Views on Nathuram Godse’s Last Speech

I read Nathuram Godse's last speech. You can read it here.

This is my response.

From the speech and his words what I can understand is that he was over-zealous and fanatic nationalist and for him nation meant Hindu nation. I don't find any fault in that. As I also sometime think whether we justify being a secular state. Are we doing justice to each and everyone? Two parts of our land which are now called Pakistan and Bangladesh have been given to elements that were foreign to our soil. History of India has a major part of celebration in Indus valley and most of it has now lost forever to people who were once upon a time aggressors and attackers.

I fail to understand what part has Jinnah played in the Freedom struggle so that he was able to ask for his share in the form of Pakistan. I don't find any. Muslim League since its inception was anti-nationalist and pro-Britain then how could they claim for a free state of Pakistan? Just for the fear of civil war (which happened) our leaders obliged Jinnah with his demand for Pakistan.

I agree with Savarkar when he says that India is a Hindu nation and Muslims had to stay like a minority with no special privileges. But again I think whether it will be true for all non-Muslims. Do we consider Sikhs, Jains, and Buddhists in the fold of Hindus? If not, then whether they also will not have any rights?

Jains and Buddhist have also helped in carving the Indian culture. If Ashoka would have been a Hindu ruler then I am sure that Hinduism would not have to create the character of Ram. Ashoka would have sufficed. But it is a separate discussion. Let’s continue with the present discussion only. If Jains and Buddhist can be considered the sons of this soil as they have emerged from this land of ours and have contributed to the Indian culture than the same can be said for Muslims too. Though the religion didn’t emerged in our land but with time these aggressors imbibed Indian culture and became Indians. Saying that Muslim rulers were ruthless and didn’t care for India would be wrong. They were as much Indian as we can assume ourselves to be. I don’t consider Muslims as foreigners. But at the same time I also think that they don’t have any right to take away a part of our land claiming as their own alone.

But here my agreement with Nathuram Godse ends. I don’t agree with Godse when he says that Gandhi was guilty of blunder after blunder, failure after failure, disaster after disaster. He fails to understand the characteristics of a Mass based movement. A mass-based movement can not continue for ever. It must be stopped at a time to rejuvenate and restarted at the apt time. If he could have understood so then he would have not blamed Gandhi for failure. Also, I don’t agree when he says that he doesn’t agree with the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi. If you can’t understand your leader or you can’t follow his steps that mean you don’t trust your leader. If you assume someone as your leader, why can’t you follow him? In a war, if soldiers start doubting their commander, what would be the scene? It would be a chaos all around. Nathuram fails to understand this. Gandhi asked the people to follow his steps only when he was asked to lead them. If you cannot come in terms with your leader then you don’t understand the basics of anything though you may have read thousands of books.

Nathuram Godse fails to understand few basics tenets of life and like a fanatic tries to justify his action – the action which can never be justified.