Nathuram Godse's Defense Speech .....

[ravishingravi]

Nathuram Godse's defense speech in the court (a must read) This is the speech given by Nathuram Godse in the court when he was tried for the murder of Mahatma Gandhi. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Born in a devotional Brahmin family, I instinctively came to revere Hindu religion, Hindu history and Hindu culture. I had, therefore, been intensely proud of Hinduism as a whole. As I grew up I developed a tendency to free thinking unfettered by any superstitious allegiance to any isms, political or religious. That is why I worked actively for the eradication of untouchability and the caste system based on birth alone. I openly joined anti-caste movements and maintained that all Hindus were of equal status as to rights, social and religious and should be considered high or low on merit alone and not through the accident of birth in a particular caste or profession. I used publicly to take part in organized anti-caste dinners in which thousands of Hindus, Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, Chamars and Bhangis participated. We broke the caste rules and dined in the company of each other. I have read the speeches and writings of Dadabhai Nairoji, Vivekanand, Gokhale, Tilak, along with the books of ancient and modern history of India and some prominent countries like England, France, America and' Russia. Moreover I studied the tenets of Socialism and Marxism. But above all I studied very closely whatever Veer Savarkar and Gandhiji had written and spoken, as to my mind these two ideologies have contributed more to the moulding of the thought and action of the Indian people during the last thirty years or so, than any other single factor has done. All this reading and thinking led me to believe it was my first duty to serve Hindudom and Hindus both as a patriot and as a world citizen. To secure the freedom and to safeguard the just interests of some thirty crores (300 million) of Hindus would automatically constitute the freedom and the well being of all India, one fifth of human race. This conviction led me naturally to devote myself to the Hindu Sanghtanist ideology and programme, which alone, I came to believe, could win and preserve the national independence of Hindustan, my Motherland, and enable her to render true service 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 became supreme. His activities for public awakening were phenomenal in their intensity and were reinforced by the slogan of truth and non-violence, which he paraded ostentatiously before the country. No sensible or enlightened person could object to those slogans. In fact there is nothing new or original 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 mankind is, or can ever become, capable of scrupulous adherence to these lofty principles in its normal life from day to day. In fact, honour, duty and love of one's own kith and kin and country might often compel us to disregard non-violence and to use force. I could never conceive that an armed resistance to an aggression is unjust. I would consider it a religious and moral duty to resist and, if possible, to overpower such an enemy by use of force. [in the Ramayana] Rama killed Ravana in a tumultuous fight and relieved Sita. [in the Mahabharata], Krishna killed Kansa to end his wickedness; and Arjuna had to fight and slay quite a number of his friends and relations including the revered Bhishma because the latter was on the side of the aggressor. It is my firm belief that in dubbing Rama, Krishna and Arjuna as guilty of violence, the Mahatma betrayed a total ignorance of the springs of human action. In more recent history, it was the heroic fight put up by Chhatrapati Shivaji that first checked and eventually destroyed the Muslim tyranny in India. It was absolutely essentially for Shivaji to overpower and kill an aggressive Afzal Khan, failing which he would have lost his own life. In condemning history's towering warriors like Shivaji, Rana Pratap and Guru Gobind Singh as misguided patriots, Gandhiji has merely exposed his self-conceit. He was, paradoxical, as it may appear, a violent pacifist who brought untold calamities on the country in the name of truth and non-violence, while Rana Pratap, Shivaji and the Guru will remain enshrined in the hearts of their countrymen forever for the freedom they brought to them. The accumulating provocation of thirty-two years, culminating in his last pro-Muslim fast, at last goaded me to the conclusion that the existence of Gandhi should be brought to an end immediately. Gandhi had done very well in South Africa to uphold the rights and well being of the Indian community there. But when he finally returned to India he developed a subjective mentality under which he alone was to be the final judge of what was right or wrong. If the country wanted his leadership, it had to accept his infallibility; if it did not, he would stand aloof from the Congress and carry on his own way. Against such an attitude there can be no halfway house. Either Congress had to surrender its will to his and had to be content with playing second fiddle to all his eccentricity, whimsicality, metaphysics and primitive vision, or it had to carry on without him. He alone was the Judge of everyone and everything; he was the master brain guiding the civil disobedience movement; no other could know the technique of that movement. He alone knew when to begin and when to withdraw it. The movement might succeed or fail, it might bring untold disaster and political reverses but that could make no difference to the Mahatma's infallibility. 