Wed, 27 May 2009 10:41:47 -0700
This is for information.



The statement that you are about to read is the last made by Godse before
the Court on the 5th of May 1949. Such was the power and eloquence of this
statement that one of the judges, G. D. Khosla, later wrote, "I have,
however, no doudt that had the audience of that day been constituted into a
jury and entrusted with the task of deciding Godse's appeal, they would have
brought a verdict of 'not Guilty' by an overwhelming majority"

*WHY I KILLED 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 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 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 for ever 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 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 every thing; he was the master brain
guiding the civil disobedience movement; no other could know the technique
of that movement.The most dictatorial 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 cross-breed 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.(Start of the pampering of the Muslims
which is still going on)

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. How many such Mahatma's we have even today in the country
who value the support of religious lots more than the need to create a sense
of one nation.The PM still continues to divide the nation by addressing the
people and Hindu Muslim Sikh Issaye during his address from the Lal
Quila.Look how the power in Delhi is being distributed based on all kind of
consideration other than ability to built a nation. A school drop out becomes
a Cabinet Minister due his hierarchy. 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.(Unfortunately his going away has made no difference)

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.