may it PLEASE YOUR HONOUR Nathuram Godse

May it PLEASE YOUR HONOUR

Nathuram Godse

SURYA-PRAKASHAN

Nai Sarak, DELHI-110006

Publishers:

Surya-Prakashan Nai Sarak, Delhi-110006

Edition: 1989

Rs. 25.00

© Shri Gopal Godse

Printed by:
Varshney Printing Press
DELHI-110032

THANKS

Dailies and periodicals have made justice to the book by reviewing it. The public at large have thereby shown curiosity to know the hitherto unpublished statement of Nathuram Godse. This gesture has necessitated its reprint. I am thankful to the Press and public.

The cover of this edition displays in its back-ground, original photo of the court-scene. I am grate -ful to Shri Madhav Bhave, a Municipal Councillor of Dombivali, Thana, who has taken pains to decorate the cover.

Pictures are also added to this edition in response to suggestions by many readers. This, and other factors have however enhanced the price of the book.

New Delhi 1th May, 1987

Gopal Godse

CONTENTS

About the Author

Shri Gopal Godse, 67, was an accused in the Gandhi Murder Case. He was found guilty of conspiracy and sentenced to transportation for life. He was released from prison in October 1964, but re arrested a month later under Defence of India Act and kept in prison for over a year. He was finally released in the end of 1965. Shri Gopal Godse is the brother of Nathu Ram Godse, who was sentenced to death for assassinating Gandhiji.

Shri Gopal Godse, after his release published the statement of Nathu Ram Godse, which had been kept under illegal ban by the Government till then. The pages foregoing the statement are written by the author. viz Shri Gopal Godse.

Shri Gopal Godse has worked for the Hindu Mahasabha. He considers it to be the only organisation for organising Hindus on political stand. He believes that secularism as practised in India by any party has proved to be detrimental to interests of the Hindus. The Hindu Parties have shifted from nationalism to communalism i.e., appeasing Muslims or

Christians as it suited the parties. They have thus been following the path of encouragement or further vivisection to non-Hindu Groups in truncated India. Change of Religion is change of Nationality. It is the one time Hindus who had been converted to Islam in some gerneration that have created Pakistan on the Hindu Land.

Adopting Non-Hindus to Hindu fold will alone maintain National integrity based on culture and knowledge. Culture and anti-culture can never co-exist. Religious orders like breaking idols or killing idol worshipars is no culture. It is anti-culture. Quran prescribes such orders. One time Hindus now converted to Islam are taught this anti-culture through Quran. The very humanity is shattered. The Hindus who say that teachings of all the religions are equal are either ignorant or hyporacts.

The author as the mission of his life urges Hindus to be one with Mahasabha.

The author resides at Hindu Mahasabha Bhavan, Mandir Marg, New Delhi at present. He is one of the office bearers of the organisation. Others wise his residence is at 1206/BI Pune 411004

Publisher

Not by Rhetoric

People the world over have been curious to know about the individuals connected with Gandhi Murder episode. 'What sort of men are they and of what ilk?' they ask.

Some foreign writers of world-repute have ventured on the subject. In so doing, they have distorted facts, substituted lies for plain facts, indulged in innuendo malicious in nature, and made dirty insinuations in their so-called literary works. They have resorted to cheap sensationalism to pander to the mood of the readership and defamed leaders of national stature.

These authors had no other interests in India barring money-spinning. They have cashed on undignified and baseless outbursts.

Nathuram Godse is the figure at whose hands. Gandhiji was assassinated.

There is a persistent demand for Nathuram's statement which he had made in the court. The statement has been talked about because all the State Governments in India banned its publication for many years. The law under which it was banned exists no longer. The statement has appeared in the regional languages of India. This too has raised the demand for its publication in English,

This book attempts to take the readers to the reasons and rationale of Nathuram Godse for his act. This is the first time it is being published in English, in the language it was originally made. Nathuram had pleaded guilty to the charge of murder.

The authentic statement will clear the air of misgivings and meet dishonest versions given currency to sully his image by some writers. The readers could make their own evaluation from the plain facts, the bald and bare statement. To quote Nathuram, 'Honest writers of history will weigh my act and find the true value thereof some day in future'.

I felt that this, rather than any rhetoric, will be the best reply to Nathuram Godse's detractors, when he is no more to join issues with them.

November 30,1977

Gopal Godse

Events and Accused

Explosion:

An explosion occurred near the compound wall of Birla House, New Delhi, the capital of India, on the evening of January 20, 1948. It was of a gun-cotton slab. It damaged the wall.

Gandhiji was staying at Birla House in Delhi then. He had his prayer meetings on the lawn there.

The atmosphere in Delhi and other parts of the country was charged in those days and feelings were tense. This was due to the vivisection of Hindusthan a few months before.

'Sthan' stands for 'Land'. A part of Hindusthan was carved out to create a theocratic Moslem independent State, 'Pakistan' (meaning holyland). The rest of Hindusthan which became simultaneously independent from the Birtish yoke was renamed 'Bharat.'

The Indian National Congress was a party to the fore in politics. The leaders of the Congress then had a fancy for Hindu-Moslem unity and secularism. Contrary to their urge and call for the principles, they agreed to recognise a theocratic Molsem State on the Hindu land. It was the leaders' defeat and the defeat of their principles. They were hypocrites and brazen enough to impose dictatorially their principles on the Hindus. To camouflage the defeat, they did not recognise Hindus to be a Nation but considered them to be only a sect. They enforced secularism in their own style on India.

The word 'India' is in fact a perverted form of 'Hindusthan' adopted by the British. 'Bharat' too is an ancient name of Hindusthan and connotes complete undivided India. But the leaders thought of avoiding any name for the country that might indicate predominance of the Hindus and offend Moslems in Hindusthan. Thus, in practice, secularism meant appearement of the Moslems.

The pangs of partition brought in its trail masskilings, rape, violence and exodus en-masse which became the order of the day. Gandhi, popularly known as Mahatma, a great soul, had played a prominent role in politics. Hindus affected by partition and those who shared universal brotherhood with them, were enraged against him. Police were posted at Birla House to protect him from any possible assault.

The explosion on January 20, 1948 was not aimed at Gandhi. It was almost a hundred and fifty feet away from the dais where he sat. It was however, revealed later, by the police that the explosion was a part of the plan to bump Gandhi off.

Madanial Pahwa was apprehended on spot on the day. He was one of the Hindu sufferers of partition. The police got information that Madanial had other accomplices in the plot, that the plan did not work and that his co-conspirators had fled. The police spread a net all over India, to apprehend others. As a consequence, the Government reinforced the police force and security measures were tightened at Birla House.

The police could hardly make any progress in apprehending others within the next ten days. All of a sudden, on January 30, 1948, Gandhi was shot point blank in the evening at 5 00 P.M. by Nathuram Godse while the former was on his way to the dais for the prayer meeting. Gandhi, with almost feeble or faint 'ah', possibly as a reflex action and shock, fell to the ground. He went unconscious instantaneously and breathed his last some twenty minutes later.

Nathuram after firing shots raised his hand with the gun and called for the police. He was apprehended.

Nathuram was one of the persons the police had been looking for in connection with the explosion that took place earlier on January 20, 1948.

Investigations were confined mainly to Bombay, Delhi and Gwalior.

Red Fort:

A Special Court was constituted to conduct the trial. Shri Atma Charan Agrawal, I. C. S. was appointed as the Judge.

The venue of the court was the memorable Red Fort, Delhi. This was to be the third historical trial to be witnessed here. The first was of Bahadur Shah Jafar and other accused. They were among those who waged War of Independence against the British in 1857. The second was in 1945. The officers of the Indian National Army commanded by Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose were charged with revolt against the British rule during the Second World War. The third was to be for Gandhi murder.

A row of cells in one of the walls of the fort was turned into a jail for the accused.

Twelve persons were accused on different charges. Three of them were absconding. The nine produced before Shri Atma Charan on May 27, 1948 and onward

were (1) Nathuram Vinayak Godse, 37, Pune, (2) Narayan Dattatraya Apte, 34, Pune, (3) Vishnu Ramkrishna Karkare, 37, Ahmednagar, (4) Madanlal K. Pahwa, 20, Bombay (originally from Dist. Montgomery, Pakistan) (5) Shankar Kistaiya, 20, Solapur, (6) Gopal Vinayak Godse, 27, Pune, (7) Digambar Ramchandra Badge, 40, Pune, (8) Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, 66, Bombay, and (9) Dattatraya Sadashiv Parchure, 47. Gwalior.

The three absconding persons were (1) Gangadhar Dandavate, (2) Gangadhar Jadhao, and (3) Suryadeo Sharma, all from Gwalior.

Accused:

Accused No. 7 Digambar Badge turned approver. V. D. Savarkar then got No. 7 in the serial. Savarkar had a glorious selfless background as a fiery revolutionary. The history of Independence of India cannot be complete without a reference to him. He had plunged into the freedom movement right from his teens. To achieve independence is a pious duty was his motto. The British rule over India is an unnatural yoke and unjustifiable and any means to remove it from India's neck are justifiable was his preaching. He fired the imagination of the Indian youth with the philosophy of Joseph Mazzini, the stalwart of the Italian Liberation Movement. Savarker was the pioneer who for the first time advocated that the rise of 1857 was not a mere mutiny of the sepoys as dubbed by the British, but it was a War of Independence.

Savarkar was accused of sedition and sentenced to transportation for life twice, the sentences, queerly enough, to run consecutively. It was in 1910. He was free only in 1937, from any restrictions imposed on him.

By this time the Congress under the leadership of Gandhi had made considerable headway towards appeasement of the Moslems.

Savarkar was bestowed upon the title of Swatantrya Veer, the Stalwart of Independence, by the people. He re-entered politics and headed the Hindu Mahasabha, a political organisation for independence with a just place of honour and dignity to the Hindus.

He insisted on freedom of the country without its vivisection, and advised people to refrain from Moslem appeasement policy to avoid partition. He encouraged Hindus to join army, though under the British, since he regarded it as a rare opportunity to handle arms and advised the youth to be prepared to use the arms for the sake of freedom when time came. The revolutionary fervour of Veer Savarkar was the source of inspiration for Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. It is a little known fact that they had met for confabulations to chalk out the course of armed action that Netaji was to take later for throwing off the British yoke. Rash Bihari Basu, a revolutionary in exile in Japan and the Hindu Sabha President there, was their common link. It is also a little known fact that Veer Savarkar was in correspondence with his comrade Rash Bihari Basu while the latter was abroad.