'A Satyagrahi can never fail' was his formula for declaring his own infallibility and nobody except himself knew what a Satyagrahi is. Thus, the Mahatma became the judge and jury in his own cause. These childish insanities 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 to withdraw from the Congress or place their intelligence at his feet to do with, as he liked. In a position of such absolute irresponsibility Gandhi was guilty of blunder after blunder, failure after failure, disaster after disaster. Gandhi's pro-Muslim policy is blatantly in his perverse attitude on the question of the national language of India. It is quite obvious that Hindi has the most prior claim to be accepted as the premier language. In the beginning of his career in India, Gandhi gave a great impetus to Hindi but as he found that the Muslims did not like it, he became a champion of what is called Hindustani. Everybody in India knows that there is no language called Hindustani; it has no grammar; it has no vocabulary. It is a mere dialect; it is spoken, but not written. It is a bastard tongue and crossbreed between Hindi and Urdu, and not even the Mahatma's sophistry could make it popular. But in his desire to please the Muslims he insisted that Hindustani alone should be the national language of India. His blind followers, of course, supported him and the so-called hybrid language began to be used. The charm and purity of the Hindi language was to be prostituted to please the Muslims. All his experiments were at the expense of the Hindus. From August 1946 onwards the private armies of the Muslim League began a massacre of the Hindus. The then Viceroy, Lord Wavell, though distressed at what was happening, would not use his powers under the Government of India Act of 1935 to prevent the rape, murder and arson. The Hindu blood began to flow from Bengal to Karachi with some retaliation by the Hindus. The Interim Government formed in September was sabotaged by its Muslim League members right from its inception, but the more they became disloyal and treasonable to the government of which they were a part, the greater was Gandhi's infatuation for them. Lord Wavell had to resign as he could not bring about a settlement and he was succeeded by Lord Mountbatten. King Log was followed by King Stork. The Congress, which had boasted of its nationalism and socialism, secretly accepted Pakistan literally at the point of the bayonet and abjectly surrendered to Jinnah. India was vivisected and one-third of the Indian territory became foreign land to us from August 15, 1947. Lord Mountbatten came to be described in Congress circles as the greatest Viceroy and Governor-General this country ever had. The official date for handing over power was fixed for June 30, 1948, but Mountbatten with his ruthless surgery gave us a gift of vivisected India ten months in advance. This is what Gandhi had achieved after thirty years of undisputed dictatorship and this is what Congress party calls 'freedom' and 'peaceful transfer of power'. The Hindu-Muslim unity bubble was finally burst and a theocratic state was established with the consent of Nehru and his crowd and they have called 'freedom won by them with sacrifice' - whose sacrifice? When top leaders of Congress, with the consent of Gandhi, divided and tore the country - which we 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 unto death related to the mosques in Delhi occupied by the Hindu refugees. But when Hindus in Pakistan were subjected to violent attacks he did not so much as utter a single word to protest and censure the Pakistan Government or the Muslims concerned. Gandhi was shrewd enough to know that while undertaking a fast unto death, had he imposed for its break some condition on the Muslims in Pakistan, there would have been found hardly any Muslims who could have shown some grief if the fast had ended in his death. It was for this reason that he purposely avoided imposing any condition on the Muslims. He was fully aware of from the experience that Jinnah was not at all perturbed or influenced by his fast and the Muslim League hardly attached any 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 failed his paternal duty inasmuch as he has acted very treacherously to the nation by his consenting to the partitioning of it. I stoutly maintain that Gandhi has failed in his duty. He has proved to be the Father of Pakistan. His inner-voice, his spiritual power and his doctrine of non-violence of which so much is made of, all crumbled before Jinnah's iron will 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 but hatred and that I shall have lost all my honour, even more valuable than my life, if I were to kill Gandhiji. But at the same time I felt that the Indian politics in the absence of Gandhiji would surely be proved practical, able to retaliate, and would be powerful with armed forces. No doubt, my own future would be totally ruined, but the nation would be saved from the inroads of Pakistan. People may even call me and dub me as devoid of any sense or foolish, but the nation would be free to follow the course founded on the reason which I consider to be necessary for sound nation-building. After having fully considered the question, I took the final decision in the matter, but I did not speak about it to anyone whatsoever. I took courage in both my hands and I did fire the shots at Gandhiji on 30th January 1948, on the prayer-grounds of Birla House. I do say that my shots were fired at the person whose policy and action had brought rack and ruin and destruction to millions of Hindus. There was no legal machinery by which such an offender could be brought to book and for this reason I fired those fatal shots. I bear no ill will towards anyone individually but I do say that I had no respect for the present government owing to their policy, which was unfairly favourable towards the Muslims. But at the same time I could clearly see that the policy was entirely due to the presence of Gandhi. I have to say with great regret that Prime Minister Nehru quite forgets that his preachings and deeds are at times at variances with each other when he talks about India as a secular state in season and out of season, because it is significant to note that Nehru has played a leading role in the establishment of the theocratic state of Pakistan, and his job was made easier by Gandhi's persistent policy of appeasement towards the Muslims. I now stand before the court to accept the full share of my responsibility for what I have done and the judge would, of course, pass against me such orders of sentence as may be considered proper. But I would like to add that I do not desire any mercy to be shown to me, nor do I wish that anyone else should beg for mercy on my behalf. My confidence about the moral side of my action has not been shaken even by the criticism levelled against it on all sides. I have no doubt that honest writers of history will weigh my act and find the true value thereof some day in future. -NATHURAM GODSE (no link)

