Siddharth's Blog

I guess this will be my first post on politics or anything close to it. But I think of it more as Indian history and the events that are linked to creation of present day India. I'll even go to the extent of putting a disclaimer that whatever I do write here or links that I refer to are my research of reading up on the net. I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the same in part or whole and these do not, in any way, refer to my opinion on the matter.... even more so because I'm still to form one (an opinion, I mean). I suspect forming any sort of informed opinion will involve a lot more reading. So this post may get updated over time.

So coming to the subject of the post, I was reading up a blog containing references to the thinking of both of these people: Gandhiji and Godse. And I was reminded of a play Me Nathuram Godse Boltoy. I had first heard of the existence of this script (written by Pradeep Dalvi) when I was a part of the Hindi Drama Club at BITS and it was banned (around the same time I think) by the Maharashtra Govt. (Sometimes I feel trying to stop something from spreading spreads it all the more). The curiousity element in the dramatics fraternity was quite high as to the contents of the play and some of us were very keen to know how it was written. We never managed to get a whole copy of the script though excerpts of its English translation were available in soft copies.

After all these years, the blog that I read today triggered a fresh Google hunt on the script as well as more information on the two people in question itself. So, this is the list of URLs that I found particularly interesting:

Excerpts from the self defense of Godse in court.
This happens to be a verbatim excerpt of the defense as presented in the book "May it please your honour" by Gopal Godse (who is Nathuram Godse's brother and has finished his life imprisonment as a co-conspirator in the plot to assasinate Gandhiji). The text is definitely one of the sharpest one to present their side of the case. Its a moderately long read, but does raise a few questions (which I have often heard from others too) on Gandhiji and his way of life. On the whole, my impression was that the eloquence of the speech does get through, albeit leaving a small 'over-zealous hinduistic' shadow on the Godses. If you stop at reading this page alone (and if you had no bias or opinion on this issue to start with), perhaps you would tend to form an opinion that Godse's action was not totally unwarranted. I know this may sound as blasphemy to several Indians, but read on.

A critique on the play by Y.D.Phadke.
This link actually starts of as a critique of the play in question and enumerates (with examples) how he feels many of the facts depicted dramatically are, in fact, factually incorrect. It somewhat reminded me of the Farenheit 9/11 critques and how a play writ (may have) got carried away in the process of making an impression on his audience to present figments of his imagination instead of the facts. Only, in this case, the author of a play may have an excuse that an audience going to a play should be aware that (unless otherwise stated), they are seeing someone's creativity and not necessarily a documentary. That said, it would not make me feel good if someone told me a story containing real life characters and real life incidents with finer details which, in fact, are not real (!). I'm looking for further corrobaration of Phadke's views on this matter: whether he is right or not.

Anyways, Shri Phadke then proceeds to go further and casts a shadow on the man Nathuram Godse himself and how he lied in court. Presumably, Nathuram Godse did that to save some of the co-conspirators (including his brother). However, the most significant allegation is that Nathuram Godse was planning to kill Gandhiji irrespective of the matter of 55 crores which was widely publicized as his 'turning point' from idea to action. This piece of information and some of the other statements written by Godse make him appear as a Hindu fanatic who had a thing to prove irrespective of what Gandhiji did. At the end of this stage of research, I was asking myself: was Godse a con artist who almost carried it off?

Also, this does not stop some of the questions raised in the first article on Gandhiji himself. Was Gandhiji a clever politician who managed to enthrall audiences, created a mass movement and encouraged blind followers of his 'way of doing things'? Would 'Ahimsa' alone have given India its freedom? I partly believe that the world politics at large (and the change of Govt in Britain) was responsible. Congress's hurry to get independance while these factors lasted also seem to justify that. Also, would the 'Gandhian way' worked miracles in post democratic India and were we deprived of a chance to see that? Ah well, lots of questions in my mind. Will phrase them better after some more reading....

Meanwhile, some more references (and recent articles) are available on Godse and Gandhism. It also hosts the (translated) English excerpts of the play that I mentioned above at this link.