Savarkar had forewarned years before the actual partition that the leading party i. e. the Indian National Congress would deceive the people and vivisect India to appease Moslems, and then it would also appease Moslem sentiments in the rest of India. If would be at the cost of legitimate rights of the Hindus.

There was a perpetual tussle between the apposing schools of thougat. Gandhi and the Congaess condemned the revolutionaries as 'of violent cult'. Gandhi spoke of purity of means and methods to be adopted for freeing the country from British domination. The differences of approach were aired while Lokmanya Tilak was still living. Gandhi had his own view of looking at the Geeta. It differed from that of Tilak. Tilak did not see violence in good cause as incompatible with renunciation. Like Aurobindo, Tilak equated the nation with religion (Dharma). Gandhi ardently thought that non-violence or Ahimsa was an essential pre-condition of a person striving for attaining 'Anasakti' or unattached action.

Tilak and Savarkar held identical views. In fact Savarkar would go a step ahead of Tilak. Savarkar's guideline also was the 'core' of the wisdom of the ancients but only to the extent it suited the need of the time. One should not tie down oneself to the text of the script but one should rise above it in the context of the changing times, was his view. What is relevant should be accepted and implemented but whatever hinders the progress of mankind today,

is outdated and should be discarded, he advised. For him freedom of Hindusthan was the first duty and top priority. He made people adore the noble sacrifices and spirit of martyrdom of the revolutionaries, which superficially appreared like acts of violence. Gandhi had more than once set his face against the revolutionaries and their 'cult of violence' for the cause of freedom.

Savarkar stood for certain national ethics. In the interest of the nation he logically condemned the policy of Moslem appeasement of Gandhi and the Congress. It was easy for the prosecution, guided by the Congress Government, to book Savarkar for the murder. The prosecution could cash on flagrant distortion of the ethics when he was directly implicated, rather than deal on abstract concepts for which he stood.

The other accused in the case were the hardcore opposed to partition and dictatorial practice of making the people swallow the pernicious logic. The accused, who were staunch followers of Veer Savarkar, never for a moment denied the fact nor did Veer Savarkar deny that the conspirators were his adherents. This also enabled the prosecution to build its story on some flimsy imaginary third rate hearsay avidence to plead that the murder of the Mahatma was committed with Savarkar's blessings.

It was indeed an irony of fate. Those who were responsible for the ruin and massacre of lakhs of

people by vivisecting the country and should have been in the dock for the anti-people crimes, now in power, had put the noble patriot in the dock.

Accused No. 2, Narayan Apte was B. Sc., B. T. He was a very popular teacher. He conducted private classes as well. He stayed at Ahmednagar, a District place, 70 miles off Pune, where Karkare, accused No. 3, was residing. They both came in touch with each other in their activities of common interest,—the Hindu Sanghatan—organising the Hindus. Apte had started a rifle club to train the youth in the use of fire arms.

It was later in 1944 that Apte and Nathuram jointly launched 'Hindu Rashtra' a Marathi daily from Pune for propagating the cause of Hindu Sanghatan. The last issue of the daily on January 31, 1948 carried the news of Gandhi's assassination and mentioned the name of the assassin, Nathuram Godse, who was the Editor.

Apte and Nathuram Godse worked together for 5 to 6 years under the banner of the Hindu Maha Sabha. Apte was present on January, 20 and 30, 1948 on the spot at Delhi. The prosecution described him as 'brain behind the conspiracy'. Nathuram Godse and Narayan Apte were destined to die hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder, with 'Vande Mataram' on their lips for the cause of national integrity they held dearer than their life.

Apte was handsome. He was married and had a male issue. The child expired when twelve. It was after Apte's execution.

Vishnu Karkare had a lodging and boarding house at Ahmednagar. He was an active political worker. When Noakhali in Bengal (now in Bangala Desh) had become the slaughter house of the Hindus there, Karkare, with a batch of ten had gone there to mobilise the Hindus and adopt a militant posture in their defence. He had raised a number of shelter camps under the Hindu Maha Sabha banner. This was in 1946-47. He was present on the spot on January 20 and 30 at Delhi.

Karkare was married but had no issue.

Madanlal, who had exploded the gun-cotton slab, was a refugee. He was a witness to the awaful events of massacre, loot and arson. Caravans, miles together in length and comprising lakhs of humans driven out of their hearth and home, were on their way to truncated India. Madanlal has narrated his poignant sufferings in his statement before the Court.

He was unmarried then.

Shankar Kistaiya, accused No. 5 was unmarried. He served Digambar Badge, the approver. He was in Delhi on the spot on January 20, 1948.

Gopal Godse is a brother of Nathuram Godse. He was accused No. 6 in the case. He served in the Ordnance Department. He had gone overseas

in the Second World War and on return he was posted in Khadaki Depot near Pune. He was charged with conspiracy as he was present at the Birla House on January 20. He was married and had two daughters.

Digambar Badge a Hindu Sanghatanist, was a dealer in arms. He held a conviction that Hindus should be armed in the pockets in which they were in minority and be able to retaliate in case of attack from the Moslems. The prosecution claimed that it was Badge who had supplied the gun-cotton slab ignited by Madanlal. A hand granade too was recovered from Madanlal. Some more ammunition was recovered from Badge. He was present on the spot on January 20 at Delhi.

Accused No. 8, D. S. Parchure, was a Doctor. He practised at Gwalior. He was an able Hindu organiser. He met attacks by the Moslems by counter-attacks. He was involved on the charge that Nathuram obtained the pistol from him. A confession was extracted from him under pressure. He was married and stayed in his own house with his family.

Hearing:

The accused had engaged counsels. However, replies to the charges were to be given by the accused themselves, which they did. Before doing so, they submitted their written statements.

Nathuram, in his written statement, detailed, particularly from Part II onward, the reasons of his

decision to kill Gandhi. The prosecution had the knowledge of it before-hand. It raised an objection to the reading, which was over-ruled by the Judge.

The statement was read out. The press published portions of it the next day.

But the Government would not take it lying down. It would not yield to the supremacy of the judiciary. With the stranglehold of authority it banned the statement for its reproduction or publication in part or in full.

The motive on the part of the Government was obvious. It did not like Gandhi to be exposed to the public by what Nathuram Godse had stated. It wanted to permit atmosphere of prejudice against the assassion to continue and suppress the truth, probably, in its own fashion of thinking, as a befitting reverence to the memory of the Mahatma.

The Govenment's action remained unchallenged and the ban continued for years till the law was annulled. It is after a lapse of about three decades that the statement reaches the public.

Nathuram preferred to argue his own case. He argued for two days without challenging his conviction under the murder charge. The Press had no free choice to publish the proceedings in their true form.

Judgment:

The prosecution produced 149 witnesses. The hearing was closed on December 30, 1948 and judgment reserved. It was pronounced on February 10, 1949.

Veer Savarkar was acquitted.

Digamber Badge was granted pardon and set free for having deposed against his coaccused.

Vishnu Karkare, Madanlal Pahwa, Gopal Godse, Shankar Kistaiya and Dr. Parchure were to suffer, inter alia, transportation for life.

Nathuram Godse and Narayan Apte were sentenced to be hanged.

No sooner the sentences were announced the packed Courtroom echoed to the thundering of spontaneous slogans from the convicts, 'AKHAND BHARAT AMAR RAHE!', 'VANDE MATARAM!' and 'SWATANTRYA LAXMIKIJAI!'

Nature of the Special Act:

Gandhi enjoyed supremacy in the otherwise democratic set-up of Government. A Special Act, viz, Bombay Public Security Measures Act, was extended to Delhi before constituting the Special Court and the Act came into force with retrospective effect for the trial of the accused.

Equality before law and other inalienable rights were denied to the people through the provisions of

this Act. The Supreme Court of India was not constituted then. Subsequently it declared the Act ultra vires. Since retrospective effect was not provided to the annulment, the convicts were deprived of the benefits.

Unlike in other cases under the normal law, death sentence was not required to be confirmed by the High Court in conformity with the Special Act. The time limit to prefer appeals was only fifteen days instead of sixty or ninety days in normal casses.

Appeals:

All the seven convicts submitted appeals through the jail authorities to the Punjab High Court. Formerly the High Court functioned at Lahore. But Lahore, the City said to have been established by Lava, one of the mighty sons of Lord Rama, and the city then known as Lavapur, was now by a strange travesty of fate, in Pakistan and a part and parcel of the Country! The High Court had become a refugee and had its seat at Simla in the vivisected India.

Nathuram preferred appeal against his conviction for conspiracy and other charges and not against the death sentence. He prayed for permission for arguing his own case and it was granted. By that time all the convicts in the case were transferred from the Special Jail, Red Fort, Delhi to Ambala Jail. Nathuram was taken to Simla where he was lodged in a

spceial jail. Other convicts were represented by their counsels.

Justice Bhandari, Achhru Ram and Khosla J.J. heard the appeals in May and June 1949. They pronounced their judgement on June 22, 1949. They, found Shankar Kistaiya and Dr. Parchure not guilty and acquitted them.

The sentences of Vishnu Karkare, Gopal Godse and Madanial Pahwa were confirmed.

The Judges also confirmed the death sentence of Narayan Apte. Nathuram's death penalty was automatically confirmed.

Assassin's profile:

It is obvious that the High Court was struck by the conduct and ability of Nathuram. It has made a special reference to it while recording the judgement. Says Justice Achhru Ram:

"Of all the appellants Nathuram V. Godse has not challenged his conviction under Sec. 302 of the Indian Penal Code, nor has he appealed from the sentence of death passed on him in respect of the offence. He has confined his appeal and also his arguments at the Bar only to the other charges which have been found proved against him..... He personally argued his appeal, I must say, with conspicuous ability evidencing a mastery of facts which would have done credit to any counsel."

As regards Nathuram's power of thinking, the Judge noted:

"Although he failed in his matriculation examination, he is widely read. While arguing his Appeal, he showed a fair knowledge of the English language and a remarkable capacity for clear thinking."

In the course of arguments, Nathuram had made a plea that on January 20, 1948 he was not present at the Birla House. The judges rejected the plea. In support of their rejection, they referred to their observations of the strong will power of Nathuram. Shri Achhru Ram says:

"We have seen quite enough of Nathuram during the period of more than five weeks we were hearing these appeals and particularly during the eight or nine days while he was arguing his own case, and I cannot imagine that a man of his calibre could have even entertained the idea (of remaining behind)."

Not guilty:

Justice Khosla after retirement, in a pen picture of the Court scene as it then passed before his mind's eye has said:

"The highlight of the appeal before us was the discourse delivered by Nathuram Godse in his defence. He spoke for several hours, discussing, in the first instance, the facts of the case and then the motive which had prompted him to take Mahatma Gandhi's life.....