[Guest Gunner]

I have read his defence speech before, its quite powerful. However his choice of killing the mahatma was still wrong.

[Precambrian]

Awesome writeup... Still I don't agree with the killing.. it only added to Mahatma's infallibility imho...

[yoda]

Never read it before, thanks for posting it.

[dial_100]

I dont want to read it. Killing cannot be justified...That too by a brahmin.

[punjabi_khota]

Are you sure this is not a hoax email forward or something :hmmmm2:

[Guest Gunner]

Are you sure this is not a hoax email forward or something :hmmmm2:

No I don't think so, I have read this before. AFAIK this is the real deal.

[Texy]

amazing....hate Gandhi even more now and his own family Gandhi & Congress party ruined India/ Hindus

[yoda]

amazing....hate Gandhi even more now and his own family Gandhi & Congress party ruined India/ Hindus

Well Gandhi thought he could only rationalize with Hindus and expect them to make the sacrifices needed for the sake of the country fully understanding that there isn't much hope from the other side. I wouldn't blame him as most of the other side were more interested in forming their own land and cared less about what happened behind. Of course all this is pure conjecture. I wonder if Gandhi himself has clarified as to why he expected more from one group than the other.

[kumble_rocks]

I fail to understand how somebody can kill in such a cold blooded premeditated manner against a defense-less old man. Godse is a coward for such a dastardly act ....

[Precambrian]

amazing....hate Gandhi even more now and his own family Gandhi & Congress party ruined India/ Hindus

AFAIC India is still there, and so do hindus.. It's amazing how Gandhiji gets nitpicked for minor flaws in otherwise an unbelievable career and life... Congress pre 1948 wasn't just an organisation, but a way of life.. but sadly after that it just became another wretched political party.. Gandhiji cannot be blamed for that...

[Jadoo]

Thanks for sharing, certainly very enlightening.

[ViruRulez]

Gandhiji was the greatest Indian or might I say that perhaps the greatest human ever to have walked on this earth. He might have made one or two mistakes but that only proved that he was still human but nobody in history could even come close to him. The only other person I have high regard for is Gautam Buddha as the nobles and sanest ever persons to have lived on this earth. He taught the world that we can also fight through non-violence and peace and nobody ever even dared to do so. No offense but I personally rate all prophets and religious figures of all religions (who lived on this earth) lower than him in terms of being humane. I would say that nobody has and nobody would dare to follow magnanimous principles like he did. Murdering him cannot be justified under any circumstances. Nathuram Godse/RSS or Muslim League never even protested or went to jail for freedom movement and I dont see how such obnoxious people had any right to justify killing of a Mahatma

[varun]

Hedgewar and Savarkar both did time in jails for opposing British rule. The dissillusionment came after they correctly identified Gandhi's moronic ML appeasment and realised that it was due to the inherent flaws in basic Hindu character.

I'd say that 'realization' was pretty self-loathesome wouldn't you ?

[yoda]

He was the biggest coward IMHO who tried to camouflage it by his "show the other cheek" philosophy.

