There are
plenty of people who eulogize N. Godse even in India, to the extent of
prefixing “Shri” to the name. Pragya Thakur happens to be just one among them.
The assassin of Gandhiji did not get a chance to write an autobiography. But he
spoke for himself at the court of law. He was a Hindu extremist but apart
from that we know precious little. Most knowledge in the public domain are
either conjectures or assumptions. “An assumption is something that
you assume to be the case, even without proof” – thus goes one definition.
The high
ideals espoused by Gandhiji as well as a staunch and vociferous stand against
many social evils contributed in no small part to the freedom that we enjoy
today.
Godse felt that the massacre and suffering caused during,
and due to, the partition could have been avoided if Gandhi and the
Indian government had acted to stop the killing of the minorities (Hindus and
Sikhs) in West and East Pakistan. Godse was also critical of what he considered
to be Gandhi’s ineffective use of power in the Indian National Congress during
and after the partitioning of the country.
A dictionary
definition of the term “Patriotism”, suggests it is "the feeling of loving
your country more than any others and being proud of it". Godse was a Patriot, undoubtedly so. He
was also a staunch Nationalist. Cultural nationalism is characteristic of
right-wing ideology and people's nationalism is the trait of the Left.
There were
many in opposition among his contemporaries and tallest among them were Subhas
Chandra Bose and Dr BR Ambedkar. However, none of them resorted to violence
against their fellow human beings. However, no patriot in his right mind would
take matters into his own hand and resort to the violent termination of another
fellow human being. Vladimir Lenin was a patriot too since he loved and cared
about the Soviet Union before other countries but he is NOT an assassin.
Tolerance in the society will help in neutralizing the ethnocentric
bias in the globe that is taking place day by day on the basis of religion,
caste, creed, ethnicity and region. The political contributions of Mohandas
Karamchand Gandhi offered us Independence but his ideologies enlighten the
world even today. Considering that sectarianism, terrorism, religious
intolerance and a parochial worldview are tearing apart the social fabric, we
need you Gandhiji now, more than ever. Nobel prize winner Rabindranath Tagore
rightly called him ‘Mahatma’.
Wikipedia defines Terrorism as “Terrorism is, in the broadest
sense, the use of intentional violence, generally against civilians, for
political purposes.” Gandhiji has been called many names. He was also
referred to as the “Naked Fakir” but I don’t think, anyone till date has said
that he was a soldier, a man of war. That said, it would be safe to label him
as a “civilian” albeit a glorified one. In my view, that automatically
classifies his assassin who happened to hold an extremist, Hindu Nationalistic
and violent view but who also happened to be a patriot, a “TERRORIST”.
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