a subjectivementality under which he alone was to be


7/16

the final judge of what was right or wrong.If the country wanted his leadership, it hadto accept his infallibility; if it did not,he would stand aloof from the Congressand carry on his own way. Against such an

attitude there can be no halfway house.Either Congress had to surrender its will tohis and had to be content with playingsecond fiddle to all his eccentricity,whimsicality, metaphysics and primitivevision, or it had to carry on without him. Healone was the Judge of everyone andeverything; he was the master brainguiding the civil disobedience movement;no other could know the technique ofthat movement. He alone knew when tobegin and when to withdraw it.The movement might succeed or fail, itmight bring untold disaster and politicalreverses but that could make no difference

to the Mahatma's infallibility. 'A Satyagrahican never fail' was his formula for declaringhis own infallibility and nobody excepthimself knew what a Satyagrahi is.


8/16

Thus, the Mahatma became the judge and

jury in his own cause. These childishinsanities and obstinacies, coupled with amost severe austerity of life, ceaseless

work and lofty character madeGandhi formidable and irresistible. Manypeople thought that his politicswere irrational but they had either towithdraw from the Congress or place theirintelligence at his feet to do with, as heliked. In a position of such absoluteirresponsibility Gandhi was guilty of blunderafter blunder, failure after failure, disasterafter disaster.

Gandhi's pro-Muslim policy is blatantly inhis perverse attitude on the question of thenational language of India. It is quite

obvious that Hindi has the most prior claimto be accepted as the premier language. Inthe beginning of his career in India, Gandhigave a great impetus to Hindi but as hefound that the Muslims did not like it,


9/16

he became a champion of what is calledHindustani. Everybody in India knows thatthere is no language called Hindustani; ithas no grammar; it has no vocabulary. It isa mere dialect; it is spoken, but

not written. It is a b*st*rd tongue andcrossbreed between Hindi and Urdu, andnot even the Mahatma's sophistry couldmake it popular. But in his desire to pleasethe Muslims he insisted that Hindustanialone should be the national language ofIndia. His blind followers, ofcourse, supported him and the so-calledhybrid language began to be used.The charm and purity of the Hindi languagewas to be prostituted to please theMuslims. All his experiments were at theexpense of the Hindus.

From August 1946 onwards the privatearmies of the Muslim League began amassacre of the Hindus. The then Viceroy,Lord Wavell, though distressed at what washappening, would not use his powers under


10/16

the Government of India Act of 1935 toprevent the rape, murder and arson. TheHindu blood began to flow from Bengal toKarachi with someretaliation by the Hindus. The Interim

Government formed in September wassabotaged by its Muslim League membersright from its inception, but the more theybecame disloyal and treasonable to thegovernment of which they were a part, thegreater was Gandhi's infatuation forthem. Lord Wavell had to resign as he couldnot bring about a settlement and he wassucceeded by Lord Mountbatten. King Logwas followed by King Stork.

The Congress, which had boasted of itsnationalism and socialism, secretlyaccepted Pakistan literally at the point of

the bayonet and abjectly surrendered toJinnah. India was vivisected and one-thirdof the Indian territory became foreign landto us from August 15, 1947. LordMountbatten came to be described in


11/16

Congress circles as the greatest Viceroyand Governor-General this country everhad. The official date for handing overpower was fixed for June 30, 1948,but Mountbatten with his ruthless surgery

gave us a gift of vivisected India tenmonths in advance. This is what Gandhihad achieved after thirty years ofundisputed dictatorship and this is whatCongress party calls 'freedom' and 'peacefultransfer of power'. The Hindu- Muslim unitybubble was finally burst and a theocraticstate was established with the consent ofNehru 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 - which weconsider a deity of worship - my mindwas filled with direful anger.

One of the conditions imposed by Gandhifor his breaking of the fast unto deathrelated to the mosques in Delhi occupied by


12/16

the Hindu refugees. But when Hindus inPakistan were subjected to violent attackshe did not so much as utter a single wordto protest and censure the PakistanGovernment or the Muslims concerned.

Gandhi was shrewd enough to know thatwhile undertaking a fast unto death, hadhe imposed for its break some condition onthe Muslims in Pakistan, there would havebeen found hardly any Muslims who couldhave shown some grief if the fast hadended in his death. It was for this reasonthat he purposely avoided imposing anycondition on the Muslims. He was fullyaware of from the experience that Jinnahwas not at all perturbed or influenced by hisfast and the Muslim League hardly attachedany value to the inner voice of Gandhi.

Gandhi is being referred to as the Father of

the Nation. But if that is so, he had failedhis paternal duty inasmuch as he has actedvery treacherously to the nation by hisconsenting to the partitioning of it. I stoutly


13/16

maintain that Gandhi has failed in his duty.He has proved to be the Father of Pakistan.His inner-voice, his spiritual power and hisdoctrine of non-violence of which so muchis made of, all crumbled before Jinnah's

iron will and proved to be powerless.

Briefly speaking, I thought to myself andforesaw I shall be totally ruined, and theonly thing I could expect from the peoplewould be nothing but hatred and that Ishall have lost all my honour, evenmore valuable than my life, if I were to killGandhiji. But at the same time I felt thatthe Indian politics in the absence ofGandhiji would surely be proved practical,able to retaliate, and would bepowerful with armed forces. No doubt, myown future would be totally ruined, but the

nation would be saved from the inroads ofPakistan. People may even call me and dubme as devoid of any sense or foolish, butthe nation would be free to follow thecourse founded on the reason which I


14/16

consider to be necessary for sound nation-building. After having fully considered thequestion, I took the final decision inthe matter, but I did not speak about it toanyone whatsoever. I took courage in both

my hands and I did fire the shots atGandhiji on 30th January 1948, on theprayer-grounds of Birla House.

I do say that my shots were fired at theperson whose policy and action had broughtrack and ruin and destruction to millionsof Hindus. There was no legal machinery bywhich such an offender could be brought tobook and for this reason I fired those fatalshots.

I bear no ill will towards anyone individuallybut I do say that I had no respect for thepresent government owing to their policy,which was unfairly favourable towards theMuslims. But at the same time Icould clearly see that the policy wasentirely due to the presence of Gandhi. I


15/16

have to say with great regret that PrimeMinister Nehru quite forgets that hispreachings and deeds are at times atvariances with each other when he talksabout India as a secular state in season and

out of season, because it is significant tonote that Nehru has played a leading role inthe establishment of the theocratic stateof Pakistan, and his job was made easier byGandhi's persistent policy of appeasementtowards the Muslims.

I now stand before the court to accept thefull share of my responsibility for what I

have done and the judge would, ofcourse, pass against me such orders ofsentence as may be considered proper. ButI would like to add that I do not desire anymercy to be shown to me, nor do I wishthat anyone else should beg for mercy on

my behalf. My confidence about the moralside of my action has not been shaken evenby the criticism levelled against it on allsides. I have no doubt that honest writers


16/16

of history will weigh my act and findthe true value thereof some day in future.

-NATHURAM GODSE

Documents

Speech of Godse