"The audience was visibly and audibly moved. There was a deep silence when he ceased speaking. Many women were in tears and men coughing and searching for their handkerchiefs. The silence was accentuated and made deeper by the sound of an occasional subdued sniff or a muffled cough...

"I have however, no doubt 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 in a verdict of 'not guilty' by an over-whelming majority.'

Nathuram had displayed the same ability while arguing his case before Shri Atma Charan, the Judge of the Special Court, Red Fort, Delhi.

Absconding accused:

The fate of the absconding accused hinged on Dr. Parchure's conviction or acquittal. On Dr. Parchnre's acquittal the three appeared before a Magistrate in Gwalior. They were set free.

'Emergency' then:

The Press was muzzled in respect of Nathuram's arguments in the High Court as well. His exciting plea made with an impassioned appeal and delivered with rare poise naturally interested the Press, and the correspondents took it down verbatim. But as soon as the Judges returned to their chamber, the police pounced on the correspondents and snatched their note books. They did not stop at that.

They tore down the note books into pieces and warned the pressmen of severe consequences if they published the true account of Nathuram's speech. The Press was forced to toe the Governments's instrutions and accordingly disjointed and distorted reports were carried by newspapers.

Some papers did write articles evaluating the event in its proper perspective. It was after the death penalty was executed. The papers were subjected to heavy security and harassment. Instead of having love for the truth, Government was allergic to it. Since it called itself a Gandhian Government the contrast was glaring.

Execution:

Nathuram Godse and Narayan Apte were executed in Ambala jail at 8 A. M. on Tuesday, November 15, 1949 i.e. after twentyone and a half months of the shooting incident. Several versions, some of them quite distorted, have been put out and published about their conduct. The writer along with Karkare and Madanlal was with the condemned prisoners till twenty minutes before the execution. Both of them looked composed, steady and with their wits about them. They did not seem to need any special efforts to maintain that composure. Their faces looked calm and peaceful. They talked and chitchatted. They talked among temselves, with the Jail staff, and with us.

We had tea and coffee. When the tray of coffee was braught by the sepoy, Nathuram just looked at the Superintendent Shri Arjun Das who was standing by, and smiled.

Shri Arjun Das was not in mood to smile back. He was going to kill both these condemned convicts a few minutes later. He took it to be a misfortune for him.

He had developed friendship with the two. He sat and talked with them for hours. He had political understanding of the events. He knew the feelings of national integrity of the two. Otherwise, he thought, why should these persons from Maharashtra get upset when Punjab, a province over a thousand miles away, was torn? Why should they feel sorry for the persons upronted there and plunge themselves into fire?

The Superintendent had seen bloodshed in the wake of India's freedom. He cursed the hypocrites who uttered now and then of having got Independence without shedding a drop of blood! On whose account is this bloodshed of Punjab to be debited? He thought.

The Superintendent was going to add to the bloodshed in cold blood!

We saw the Superintendent push back his tears behind his sighs. How could he smile back at Nathuram?

Yet he felt, it might be the last wish of the coudemned convict. Why not please him? He forced a

smile on his face and looked inquisitively at Nathuram.

"Do you remember, Shreemanji," said Nathuram, "I had told you once, "I don't mind the gallows, but I must have a cup of coffee before the swing" I That cup is here! Thank you very much!"

Shri Arjun Das did not sob!

Nathuram then turned to the Doctor. He said, "Dr. Chhabda, I have left your book with Shri Trilok Singh, Assistant Superintendent, with my autograph on it. I hope you don't need any more signatures!"

Nathuram talked with the same ease with which he had talked to his maternal uncle the previous day. He had said, "Mama, I have arranged for the return of your thousand Rupees."

Narayan Apte reminded the Superintendent of the despatch of his thesis. Apte had written during the last ten days a thesis on the 'Administration set-up.'

The superintendent had sent it to Government. But Government has not, so far, passed it on either to Apte's wife or to his brothers.

The Magistrate of the District, Shri Narottam Sahgal who was present there ascertained if the two had a passport to the unknown and if so whether it was valid.

The two started for their journey beyond life. They had carried with them in their hands the Bhagwat Geeta, a map of undivided Hindusthan and a Saffron flag.

The platform was situated behind the condemned yard. The beam could accommodate three at a time.

On the way, Apte seemed enjoying the morning sun in the midst of winter. He had experienced it after a long lapse.

He exclaimed, "What is pleasant sun shine Pandit!" He used to call Nathuram 'Pandit' on occasions.

Nathuram said, "You are seeing it after a long time. In Shimla it is usual."

"Indeed it is heavenly:"

"Bestowed on us by our Motherland at this heavenly juncture I" endorsed Nathuram.

On reaching the platform they recited a verse of devotion to the Motherland.

नमस्ते सदा वत्सले मामृभूमे, त्वया हिंदुभूमे सुखं विधितोऽहम्। महामंगले पुण्यभूमे त्वदर्थे, पतत्वेष कायो नमस्ते नमस्ते ॥

Obeisance to thee ever, O Sacred Mother! In the lap of Hiudu Land have I been nurtured by thee in happiness.

Greatly auspicious, Oh Sacred land,

For thy sake I lay down my life!

Obeisance to thee, Obeisance to thee,

Their hands were tied at the back. The hangman put the noose around their necks and left the surplus rope on their shoulders. He also tied toge ther with a cord, the toes of each.

Nathuram and Narayan shouted slogans which revreberated over the radius of a hundred feet in the silent atmosphere around.

'Akhand Bharat Amar Rahe I

'Vande Mataram.'

The Superintendent gave the green signal to the hangman. The hangman in turn pulled the lever.

The bridge gove way.

Nature embraced the two in gravitation and gave their souls a lift in her invisible chariot to the unknown.

The opearation was over with the drop of the rope but without any drop of blood.

Nathuram's death was instantaneous. Narayan's knees once tried to reach his chin. He shook in that unconcious state for a couple of minutes and then life was completely extinct.

The Assistant Superintendent Shri Ram Nath Sharma performed the last rites before the bodies were cremated.

The articles carried by the two in their hands were passed on to the writer.

The cremation was carried out within the Jail.

Nahuram's will (reproduced at the end of this

book) was passed on to Dattatraya, his younger brother the next day.

Life convicts:

The Government accorded unusually harsh and cruel treatment to the three life convicts, particularly, in respect of their release. It took shelter behind the term transportation for life. It did not transport them anywhere to allow them free life. It was for its own convenience and not at the request of the convicts. On the other hand, for its own pleasure it had an evil eye on the life of the three by keeping them imprisoned till they died.

Remission in sentence is granted to a convict under rigorous imprisonment commensurate to his work and conduct as a prisoner. A life convict is termed as a prisoner under rigorous imprisonment. The remission so granted is meant for consequent shortening of the convict's sentence to that extent.

Besides doig all what was expected from him, the writer, while under life sentence donated blood whenever there was a call. Government grants ten day's remission on this score each time. It recorded it in his case but never gave effect to it. It was like the Secretariat's dishonouring a valid demand draft of the Resvere Bank. The Government wanted from the writer his death date so that it could give effect to the remissioians to his credit.

There were unending postponements of consideration of his release. Those at the helm of the Government must have acted with a conviction that through such deceitful tricks, they were accomplishing nonviolent deaths of the convicts who staked their lives for undivided Hindusthan, and thereby were serving the cause of nonviolence. They must have had a notion that they, followers of Gandhiji, would please the departed soul with such deaths. Otherwise cheap tricks like asking for blood donation beyond the scope of the rules, granting remission for it, and then usurping the donated blood and also the remission of the canvict in Gandhi murder case, cannot be reasoned out.

When the writer found out that he had been tricked by the cheats who were physically powerful he donated blood but without accepting their so-called generosity of remission. He respected the call of the Nation, but never the persons who taught honesty to others, but who themselves were devoid of simple honesty. When some such persons go to Raj Ghat, pay homage to Gandhiji and repeat the vow of abiding by Truth and Nonviolence, the writer feels that there is an everlasting field in our country to befool the public.

The author moved the Supereme Court of India twenty-two times on the issue of his release. He could not prove corruption and dishonest intention on the part of Government. It claimed absolute prowers over convicts under its disfavour and wished to keep them confined vindictively till death overtook them.

One of his petitions was pending and Government

was served with a notice. He and the other two in the case were released in the mean time on October 13, 1964. All of them by then had completed over twentysix years inclusive of remission. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had expired a few month befor.

Although the author could not secure any judgement by the Supereme Court in his favour, it is true that but for the existence of the Supreme Court the Government would never have cared to release him and his co-accused.

Life after release:

Shri Vishnu Karkare and the writer attended a reception organised by their friends and well-wishers to celebrate their release after seventeen years of incarceration. The Government resented the reception. Detention Act was invoked to put both of them behind the bars again within forty days of their release.

They were not cherged with any offence. The High Court had nojurisdiction to go behind the subjective satisfaction of the detaining authority. The renewed harassment lasted for over a year and six days.

The writer has since taken to writing. His first book in Marathi on the episode is titled 'Gandhi Hatya Ani Mee.

Besides other subjects it exposes Government for its falsehood. The Government, therefore, 'imprisoned' the book this time!

The High Court lifted the ban and decreed the Government for Rs. 3000/- towards legal expenses.

the book has since been reprinted and translated in other regional languages.

The writer has written some other books as well. The statement of Nathuram Godse has already been published in regional languages by him.

He is the proprietor of the publishing institute Vitasta Prakashan. Vitasta is the Vaidic name of the river zelum (runing through Kashmir.) He stays at pune with his faimly.

Vishun Karkare continued his business at Ahmednagar till he expired of heart attack on April 6, 1974. His wife looks after the business.

Madanial Pahwa who married after his release manages purchase and sale for some paper mills in Bombay.

Veer Savarkar expired in Bombay on February 26, 1966, ironically, after he suffered the rigours of sentences and detention both during the British Rule and olso when India was free. His fault: He urged for just rights for the Hindus and opposed vivisection of India.

Authenticity:

The statement in the following pages is a part of record of the Mahatma Gandhi Murder Case, which can be found in Printed Volume II, Criminal Appeals Nos. 66 to 72 of 1949 Punjab High Court, (then at) Simla.

One

May It Please Your Honour

It was the Court of the Special Judge, Red Fort, Delhi. The prosecution had concluded its evidence in the Mahatma Gandhi Murder Case, viz. Rex versus Nathuram Vinayak Godse and others.

