Nathram Godse Last Speech
Nathram Godse Last Speech
Nathuram Godse - His Last Speech
[On 8 November 1948, Nathuram Godse (19 May 1910-15 November 1949) rose to make his
statement in court. Reading quietly from a typed manuscript, he sought to explain why he had killed
Gandhi. His thesis covered ninety-pages, and he was on his feet for five hours. Godse's statement,
excerpted below, should be read by citizens and scholars in its entirely, for it provides an insight into
his personality and his understanding of the concept of Indian nationhood – Editor]
"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
are 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 which thousands of Hindus, Brahmins,
Vaishyas, Kshatriyas, Chamars and B-----s participated. We broke the caste rules and dined in the
company of each other. I have read the speeches and writings of Dadabhai Naoroji, 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 what Veer (brave) 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 factor has
done.
All this thinking and reading led me to believe that 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 (three hundred million) of Hindus would automatically constitute the
freedom and well-being of all India, one fifth of the human race. This conviction led me naturally to
devote myself to the Hindu Sanatanist 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 Lokmanya
Tilak, Gandhi'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 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.
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
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 the 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 essential 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 Govind Singh as misguided patriots, Gandhi
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 good work 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 in 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 it and when to
withdraw it. The movement might succeed or fail, but that could make no difference to the
Mahatma's infallibility.
'A Satyagrahi can never fail' was his formula for his own infallibility and
nobody except himself knew what a Satyagrahi is.
Thus the Mahatma became the judge and the jury in his own case. 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 policies 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, and disaster after disaster. Gandhi's pro-Muslim policy is blatantly illustrated 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 in India called Hindustani; it has no grammar; it has no vocabulary.
It is a mere dialect; it is spoken, not written. It is a tongue and a 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 the purity of the Hindi language were 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 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 little 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 was succeeded by Lord
Mountbatten. King Stork followed King Log. The Congress, which had boasted of its nationalism
and secularism, 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 15 August 1947. Lord Mountbatten came to be described in the Congress circles as
the greatest Viceroy and Governor-General this country ever had.
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.
One of the conditions imposed by Gandhi for his breaking of the fast 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 some conditions on the Muslims in Pakistan, here 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 conditions on the Muslims.
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.
Briefly speaking, I thought to myself and foresaw that 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 thought that the
Indian politics in the absence of Gandhiji would surely be practical, able to retaliate and would be
powerful with the 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 or 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 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 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.
I have to say with great regret that Prime Minister Nehru quite forgets that his preaching and deeds
I have to say with great regret that Prime Minister Nehru quite forgets that his preaching and deeds
are at times at variance 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 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 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 someday in future."
Nathuram Godse
[Nathuram Godse was hanged a year later, on 15 November 1949; as per his last wishes, his family
and followers have preserved his ashes for immersion in the Indus River of a re-united India.]
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