Naturam Godse

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, hunour, 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

...