First, here are excerpts from the
statement of Nathuram Godse, during the trial:
“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 these 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
dream if you imagine 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........
The official
date for the handing over of 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 the 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 it '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 considered a deity of worship - my mind was filled with
direful anger.......
He was fully
aware from past 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 has failed in his paternal duty in as much 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, his doctrine of
non-violence of which so much is made of, all crumbled against Jinnah's iron
will and proved to be powerless........
I took courage
in both my hands and I did fire the shots at Gandhiji on 30th January 1948, on
the prayer-grounds in 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.”
Now, compare the above with what the
leader of Khaksars wrote to Gandhi:
“In your so-called prayer meetings which you
so hypocritically begin with Koran and Gita ther is not a single utterance of
yours about political matters not streaked with bitterness, perversion of truth
or revenge against the Musalmans...and it is double clear now...that you are
the enemy...of the entire ten crore Muslims of India. My two months’ personal investigation of the
State killings of Bihar conclusively proved that these were planted under your
immediate and sole direction.”
Gandhi wrote to M.A. Abdullah from
Noakhali, “When all parties become displeased with one it is generally a sure
sign of one’s having done one’s duty.”
Dominique
Lapierre and Larry Collins have recorded in their famous work ‘Freedom at
Midnight’ that Gandhi had tried to convince Nehru and Patel to have Jinnah as
the Prime Minister for a united India, to avoid partition. But they would not listen and a broken
hearted Gandhi had to report to the Viceroy that he had not been able to carry
his colleagues with him. (p-124).
“Gandhi did
not oppose partition simply out of some mystical devotion to Indian unity. His years in the villages of India had given
him an intuitive feeling for the soul of his country. Partition that intuition told him, was not
going to be the ‘surgical operation’ Jinnah had promised Mountbatten. It would be a sickening slaughter that would
turn friend on friend, neighbour on neighbour, stranger on stranger, in
thousands of those villages he knew so well....Gandhi’s tragedy was that he had
that evening no real alternative to propose beyond his instinct, the instinct
those men had so often followed before.
This night, however, he was no longer a prophet. ‘They call me a Mahatma,’ he bitterly told a
friend later, ‘but I tell you I am not even treated by them as a sweeper.’
(p-149)
The authors
also record that Mountbatten himself was aware of this rift. ‘I had the most
curious feeling,’ Mountbatten declared, recalling that period, ‘that they were
all behind me, in a way, against Gandhi.
They were encouraging me to challenge him, in a sense, on their behalf’,
they record. (p-195)
And if
Gandhi was to keep silent against the partition plan, it was because he felt
weak, depressed and forced to accept an argument by Mountbatten that if the
assemblies vote for unity, it could be established. (p-205-206).
On 26.09.1947 Gandhi records in his
Diary thus:
“There was a time when India listened to
me. To-day I am a back number. I have been told I have no place inthe new
order, where we want machines, navy, air force and what not. I can never be a party to that. If you can have the courage to say that you
will retain freedom with the help of the same force with which you have won it,
I am your man...”
On 21.10.1947 Gandhi records in his
diary thus:
“...Man has not the power to create life,
hence he has no riht to take it. Yet the
Muslims murder the Hindus and Sikhs and vice versa. When this cruel game is finished, the blood
lust is bound to result in the Muslims slaughtering the Muslims, and the Hindus
and Sikhs slaughtering themselves. I
hope they will never reach that savage state.
That is their fate unless both the states pull themselves together and
set things right before it is too late.”
The recording dated 12.01.1948 by
Gandhi in his diary:
“...When on September 9th I
returned to Delhi from Calcutta, it was to proceed to the west of Punjab. But that was notto be. Gay Delhi looked a city of the dead, As I alighted from the train I observed gloom
on every face I saw. Even the Sardar,
whom humour and the joy that humour gives never desert, was no exception this
time. The cause of it I did not
know. He was on the platform to receive
me. He lost no time in giving me the sad
news of the disturbances that had taken place in the Metropolis of the
Union. At once I saw that I had to be in
Delhi and ‘do or die’....
I
yearn for heart friendship between the Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims. It subsisted between them the other day. To-day it is non-existent.....I never like to
feel resourceless; a satyagrahi never should. Fasting is his last resort in the
place of the sword-his or other’s... My impotence has been gnawing at me of
late. It will go immediately the fast is
undertaken. I have been brooding over it
for the last three days. The final
conclusion has flashed upon me and it makes me happy. No man, if he is pure,
has anything more precious to give than his life. I hope and pray that I have that purity in me
to justify the step.”
How prophetic were those last words.
It was
this Gandhi who had already been felled by his own comrades in arms that Godse
ultimately brought down with his bullets.
And for what reasons...
On the assassination of Gandhi, Albert Einstein wrote:
“He died as the victim of his own principles, the
principle of non-violence. He died because in time of disorder and general
irritation in his country, he refused armed protection for himself. It was his
unshakable belief that the use of force is an evil in itself, that therefore it
must be avoided by those who are striving for supreme justice to his belief.
With his belief in his heart and mind, he has led a great nation on to its
liberation. He has demonstrated that a powerful human following can be
assembled not only through the cunning game of the usual political manoeuvres
and trickery but through the cogent example of a morally superior conduct of
life. The admiration for Mahatma Gandhi in all countries of the world rests on
that recognition.”
When press reporters are said to have
approached Sri Ramana Maharshi on the day next to the assassination of Gandhi,
Maharshi is said to have stated thus:
“ For the Mahatma’s death in this
tragic manner, every person’s heart is mourning. What is there in particular that I could
say? Who is there who is not grieved?”.
From
: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Mahatma_Gandhi,
we also gather that not only after the partition of India, but much before in
1934 also an attempt had been made on Gandhi:
“A prior, unsuccessful attempt, to
assassinate Gandhi occurred on 25 June 1934 at Pune. Gandhi was in Pune along with his wife, Kasturba Gandhi, to deliver a speech
at Corporation Auditorium. They were travelling in a motorcade of two cars. The
car in which the couple was travelling was delayed and the first car reached
the auditorium. Just when the first car arrived at the auditorium, a bomb was thrown, which exploded near the car. This caused
grievous injury to the Chief Officer of the Pune Municipal Corporation, two
policemen and seven others. Nevertheless, no account or records of the
investigation nor arrests made can be found. Gandhi's secretary, Pyarelal Nayyar, believed that the
attempt failed due to lack of planning and co-ordination”
[Pyarelal Nayyar, Mahatma Gandhi – The
Last Phase,Navajivan, (1956)]