The Special Judge, Shri Atma Charan, had taken his seat. Quiet enveloped the Court-room. The accused were seated in their respective seats in the dock. Counsels on either side were present. The Press reporters were ready tensely holding their pens.

The Court-room was packed to

capacity. People were allowed entry only with passes.

The say of the accused was going to be heard. The day was November 8, 1948.

The Judge started examination of the accused under Section 342 of the Criminal Procedure Code. He announced:

"Accused No. 1 Nathuram Vinayak Godse, Hindu, age 37 years, Editor, Hindurashtra Poona—"

Nathuram was up on his legs immediately after hearing 'accused No. 1.'

"You have heard" the Judge continued, "the entire evidence produced on behalf of the prosecution as against you. What have you to say with regard to it?"

"I am to submit my written statement, Your Honour", Nathuram replied.

"Go ahead, read your statement" said the Judge. At this stage Shri Daphtari, the Advocate General stood up to object. Said he "Your Honour, the accused may be allowed to depose only what is cansistent with this case. Otherwise he may not be allowed to read his statement."

The Judge disallowed the objection.

Nathuram stood poised before the mike to read from his written statement. The silence which had hollowed the Court-room was accentuated by the relay of echoes from the walls with his clear and resonant wards—

MAY IT PLEASE YOUR HONOUR-

PART I

Answer to Chargesheet

• I, Nathuram Vinayak Godse, the first accused above named respect-fully beg to state as under:

• 1. Before I make my submission as regards the various charges I respectfully submit that the charges as framed are not according to law, in as much as there is a misjoinder of charges and there ought to have been two separate trials one relating to the incident of the 20th of January 1948 and the other relating to the incident of the 30th of January 1948. The two having been mixed up together the whole trial is vitiated.

• Without prejudice to my above submission I make my submission in respect of the various charges as framed as stated hereafter.

• 3. In the charge-sheet preferred aganist the accused, a number of counts has been stated and each of the accused individually and jointly with others has been charged with the commission of the various offences punishable under the Indian Penal Code and other statutes.
• 4. It appears from the charge sheet that the prosecution takes the events that have happened on 20th January 1948 and thereafter on 30th January 1948 as one and the same or a chain of events in continuation of one and the same object culminating in the murder of Gandhiji. I therefore, wish to make it clear at the outset that the events up to 20th January 1948 are quite independent and they have no cannection whatsoever with what happened thereafter and on 30th January 1948.
• 5. The first and the foremost amongst the said charges is the charge of conspiracy amongst the accused to murder Gandhiji. I shall therefore first deal with the same. I say that there was no conspiracy of any kind whatsoever amongst the accused to commit any of the offences mentioned in the charge-sheet. I may also state here that I have not abetted any of the other accused in the commission of the alleged offences.
• 6. I say that the evidence led by the Prose-cution in this regard does not establish and prove

that there was any conspiracy whatsoever. The only witness who deposes about the alleged conspiracy is Digambar R. Badge (Prosecution Witness 57). He is a totally unreliable witness as will be shown to Your Hanour by my counsel when he will explain the evidence in the case and deal with the evidence of this witness, P.W. 57.

• 7. As regards the charge of collecting and transporting arms and ammunition without licence, and abetment thereof on 20th January 1948, I say that I deny the said charge and say that I neither carried or transported gun-cotton slabs, hand-grenades, detonators, wicks, pistols, or revolvers and cartridges etc. as alleged, nor did I have under my control any of such arms and/or ammunition, nor did I abet and aid any of the accused to do so either before or on or about the 20th January 1948 or any other date. I deny therefore that I contravened any of the provisions of the Indian Arms Act or the Indian Explosives Substances Act and that I committed any offence punishable under the said Acts.
• 8. The main evidence in regard to this charge is the evidence of Digambar R. Badge (P.W. 57), but as stated in paragraph 6 above, he is a totally unreliable witness. This witness Badge (P.W. 57) is known to me but he hardly used to come to me nor have I ever visited his place of residence since several years past. His statement that he came to the Hindu Rashtra Office on 10th January 1948, being brought there by Apte...the accused No. 2...is totally false

and I deny that the said Badge saw me at the Hindu Rashtra Office or any other place on that day, or that in my presence Apte and he had any talk amongst themselves about gun-cotton slabs, handgrenades, etc. and about the delivery thereof at Bombay as falsely alleged by the said Badge. His statement that Apte asked me to come out of the room and that Apte told me that Badge was prepared to hand over the hand grenades etc. and that one work was over is totally false. This is a story got up by Badge to implicate me and others into the alleged conspiracy. I further say that I neither saw nor met Badge on 14th January 1948 at Dadar either alone or in the company of Apte. I did not even know that Badge had come to Bombay on that day.

9. I further deny that I had in my possession or under my control, while at Delhi, or abetted any one to have and possess on 20th January 1948, any arms or ammunition as stated in the charge-sheet under the heading "Secondly" paragraphs B (1) and (2).

Here also the evidence to support this charge is of Badge alone and I say that he has given false evidence to save his own skin; for on that condition alone he could secure the pardon promised and granted to him.

10. As regards the charge under the heading "Thirdly", I say that I deny the said charge and the abetment thereof as stated in several paragraphs A (1) and (2), and B (1) and (2).

• "Fourthly" paragraph 2, I deny that I abetted Madanial K Pahwa either myself alone or along with others to explode a gun-cotton slab on 20th January 1948 at Birla House, I say that there is no evidence to substantiate this charge and whatever little evidence there may be, can hardly connect me with the explosion of the gun-cotton slab.
• 12. As regards the charge of abetment in the "attempt to commit the murder of Mahatma Gandhi" under the said heading "Fifthly" in the charge sheet, I deny the said charge and say I had no connection either directly or indirectly with Madanlal K. Pahwa or any other person whatsoever. I say there is no evidence whatsoever to support this charge.
• "Sixthly" in the charge-sheet as to paragraphs (A) (1) and (2) thereof, I say that I have not imported or brought unlicensed pistol and ammunition with the assistance of Narayan D. Apte. I also deny that Dr. Dattatraya S. Parchure and Narayan D. Apte procured the said pistol, or any one of them individually or jointly; abetted me or themselves each other in such procuration of the said pistol and the ammunition. I further say that the evidence produced by Prosecution in that behalf is not reliable. Without prejudice to the above, I further say that even if the acts mentioned in these paragraphs A (1) and (2) may have been committed, this Honourable Court has no jurisdiction to take any notice of them. I further

say that so far as I am concerned the charge, if any, would merge under the charge in paragraph B (1) under this head.

• 14. As regards the charge under paragraph B (1) and (2) I admit that I had in my possession automatic pistol No. 606824 and cartridges. But I say that neither Narayan D. Apte nor Vishnu R. Karkare had anything to do with the pistol in my possession.

view hereafter in detail and have quoted numerous instances which unmistakably establish how Gandhiji became responsible for a number of calamities which the Hindu Community had to suffer and undergo.

could easily see its futility. However, I agreed to join him as no alternative plan was as yet fixed in my mind. It was for this reason that N.D. Apte and myself went to Bombay on the 14th of January, 1948.

• 17. On 15th of January, 1948 we—Apte and myself—happened to go to the Hindu Sabha Office at Dadar in the morning. I happened to see Badge there. On seeing N.D. Apte and myself, Badge talked to N.D. Apte and asked him the reason of his coming to Bombay. Apte told him the reason. Badge thereupon of his own accord offered to come to Delhi and join in the demonstration, if we had no objection to his coming there. We wanted men to back us and to shout slogans and we therefore accepted his offer. We told him as to when we were starting Badge thereupon told Apte that he had to give some stuff to Pravinchandra Sethia, that he would do so in a day or two and see us on the 17th January, 1948.
• 18. After we met Badge on the 15th of January, 1948 in the Hindu Sabha Office at Dadar, I saw Badge on the 17th of January, 1948 in the morning.
• 19. The statements made by Badge about our going to Dixitji Maharaj along with him and seeing Dixitji Maharaj, about Apte having told Badge that Savarkar had entrusted Apte and myself the task of finishing Gandhiji, Pandit Jawaharlal and Suhrawardy is a pure concoction and product of Badge's brain.

Neither Apte nor I have said anything like this to Badge or any other person.

I deny categorically what the Prosecution has so falsely maintained that I was guided in my action by Veer Savarkar and that, but for his complicity, I could never have acted in the way I have done. I take the strongest exception to this untrue and unjust charge and I further regard it as an insult to my intelligence and judgement. The Prosecution's attempt to make out that I was a mere tool in someone else's hands is an aspersion which is far from the truth. Indeed! it is a perversion of it.

• 20. Badge's statements to the effect that I also wanted to go to Poona to meet my brother Gopal Godse who had undertaken to make arrangements for procuring a revolver and to bring him down to Bombay for accompanying us to Delhi, is also untrue. I had no talk with Badge when I met him on the 15th January 1948 except what is stated in paragraph 17 above. Further the statement of Badge that he met me on 16th January 1948 at Poona is also false. The alleged report of my conversation with him at Poona as deposed to by Badge in his evidence is also false and untrue. I was not in Poona on the 16th January 1948. It will be clear from this that it is not true that I gave him any pistol on that day for being exchanged for a big revolver.
• 21. I have already stated that we—Apte and myself—had planned to stage a strong but peaceful demonstration at Gandhiji's prayer-meeting at the

earliest possible opportunity at Delhi, and for that purpose Apte and myself were to go there. As stated in paragraph 17, Badge offered to come to Delhi to take part in the demonstration referred to above. We felt an urgent need of taking some volunteers with us for a successful demonstration. Before we started for Delhi we started collecting money to meet the expenses for the journey and for the expenses of the volunteers.

• 22. I emphatically deny that we saw Savarkar on the 17 January, 1948 or that Savarkar blessed us with the words 'Yashasvi Houn Ya', 'Be successful and come; Similarly I also deny that we had any conversation with Badge or that Apte or myself uttered the words—"Tatyaravani ase Bhavishya kele ahe ki Gandhijichi shambhar varshe bharali-ata apale kam nishchita honar yat kahi sanshaya nahi;—" After we met Badge on the 15th of January, 1948 at the Hindu Sabha Office at Dadar, we—Apte and myself—went on our business in connection with the Press.
• 23. Apte and myself came to Delhi by plane on the 17th of January, 1948 and we put up at the Marina Hotel. On the morning of the 20th of January, 1948 Badge came to the hotel and informed Apte in my presence that he and his servant Kistaiya would go to the prayer-ground in the evening with Apte just to see the scene of prayer where demonstrations would be held. When Badge came in the morning I was lying down on bed as I was feeling unwell owing to severe headache and I told Badge

24. As stated above, being unwell due to severe

25. After a deliberate consideration of our future plan of staging the demonstration at Delhi in the prayer-meeting of Gandhiji; I very reluctantly consented to join Mr. Apte. It was not possible to get

and I bought it from him. It is the pistol which I later used in the shots I fired. On coming to the Delhi Railway station I spent the night of 29th thinking and re-thinking about my resolve to end the present chaos and further destruction of the Hindus. I shall now deal about my relations with Veer Savarkar in political and other matters of which the prosecution has made so much.