That's the biggest BS I've ever read. :two_thumbs_up:

[Tapioca]

Read Gandhis own writings to understand. Or read "freedom at midnight". He was the biggest coward IMHO who tried to camouflage it by his "show the other cheek" philosophy. He also completely hijacked Gita to further his agenda. The irony is Bhagwat Gita was delivered on a battle field with the main intention of convincing Parth to pick up that weapon instead of running away.

According to Freedom at Midnight, Gandhi was about the only Indian leader who stood against the partition till the very last moment. Nehru, Patel etc were willing to give up Pakistan in exchange for quick independence. From what we know now, would you say that it was a good thing that India was partitioned ? Or would Pakistan have changed its nature to accommodate itself with the rest of India ?

[moumotta]

Depends on what constitutes self-loathing according to you ... according to me it takes a lot of guts to recognize that there are serious flaws within our own psyche and go about correcting the root cause of our problems than to keep feeding the devil hoping that it lets you live. What Gandhi did was exactly that ... kept appeasing ML and kept trying to sell this idea that they were as much "Indians" as the Hindus.

What a ridiculous thought!!

[CSK Fan]

Such idealogy, while seeming so harmless and righteous in theory, does not work in reality. I am sure Pakistan was based on similar, right sounding idealougy The most successful countries in the world are also the ones who are the most permissive snd sometimes do bend over backward to accodomate all kind of minorities. yes, its pretty painful for the majorty to sacrifice all the time but its the same kind of inconvinience the majority faces when there is a reservation for backward classes or for women on buses. For our country to succeed, the weakest links has to be strengthened

[CSK Fan]

Hedgewar and Savarkar both did time in jails for opposing British rule. The dissillusionment came after they correctly identified Gandhi's moronic ML appeasment and realised that it was due to the inherent flaws in basic Hindu character. This is the core of their ideology and they stand vindicated every single day when "Hindus" like Barkha ' date=' Rahul Gandhi continue their lunatic and self destructive obsession with Jihadis and the whole country by and large looks on. Whether you ( or any one else ) has the honesty to look at things purely based on facts and analyze what has happened in the past 100 yrs or for that matter things as they stand right now and here is a different matter. Like I keep saying .... it is pretty darn easy to regurgitate stuff from that goody-goody book on mindless liberalism and secularism. I prefer to go by facts.[/quote'] So is supporting the backward castes, giving reservations to women or to the handicapped also a basic flaw in hindu character? Am I being self loathing because i belong to a upper caste and allow reservations and rights for the dalits

[ViruRulez]

Hedgewar and Savarkar both did time in jails for opposing British rule. The dissillusionment came after they correctly identified Gandhi's moronic ML appeasment and realised that it was due to the inherent flaws in basic Hindu character. This is the core of their ideology and they stand vindicated every single day when "Hindus" like Barkha ' date=' Rahul Gandhi continue their lunatic and self destructive obsession with Jihadis and the whole country by and large looks on. [b']Whether you ( or any one else ) has the honesty to look at things purely based on facts and analyze what has happened in the past 100 yrs or for that matter things as they stand right now and here is a different matter. Like I keep saying .... it is pretty darn easy to regurgitate stuff from that goody-goody book on mindless liberalism and secularism. I prefer to go by facts.

I have been a person who has always lived my life being unbiased and all my judgments have been based on facts. I am not saying about Congress party and I hate all present political parties to be frank as they are bastards and I have always said that there is urgent need of an non-votebank and non-corrupt political party which is only interested in development of the nation and nothing else. But here it is about the Father of our Nation and not about Congress party. He is the greatest Indian if not the greatest human ever to have stepped on this earth IMO and I stand by that statement. I am a Muslim but if you ask my personal opinion about who was greater - Prophet Mohammed or Gandhiji then I would say Gandhiji without a tinge of doubt. I can find a lot lesser flaws in Gandhiji than any other human being or even religious figure to have stepped on this earth. Gandhiji was one of the most selfless persons that could have been humanely possible. The only other person whom I could compare to him might be Gautam Buddha. Frankly speaking he and all our freedom fighters stood fearlessly in front of British guns and marched forward and protested without any violence at all.. they did that only for the nation and not for any personal benefit or anything .. you can call yourself Indian because of the so called "coward" which you are referring to .. no offense but I am quite sure that you would never dare to do that even for your own family leave apart the whole nation :winky: .. I dont give much of a damn to Nehru or others as I can see political motivations behind many of the other Congress leaders of that time but as I said Gandhiji was the greatest Indian if not the greatest human ever to have stepped on this earth