• 26. Born in a devotional Brahmin family, I instinctively came to revere Hindu religion, Hindu history and Hindu culture. I had been intensely proud of Hindudom as a whole. Nevertheless as I grew up I developed a tendency to free thinking unfettered by any superstitious allegiance to any 'ism', political or religious. That is why I worked actively for the eradication of untouchability and the caste system based on birth alone. I publicly joined anti-caste movements and maintained that all Hindus should be treated with equal status as to rights social and religious, and should be high or low on their merit alone and not through the accident of birth in a particular caste or profession. I used publicly to take part in organised anti-caste dinners in which thousands of Hindus, Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, Chamars and Bhangis broke the caste rules and dined in the company of each other.
• 27. I have read the works of Dadabhai Naoroji, Vivekanand. Gokhale, Tilak along with the books of ancient and modern history of India and some prominent countries in the world like England. France.

America and Russia. Not only that, I studied tolerably well the current tenets of Socialism and Communism too. But above all I studied very closely whatever Veer Savarkar and Gandhiji had written and spoken, as to my mind, these two ideologies had contributed more to mould the thought and action of modern India during the last fifty years or so, than any other single factor had done.

• 28. All this reading and thinking brought me to believe that above all it was my first duty to serve the Hindudom and the Hindu people, as a patriot and even as a humanitarian. For, is it not true that to secure the freedom and to safeguard the just interests of some thirty crores of Hindus constituted the freedom and the well-being of one fifth of human race? This conviction led me naturally to devote myself to the new Hindu Sanghatanist ideology and programme which alone I came to believe, could win and preserve the national independence of Hindusthan, my Motherland and enable her to render true service to humanity as well.
• 29. I have worked for several years in R. S. S. and subsequently joined the Hindu Mahasabha and volunteered myself to fight as a soldier under its pan-Hindu flag. About this time Veer Savakar was elected to the Presidentship of the Hindu Mahasabha. The Hindu Sanghatan Movement got verily electrified and vivified as never before, under his magnetic lead and whirl-wind propaganda. Millions of Hindu Sanghatanists looked up to him as the chosen hero, as the ablest and most faithful advocate of Hindu cause.

too was one of them. I worked devotedly to carry on the Mahasabha activities and hence came to be personally acquainted with Savarkarji.

• 30. Later on my friend and co-worker in the Hindu cause, Mr. Apte and myself decided to start a daily paper devoted to Hindu Sanghatan Movement. We met a number of prominent Hindu Sanghatanist leaders and after securing sympathy and financial help from them met Veer Savarkar as the President of the Mahasabha. He too sympathised with our project and advanced a sum of rupees fifteen thousand as his quota to the capital required, on condition that a limited company should be registered at our earliest convenience, and his advance should be transformed into so many shares.
• 31. Accordingly, we started the Daily Marathi paper 'Daily Agrani' and after some period a limited company was registered. The sums advanced by Veer Savarkar and others were converted into shares of Rs. 500 each. Amongst the directors and donors were such leading and respected gentlemen as Seth Gulab Chand (a brother of Shriman Seth Walchand Hirachandji), Mr. Shingre, an ex-Minister of Bhor, Shreeman Bhalji Pendharkar, the film magnate of Kolhapur and others. Mr. Apte and myself were the Managing Directors of the Company. I was the editor solely responsible for the policy of the paper. We conducted the paper for years on strictly constitutional lines, and pleaded the policy of Hindu Sanghatan in general.
• 33. But it must be specially noted that these our casual visits to Savarkar Sadan were restricted generally to this Hindu Sanghatan Office, situated on the ground floor, for the above mentioned reasons. Veer Savarkar was residing on the first floor of the house. It was only very rarely that we could inter-

view Veer Savarkar personally and that too by special appointment.

• 35. I shall just mention here two striking instances only out of a number of them which painfully opened my eyes about this time to the fact that Veer Savarkar and other old leaders of Mahasabha could no longer be relied upon by me and the Hindu youths of my persuasion to guide or even to appreciate the fighting programme with which we aimed to counteract Gandhiji's activities inside and the Muslim

36. Mr. Apte and I decided to stage a series of demonstrations in Delhi at his meetings and make it impossible for him to hold such prayers. Mr. Apte with a large section of the refugees took out a procession in Delhi condemning Gandhiji and his Shahid Surhawardy and rushed into his prayer-meeting in the Bhangi Colony. Seeing the tumultuous protest that followed, Gandhiji slyly took shelter behind barred and guarded doors although at that time we had not the slightest idea of using any force.

• 37. But when Veer Savarkar read the report of this demonstration, instead of appreciating our move, he called me and blamed me privately for such anarchical tactics, even though this demonstration was peaceful. He said "Just as I condemn the Congressites for breaking up your party meetings and election booths by disorderly conduct, I ought to condemn any such undemocratic conduct on the part of Hindu Sanghatanist also. If Gandhiji preached anti-Hindu teachings in his prayer meetings you should hold your party meetings and condemn his teachings. Amongst ourselves all different parties should conduct their propaganda on strictly constitutional lines."
      • 38. The second leading incident took place just after this, when the partition of India was actually decided on. A group of Hindu Mahasabhaites wanted to know what the Hindu Mahasabha's attitude should be with regard to the Congress Government which was certain to be the Government of the New State, ruling over the so-called India State in the remaining part of India. Veer Savarkar and other top-ranking Hindu Mahasabha leaders quickly and emphatically said that any Indian Government formed to conduct such a freed Indian State should be no longer looked upon as a Government of a party—a Congress Government—but must be honoured and obeyed as a National Government of Hindustan and howsoever they deplored the creation of Pakistan their future motto should be a loyal and all-out support to the newly born Free Indian State. Thus alone would it

be possible to safeguard the newly won Freedom. Any attempt on their part to undermine the Indian State would bring in a Civil War and enable the Muslims to realise their sinful and secret mission to turn the whole of India into Pakistan.

• 39. My friends and I however returned unconvinced. We felt in our heart of hearts that time had come when we should bid good-bye to Veer Savarkar's lead and cease to consult him in our future policy and programmes, nor should we confide to him our future plans.
• 40. Just after that followed the terrible outburst of Muslim fanaticism in the Punjab and other parts of India. The Congress Government began to persecute, prosecute, and shoot the Hindus themselves who dared to resist the Muslim forces in Bihar, Calcutta, Punjab and other places. Our worst fears seemed to be coming true; and yet how painful and disgraceful it was for us to find that the 15th of August 1947 was celebrated with illumination and festivities, while the whole of the Punjab was set by the Muslims in flames and Hindu blood ran rivers. The Hindu Mahasabhaites of my persuasion decided to boycott the festivities and the Congressite Government and to launch a fighting programme to check Muslim onslaughts.
• 41. The meetings of the Working Commitee of the Hindu Mahasabha and the All-India Hindu Convention were held on or about 9th of August 1947, in Delhi, and Veer Savarkar presided. Mr. Apte and

other friends and myself wanted to make a last effort to bring the Mahasabha and its veteran leaders like Veer Savarkar, Dr. Mookerjee, Mr. L. B. Bhopatkar and others to our views and to adopt a fighting resolution. The Mahasabha Working Committee did not accept our suggestion to appoint a council of action against Hyderabad or boy-cott the Congress Government which was to run the newly created State of Divided India. To my mind to recognise a State of Divided India was tantamount to be a party to the cursed vivisection of India. But instead the Working Committee passed a frothy resolution and asked people to hoist the Bhagwa Flag on their houses on the day of August 15th, 1947. Veer SavarQar went further and actually insisted that the tri-colour flag with the wheel should be recognised as a National Flag. We openly resented his attitude

Savarkar setting aside the will of the majority of Hindu Sanghatanists hoisted this new flag with the wheel, as a National Flag, on his house along with the Bhagwa. In addition to that when Dr. Mookerji asked his permission through a trunk call to Veer Savarkar, as to whether Dr. Mookerji should accept a portfolio in the Indian Union Ministry, Veer Savarkar emphatically replied that the new Government must be recognised as a National Government whatever may be the elected party leading it, and must be supported by all patriots and consequently Hindu Sanghatanists ought to extend co-operation by acce-

pting a portfolio if called upon to do so. He also congratulated the Congressite Ministers for the compromising attitude they were talking in calling on a Hindu Sabha leader like Dr. Mookerji to participate in the forming of the National Ministry, Mr. Bhopatkar too supported Dr. Mookerji.

• 43. By this time it came to light that some top leaders of the Congress and some of their Provincial Ministors too had contacted Veer Savarkar and there was a brisk correspondence between them for forming a united front to support the new State, which policy Veer Savarkar had already advocated. I myself could not be opposed to a common front of patriots, but while the Congress Government continued to be so sheepishly under the thumb of Gandhiji and while Gandhiji could thrust his anti-Hindu fads on that Congressite Government by resorting to such a simple trick as threatening a fast, it was clear to me that any common front under such circumstances was bound to be another form of setting up Gandhiji's Dictatorship and consequently a betrayal of Hindudom.
• Savarkar were so deeply resented by me that I myself along with Mr. Apte and some of the young Hindu Sanghatanist friends decided once for all to chalk and work out our active programme quite independently of the Maha Sabha or its old veteran leaders. We resolved not to confide any of our new plans to any of them including Veer Savarkar.
• 45. I began to criticise the Hindu Maha Sabha and the policy of its old leaders in my daily paper

'Agrani' or 'Hindu Rashtra' and to openly call upon the young generation of Hindu Sanghatanists to accept our own active programme.

• 46. In order to work out my new independent programme I decided to undertake two definite items in hand to begin with. The first item was to organise a series of powerful though peaceful demonstrations against Gandhiji so as to make him feel the impact of organised Hindu discontent, and to create confusion and disorder by demonstrative protests, etc. in his obnoxious prayer-meetings through which he then carried out his anti-Hindu propagauda; and secondly to carry on an agitation against the Hyderabad State to defend our Hindu brothers and sisters near about the frontier line from the fanatic atrocities committed on them by the Muslims. As such a programme could only be carried out on secret and dictatorial lines we resolved to divulge it only to those who believed in it and would obey our orders without questioning.
• 47. I would not have referred to the above details in this statement but for the learned prosecutor's opening speech in which be painted me as a mere tool in the hands of Veer Savarkar. This statement I felt to be a deliberate insult to my independence of judgment and action. The above facts had to be mentioned to dispel the incorrect impression about me, if any. Consequently, before I begin to narrate the rest of my statement, I re-assert that it is not true that Veer Savarkar had any knowledge of my acti-

Vities which ultimately led me to fire shots at Gandhiji; I repeat that it is not true and it is totally false that either Mr. Apte in my presence or I myself told Badge that Veer Savarkar had given us an order to finish Gandhiji, Nehru and Suhrawardy as the approver is made to state falsely. It is not true that we ever took Badge to Veer Savarkar's house to take the last Darshan of Veer Savarkar in connection with any such plot or that Veer Savarkar ever said to us 'Be successful and come back'—'Yashasvi houn ya.' Neither Mr. Apte in my presence nor I myself ever told Badge that Veer Savarkar told us that Gandhiji's hundred years were over and therefore we were bound to be successful. I was neither so superstitiaus as to crave such blessings, nor so childish as to believe in such fortune-telling.

PART IP

Gandhiji's Politics X-rayed

SECTION #

• of the 30th January, 1948 was wholly and exclusively political and I would like to explain it at some length. The fact that Gandhiji honoured the religious books of Hindus, Muslims and others or that he used to recite during his prayers verses from the Geeta, the Quoran and the Bible never provoked any ill will in me towards him. To my mind it is not at all objectionable to study comparative religion. Indeed it is a merit.
• 49. The territory bounded by the North Western Frontier in North and

Cape Comorin in the South and the areas between Karachi and Assam that is the whole of pre-partition India has always been to me my mother-land. In this vast area live people of various faiths and I hold that these creeds should have full and equal freedom for following their ideals and beliefs. In this area the Hindus are the most numerous. They have no place which they can call their own beyond or outside this country. Hindusthan is thus both motherland and the holy land for the Hindus from times immemorial. To the Hindus largely this country owes its fame and glory, its culture and art, knowledge, science and philosophy. Next to the Hindus the Muslims are numerically predominant. They made systematic inroads into this country since the 10th century and gradually succeeded in establishing Muslim rule over the greater part of India.

50. Before the advent of the British both Hindus and Muslims as a result of centuries of experience had come to realise that the Muslims could not remain as masters in India; nor could they be driven away. Both had clearly understood that both had come to stay. Owing to the rise of the Maharattas, the revolt of the Rajputs and the uprise of the Sikhs, the Muslim hold on the country had become very feeble and although some of them continued to aspire for supremacy in India, practical people could see clearly that such hopes were futile. On the other hand the British had proved more powerful in battle and in intrigue than either the Hindus or Musalmans, and by their adoption of improved methods of administration

and the assurance of the security of the life and property without any discrimination both the Hindus and the Muslims accepted them as inevitable. Differences between the Hindus and the Muslims did exist even before the British came. Nevertheless it is a fact that the British made the most unscrupulous use of these differences and created more differences in order to maintain their power and authority. The Indian National Congress which was started with the object of winning power for the people in the governance of the country had from the beginning kept before it the ideal of complete nationalism which implies that all Indians should enjoy equal rights and complete equality on the basis of democracy. This ideal of removing the foreign rule and replacing it by the democratic power and authority of the people appealed to me most from the very start of my public career.

advocated that the religious and communal consideration should be entirely eschewed in the public affairs of the country, at elections, inside and outside the legislatures and in the making and unmaking of Cabinets. I have throughout stood for a secular State with joint electorates and to my mind this is the only sensible thing to do. (Here I read parts of the resolutions passed at the Bilaspur Session of the Hindu Mahasabha held in December, 1944. Annexture Pages 12 and 13), Under the influence of the Congress this ideal was steadily making headway amongst the Hindus. But the Muslims as a community first stood

aloof and later on under the corroding influence of the Divide and Rule Policy of the foreign masters were encouraged to cherish the ambition of dominating the Hindus. The first indication of this outlook was the demand for separate electorates instigated by the then Viceroy Lord Minto in 1906. The British Government accepted this demand under the excuse of minority protection. While the Congress party offered a verbal opposition, it progressively supported separatism by ultimately adopting the notorious formula of neither accepting nor rejecting in 1934.

• 52. Thus had originated and intensified the demand for the disintegration of this country. What was the thin end of the wedge in the beginning become Pakistan in the end. The mistake however was begun with the laudable object of bringing out a united front amongst all classes in India in order to drive out the foreigner and it was hoped that separatism would eventually disappear.
• 53. In spite of my advocacy of joint electorates in principle. I reconciled myself with the temporary introduction of separate electorates since the Muslims were keen on them. I however insisted that representation should be granted in strict proportion to the number of every community and no more. I have uniformly maintained this stand.
• 54. Under the inspiration of our British masters on the one hand and the encouragement by the Congress under Gandhiji's leadership on the other, the Muslim League went on increasing its dsmands

on Communal basis. The Muslim community continuously backed the Muslim League; each successive election proved that the Muslim League was able to bank on the fanaticism and ignorance of the Muslim masses and the League was thus encouraged, in its policy of separtism on an ever increasing scale year after year.

• 55. As I have shown before despite their objection to the principle of communal electorates the unreasonable demands of the Muslim League were conceded by the Congress firstly by the Lucknow Pact of 1916 and at each successive revision of the constitution thereafter. This lapse from nationalism and democracy on the part of the Congress has proved an expensive calamity as the sequel has shown.
• 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 ostentatiously paraded 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. To imagine that the bulk of mankind is or can ever become capable of scrupulous adherance to these lofty principles in its normal life from day to day is a mere dream. In fact honour, duty and love of one's own kith and kin and country might often compel us to disregard non-violence. I could never

57. Each of the heroes in his time resisted aggression on our country, protected the people against the atrocities and outrages by alien fanatics and won back the motherland from the invader. On the other hand during more than thirty years of the undisputed leadership of the Mahatma there were more desecration of temples, more forcible and fraudulent conversions, more outrages on women and finally the loss of one third of the country. It is therefore astounding that his followers cannot see what is clear even to the blind, viz. that the Mahatma was a mere pigmy before Shivaji, Rana Pratap and Gurus

• Govind. His condemnation of these illustrious heroes was to say the least, most presumptuous.
• 58. The clique which has got into power with the patronage of British imperialism by a cowardly surrender to the Partition of India at the point of Muslim violence is now trying to exploit Gandhiji's death in hundred hectic ways for its own selfish aims. But history will give to them their proper place in the niche of fame. Gandhiji 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 and for the freedom they brought to them.
• 59. As pointed out herein below Gandhiji's political activities can be conveniently divided under three heads. He returned to India from England some time about the end of 1914 and plunged into the public life of the country almost immediately. Unfortunately soon after his arrival. Sir Pherozeshah Mahta and Mr. G. K. Gokhale, the latter whom Gandhiji called his Guru, died within a short span of time. Gandhiji began his work by starting an Ashram in Ahmedabad on the banks of the Sabarmati river, and made Truth and Nonviolence his slogans. He had often acted contrary to his professed principles and if it was for appeasing the Mustin, he hardly had any scruple in doing so. Truth and Non violence are excellent as an ideal and admirable as guides in action. They are, however, to be practised in actual day-to-day life and not in the air. I am showing later on that Gandhiji himself was

guilty of glaring breaches of his much vaunted ideals.

• 60. Gandhiji's political career will be divided as already stated under three heads:
      • (i) The period between 1915 to 1939-40.
      • (ii) The period between 1939-40 to 3rd June, 1947, when the Indian National Congress surrendered to Mr. Jinnah and accepted Pakistan under the leadership of the Mahatma.
      • (iii) The period between the date of partition to the day of his last fast unto death resulting in the payment of Rs. 55 crores to Pakistan and the Mahatma's death within a short period.
• 61. When Gandhiji finally returned to India at the end of 1914, he brought with him a very high reputation for courageous leadership of Indians in South Africa. He had placed himself at the head of the struggle for the assertion and vindication of the national self-respect of India and for our rights of citizenship against white tyranny in that country. He was honoured and obeyed by Hindus, Muslims and Parsis alike and was universally acclaimed as the leader of all Indians in South Africa. His simplicity of life, his unselfish devotion to the cause which he had made his own, his self-sacrifice and earnestness in fighting against the racial arrogance of the Africanders had raised the prestige of Indians. In India he had endeared himself to all.

found it most difficult to obtain the unquestioned leadership of the Hindus and the Muslims in India as in South Africa. But he had been accustomed to be the leader of all Indians and quite frankly he could not understand the leadership of a divided country. It was absurd for his honest mind to think of accepting the generalship of an army divided against itself.

• India there was not much scope for the attainment by him of supreme leadership in Indian politics. Dadabhai Naoroji, Sir Pherozeshah Mehta, Lokmanya Tilak and Mr. G. K. Gokhale and others were still alive and Gandhiji honoured as he was, popular as he was, was still a junior compared to those veterans both in age and experience. But an inexorable fate removed all of them in five years and with the death of Lokmanya Tilak in August, 1920 Gandhiji was at once thrown into the front line.
• of 'Divide and Rule' were corrupting the patriotism of the Muslims and that there was little chance of his leading a united host to the battle for Freedom unless he was able to cement fellow feeling and common devotion to the Motherland. He, therefore, made Hindu-Muslim Unity the foundation of his politics. As a counterblast to the British tactics he started making the most friendly approaches to the Muslim community and reinforced them by making generous and extravagant promises to the Muslims. This, of course, was not wrong in itself so long as it was done

consistently with India's struggle for democratic national freedom; but Gandhiji completely forgot this, the most essential aspect of his campaign for unity, with what results we all know by now.

but there was no Province in India where either the Hindus or the Muslims were negligible in numbers and that any division of India would leave the minor-ity question wholly unsolved.

• 67. The 'Quit India' movement had to be abandoned, the Congress support to the war against Japan had to be assured and the Viceroy Lord Wavell had to be accepted as the head of the Government of India before the Congress was to be called into the Conference Chamber.
• 68. This section summarises the back-ground of the agony of India's partition and the tragedy of Gandhiji's assassination. Neither the one nor the other gives me any pleasure to record or to remember, but

Gandhiji's Politics X-rayed

SECTION IN

of 32 years culminating in his last proMuslim fast at last goaded me to the
conclusion that the existence of
Gandhiji should be brought to an end\nimmediately. On coming back to India
he developed a subjective mentality\nunder 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 half way house; either the
Congress had to surrender its will to
his and had to be content with playings

70. I shall now describe briefly the enormous mischief done by the slogans and the nostrums which Gandhiji prescribed and followed, in pursuance of his

policy, the fatal results that we now know. Here are some of them:

before them. Mr. Jinnah found himself a lonely figure and was of no consideration for a few years. The movement however failed. Our British Masters were not unduly shaken and as a combined result of repression and the Montague Chelmsford Reforms they were able to tide over the Khilafat Movement in a few years time. The Muslims had kept the Khilafat Movement distinct from the Congress all along; they welcomed the Congress support but they did not merge with it. When failure came the Muslims became desperate with disappointment and their anger was sited on the Hindus. Innumerable riots in the various parts of India followed. the chief victims being the Hindus everywhere. The Hindu-Muslim Unity of the Mahatma became a mirage.

(b) Moplah Rebellion—Malabar, Punjab, Bengal and N. W. F. Province were the scene of repeated outrages on the Hindus. The Moplah rebellion as it was called was the most prolonged and concentrated attack on the Hindu religion, Hindu honour, Hindu life and Hindu property; hundreds of Hindus were forcibly converted to Islam, women were outraged. The Mahatma who had brought about all this calamity on India by his communal policy kept mum. He never uttered a single word of reproach against the aggressors nor did he allow the Congress to take any active steps whereby repetition of such outrages could be prevented. On the other hand he went to the length of denying the numerous cases of forcible conversions in Malabar and actually published in his paper 'Young India' that there was only one case of forcible conver-

sion. His own Muslim friends informed him that he was wrong and that the forcible conversions were numerous in Malabar. He never corrected his misstatements but went to the absurd length of starting a relief fund for the Moplahs instead of for their victims; but the promised land of Hindu-Muslim Unity was not yet in sight.

and writings amounted to a definite support to the Alianothers in their invitation to the Amir of Afghanistan to invade India. The following quotations from the Mahatma's writing in those days should make it clear that he had forgotten his own country in his one consuming desire to please the Muslims and had become a party to the invasion of his motherland by a foreign Ruler. The Mahatma supported the invasion in the following words:

"I cannot understand why the Ali Brothers are going to be arrested as the rumours go, and why ham to remain free. They have done nothing which I would not do. If they had sent a message to Amir, I also would send one to inform the Amir that if he came, no Indian so long as I can help it, would help the Government to drive him back."

The vigilance of the British broke the conspiracy; nothing came out of the Ali Brothers' grotesque scheme of the invasion of India and Hindu-Muslim Unity remained as far away as before.

(d) (i) Attack on Arya Samaj—Gandhiji ostentatiously displayed his love for Muslims by a most unworthy and unprovoked attack on the Arya Samajin 1924. He publicly denounced the Samaj for its supposed sins of omission and commission; it was an utterly unwarranted reckless and discreditable attack, but whatever would please the Mohammedans was the heart's desire of Gandhiji. The Arya Samaj made a powerful but polite retort and for some time

(d) (ii) Gandhiji's attack did not improve his popularity with the Muslims but it provoked a Muslim youth to murder. Swami Shraddhanandji within a few months. The charge against the Samaj that it was a reactionary body was manifestly false. Everybody

(e) Separation of Sind—By 1928 Mr. Jinnah's stock had risen very high and the Mahatma had already conceded many unfair and improper demands of Mr. Jinnah at the expense of Indian democracy and the Indian nation and the Hindus. The Mahatma even supported the separation of Sind from the Bombay Presidency and threw the Hindus of Sind to the communal wolves. Numerous riots took place in Sind—Karachi, Sukkur, Shikarpur and other places in which

the Hindus were the only sufferers and the Hindu-Muslim Unity receded further from the horizon.

• (f) League's Good Bye to Congress—With each defeat Gandhiji became even more keen on his method of achieving Hindu-Muslim Unity. Like the gambler who had lost heavily he bacame more desperate increasing his stakes each time and indulged in the most irrational concessions if only they could placate Mr. Jinnah and enlist his support under the Mahatma's leadership in the fight for freedom. But the aloofness of the Muslims from the Congress increased with the advance of years and the Muslim League refused to have anything to do with the Congress after 1928. The resolution of Independence passed by the Congress at its Lahore Session in 1929 found the Muslims conspicuous by their absence and strongly aloof from the Congress organisation. The hope of Hindu Muslim Unity was hardly entertained by anybody thereafter; but Gandhiji continued to be resolutely optimistic and surrendered more and more to Muslim communalism.
• (g) Round-Table Conference and Communal Award—The British authorities both in India and in England, had realised that the demand for a bigger and truer instalment of constitutional reforms was most insistent and clamant in India and that in spite of their unscrupulous policy of 'Divide and Rule' and the communal discord which it had generated, the resulting situation had brought them no permanence and security so far as British Rule in India was

(h) Acceptance of Office and Resigning in Huff—Provincial Autonomy was introduced from the Ist of April, 1937 under the Government of India Act 1935. The act was bristling with safeguards, special powers, protection to British personnel in the various

(i) League Taking Advantage of War—Encouraged by the situation thus created the Muslim Government in five Provinces and the pro-Muslim Governors in the other six, Mr. Jinnah went ahead in full speed. The congress opposed the war in one way or another. Mr. Jinnah and the League had a very ctear policy. They remained neutral and created no trouble for the Government; but in the year following,

The Congress was entierly at the end of its wits. The British Government went on effectively controlling the whole country through Muslim Ministries and through pro-Muslim Governors. The Princes wholly identified themselves with the war. Labour refused to keep aloof. The capitalist class supported the Congress in words and the Government in deed by supplying the Government everything it wanted at top prices. Even Khaddar enthusiasts sold blankets to Government. The Congress could see no way out of its absolute paralysis; it was out of office and Government was carried on in spite of its nominal opposition.

and our Imperial masters were triumphant all along... Mr. Jannah openly opposed the 'Qult India' Movement as hostile to the Muslims and raised a counterslogan 'Divide and Quit'. That is where Gandhiji's Hindu-Muslim Unity had arrived.

the garb of Hindustani. Urdu is not banned by any nationalist Hindu but to smuggle it under the garb of Hindustani is a fraud and a crime. That is what the Mahatma tried to do. To belster up a dialect in School Curriculum and in educational institutions that non-existent language in the garb of Hindustani because it pleased the Muslims was the communalism of the worst type on the part of the Mahatma. All these for Hindu-Muslim Unity.

onal gatherings but as soon as one Muslim objected to it Gandhiji utterly disregarded the national sentiment behind it and persuaded the Congress also not to insist upon the singing as the national song. We are now asked to adopt Rabindranath Tagore's 'Jana Gana Mana, as a substitute for 'Vande Mataram'. Could anything be more demoralised or pitiful than this brazen-faced action against a song of world-wide fame? Simply because one ignorant fanatic disliked it. The right way to proceed would have been to enlighten the ignorant and remove the prejudice, but that is a policy which during the thirty years of unbounded popularity and leadership Gandhiji could not muster courage to try. His Hindu-Muslim Unity idea only meant to surrender, capitulate, and concede whatever the Muslims wanted. No wonder the Willo' the Wisp unity never came and never could have come.

(n) Shiva Bavani Banned—Gandhiji banned the public recital or perusal of Shiva Bavani a beautiful collection of 52 verses by a Hindu poet to which he had extolled the great power of Shivaji and the protection which he brought to the Hindu community and the Hindu religion. The refrain of that collection says 'if there were no Shivaji, the entire country would have been converted to Islam.' (Here recite the couplet from the Book 'Shiva Bavani' ending with the words—

काशीजीकी कला जाती मथुरा मशीद होती। शिवाजी जो नहोते तो सुन्नत होत सबकी।

Kashiji Ki Kala jati Mathura masjid hoti Shivaji jo na hote to Sunnat hot Sabki) This was the delight of millions of contemporary history and a beautiful piece of literature, but Gandhiji would have none of it. Hindu-Muslim Unityndeed!

most virulent outbreak of Muslim fanaticism in Noakhali and Tipperah 30,000 Hindu women were forcibly converted according to a report of Arya Samaj, the total number of Hindus killed or wounded was three lacs not to say the crores of rupees worth of property looted and destroyed. Gandhiji then undertook, ostensibly alone, a tour of Noakhali District. It is well-known that Suhrawardy gave him protection wherever he went and even with that protection Gandhiji never ventured to enter Noakhali District. All these outrages, loss of life and property were done when Surhawardy was the Prime Minister and to such a monster of inequity and communal poison Gandhiji gave the unsolicited title of Martyr.

(p) Attitude towards Hindu and Muslim-Princes—Gandhiji's followers successfully humiliated the Jaipur, Bhavnagar and Rajkot States. They enthusiastically supported even a rebellion in Kashmir State against the Hindu Prince. This attitude strangely enough contrasts with what Gandhiji did about the affairs in Muslim States. There was a Muslim League intrigue in Gwalior States, as a result of which the Maharaja was compelled to abandon the celebrations of the second millennium of the Vikram Calendar four years ago: the Muslim agitation was based on pure communalism The Maharaja is the liberal and impartial Ruler with a far sighted outlook. In a recent casual Hindu Muslim clash in Gwalior because the Musalmans suffered some casualties Gandhiji came down upon the Maharaja with a vitriolic attack wholly undeserved.

• (q) Gandhiji On Fast to Capacity—In 1943 while Gandhiji was on fast to capacity and nobody was allowed to interview him on political affairs, only the nearest and the dearest had the permission to go and enquire of his health. Mr. C. Rajagopalachari smuggled himself into Gandhiji's room and hatched a plot of conceding Pakistan which Gandhiji allowed him to negotiate with Jinnah. Gandhiji later on discussed this matter for three weeks with Mr. Jinnah in the later part of 1944 and offered Mr. Jinnah virtually what is now called Pakistan. Gandhiji went every day to Mr. Jinnah's house, flattered him, praised him, embraced him, but Mr. Jinnah could not be cajoled out of his demand for the Pakistan pound of flesh. Hindu Muslim Unity was making progress in the negative direction.

• (r) Desai-Liaquat Agreement—(i) In 1945 came the notorious Desai-Liaquat Agreement. It put one more, almost the last, nail on the coffin of the Congress as a National democratic body. Under that agreement, the late Mr. Bhulabhai Desai the then leader of the Congress party in the Central Legislative Assembly at Delhi entered into an agreement with Mr. Liaquat Ali Khan, the League Leader in the Assembly, jointly to demand a Conference from the British Government for the solution of the stalemate in Indian politics which was growing since the beginning of the War, Mr. Desai was understood to have taken that step without consulting anybody of any importance in the Congress circle, as almost all the Congress leaders had been detained since the .Quit

• (1) An unqualified undertaking on the part of the Congress and all political parties to support the war against Japan until victory was won.

• (2) A coalition Government would be formed in which the Congress and the Muslims would each have five representatives. There will besides be a representative of the depressed classes, of the Sikhs and other Minorities.

• (3) The 'Quit India' Movement will be unconditionally withdrawn and such of the Congress leaders as had been detained in consequence of the Movement would be released.

• (4) All measures of Administrative Reform will be within the four corners of the Government of India Act 1935.

• (5) The Governor-General and the Viceroy shall retain the same constitutional position in the new setup as he had at that time i, e, he would remain the head of new Government.

• (6) At the end of the war, the question of complete freedom will be decided through the machinery of the Constituent Assembly.

  • (7) If these were without any modification the Viceroy would reconstitute his Government with all portfolios to be held by Indians as per (2) above.

• (8) People who had only three years ago started the 'Quit India' Movement for complete Independence and exhorted the people to 'Do or Die' in implementing the rebellion quietly submitted to accept office under the leadership of a British Viceroy on the terms, and conditions laid down by him, The fact was that the 'Quit India' Movement had failed, the Congress had no alternative programme and events were moving on whether the Congress party was ready for

them or not. Mr. Jinnah was the only gainer from the collapse of the Congress. He obtained a great tactical advantage by the recognition of the muslims' right for 50% representation in oll future discussions. The two-nation theory and the demand for Pakistan received a fillip although the Conference failed without achieving the Hindu-muslim Unity.

thousands and thousands of women were raped, hundreds crores worth of property was looted, burned or destroyed. The Mahatma was as far as ever before from his goal of Hindu-Muslim Unity.

• (t) Congress Surrenders to Jinnah—By the following year the Congress Party abjectly surrendered to Mr. Jinnah at the point of bayonet and accepted Pakistan. What happened thereafter is too well-known. The thread running throughout this narrative is the increasing infatuation which Gandhiji developed for the Muslims. He uttered not one word of sympathy or comfort for millions of displaced Hindus, he had only one eye for humanity and that was the Muslim humanity. The Hiudus simply did not count with him. I was shocked by all these manifestations of Gandhian saintliness.
• (u) Ambiguous Statement about Pakistan—In one of his articles, Gandhiji while nominally ostensibly opposed to Pakistan, openly declared that if the Muslims wanted Pakistan at any cost, there was nothing to prevent them from achieving it. Only the Mahatala could understand what that declaration meant. Was it a prophesy or a declaration or disapproval of the demand for Pakistan?
• (v) Ill-advice to Kashmir Maharaja-About Kashmir, Gandhiji again and again declared that Sheikh Abdullah should be entrusted the charge of the state and that the Maharaja of Kashmir should retire to Benares for no particular reason than that the muslims formed the bulk of the Kashmir population. This also stands out in contrast with his attitude on Hyderabad where

although the bulk of the population is Hindu, Gandhiji never called upon the Nizam to retire to Mecca.

established with the consent of Nehru and his crowd and they have called it 'Freedom won by them at sacrifice' Whose sacrifice?

(x) Gandhiji on Cow-slaughter—Gandhiji used to display a most vehement desire for the protection of the cow. But in fact he did no effort in that direction. On the contrary, in one of his post-prayer speeches, he has admitted his inability to support the demand for stopping cow-slaughter. An extract from his speech in this connection is reproduced below.

'Today Rajendra Babu informed me that he had received some fifty-thousand postcards, 20-30 thousand telegrams urging prohibition of cowslaughter by law. In this connection I have spoken to you before also. After all why are so many letters and telegrams sent to me. They have not served any purpose. No law prohibiting cowslaughter in India can be enacted. How can I impose my will upon a person who does not wish voluntarily to abandon cow-slaughter? India does not belong exclusively to the Hindus. Muslims, Parsees, Christians also live here. The claim of the Hindus that India has become the land of the Hindus is totally incorrect. This land belongs to all who live here. I know an orthodox Vaishnava Hindu. He used to give beef soup to his child."

(y) Removal of Tri-Colour Flag—The tricolour flag with the Charkha on it was adopted by the Congress as the National Flag out of deference to

PART III

Gandhiji and Independence

71. Some good number of people are labouring under the delusion that the freedom movement in India started with the advent of Gandhiji in 1914-15 and reached is consummation on the 15th August 1947 on which day it is said we attained Freedom under the leadership of the Father of the Nation. In all history there was never a more stupendous fiction fostered by the cunning and believed by the credulous in this country for over a thousand years. Far from attaining freedom under his leadership Gandhiji has left India torn and bleeding form a thousand wounds. There has been always

72. Gandhiji arrived in India in 1914-15. Nearly eight years earlier, the revolutionary movement had spread over a large part of India. The freedom Movement had never died out. It had risen again like the Phoenix from its ashes. After the arrival of Gandhiji and his fads of Truth and Non-violence, the movement began to suffer eclipse. Thanks however to Subhashi

Chandra Bose and the revolutionaries in Maharashtra, Punjab and Bengal that the movement continued to flourish parallel to Gandhiji's rise to leadership after the death of Lokamanya Tilak.

• 74. There was further objection to it on the ground of the veto which it granted to the Governors and the Governor General. Even then it is reasonably certain that if the Act had not been boycotted under Gandhiji's leadership, India would have long since reached the status of a Dominion which we are now supposed to be enjoying, after losing one-third of Indian territory.

76. I had already stated that the revolutionary movement beginning in Bengal and Maharashtra later on reached the Punjab. The young men associated with it did not come from the riffraff of society. They were educated, cultural men belonging to most respectable families having high social status in private life.

They sacrificed lives of comfort and ease at the altar of the liberty of the Motherland. They were the martyrs whose blood became the cement of the India Church of Independence. Lokmanya Tilak built on it and the Mahatma got advantage of the accumulated momentum of this movement. It is my firm conviction that each stage of constitutional progress between 1909 and 1935 became possible as a result of the revolutionary forces working in the background.

78. It was not merely those who advocate the use of force in the freedom battle whom Gandhiji opposed. Even those who held political views radically different from his and those who did not accept his nostrums whom Gandhiji made the target of displeasure. An outrageous example of his dislike of people with whom he did not agree is furnished by the case of Subash Chandra Bose. So far as I am aware no protest was ever made by Gandhiji against the deportation of Subash for six years and Bose's election to the Presidential Chair of the Congress was

79. This incident about the re-election of Subash to the Congress crown and of his eventual expulsion from the Presidential office is an indication of the hypocracy with which the Mahatma controlled and repudiated the Congress as and when he liked. He had repeatedly stated after 1934 with a great show of detachment that he was not even a four anna member of the Congress Party and that he had nothing to do with it. But when Subash was elected for a second time Gandhiji completey lost his balance and furnished the best proof that he had interfered with that elec-

tion from the very inception in favour of Dr. Pattabhi; it is a proof of his keen and engrossing interest in the rivalries and petty squabbles within the Congress at every stage while professing to be not even a member of that body.

• 81. These activities were directly opposed to the Congress creed of non-violence and to the Satyagrah

aged by Gandhi while his own strategy had completely collapsed soon after the 8th August 1942.

• 83. The Japanese had intensified their war effort and occupied Burma, Dutch East Indies, Federated

84. Gandhiji was opposed to Subhash Chandra Bose's invasion of India. Nehru was opposed to him because he did not approve of Bose's support to the Japanese invader. But whatever difference may have

85. All this time the Muslim League was carrying on treasonable activities, disturbing the peace and tranquility of India carrying on a murderous campaign against the Hindus. Lord Wavell and Lord Mountba-

• 86. The real cause of the British leaving this country is threefold and it does not include the Gandhian method. The aforesaid triple forces are:
• (i) The movements of the Indian Revolutionaries right from 1857 to 1932, i.e. upto the death of

Chandra Shekhar Azad at Allahabad, then next, the movement of revolutionary character not that of Gandhian type in the countrywide rebellion of 1942, and an armed revolt put up by Subhash Chandra Bose the result of which was a spread of the revolutionary mentality in the Military Forces of India are the real dynamic factors that have shattered the very foundation of the British Rule in India. And all these effective efforts to freedom were opposed by Gandhiji.

• (ii) So also a good deal of credit must be given to those who, imbibed with a spirit of patriotism, fought with the Britishers strictly on constitutional lines on the Assembly floors and made a notable progress in Indian politics. The view of this section was to take the maximum advantage of whatever we have obtained and to fight further on. This section was generally represented by late Lokmanya Tilak, Mr. N. C. Kelkar, Mr. C. R. Das, Mr. Vithhalbhai Patel—brother of Hon. Sarder Patel, Pandit Malaviya, Bhai Parmanand and during last ten years by prominent Hindu Sabha leaders. But this school of men of sacrifices and intelligence was also rediculed by Gandhiji himself and his followers by calling them as job hunters or power seekers, although they often ultimately resorted to the same methods.
• (iii) There is also one more but nonetheless imporatant reason for the Britishers which made them part with power and that is the advent of Labour Government and an overthrow of Mr. Churchill, superimposed by the frightful economic conditions.

and the financial bankruptcy to which the war had reduced Britain.

87. So long as Gandhian method was in ascendance, frustration was the only inevitable result. He had throughout opposed every spirited revolutionary, radical and vigorous individual or group, and constantly boosted his Charkha, non-violence and truth. The Charkha after 34 years of the best efforts of Gandhiji, had only led to the expansion of the machine-run textile industry by over 200 per cent. It is unable even now to clothe even one per cent of the nation. As regards non-violence, it was absurd to expect 40 crores of people to regulate their lives on such a lofty plane and it broke down most conspicuously in 1942. As regards truth the least I can say is that the truthfulness of the average Congressman is by no means of a higher order than that of the man in the street and that very often it is untruth in reality masked by a thin veneer of pretended truthfulness.

PART IV

Frustration of an Ideal

88. Really speaking the idea of Hindu-Muslim Unity which Gandhiji had put forward when he entered Indian Politics, came to an end from the moment Pakistan was established, because the Muslim league was opposed to regard India as one whole nation; and over and over again they had stated with great obstinacy, that they were not Indians. The Hindu-Muslim Unity which Gandhiji himself had put forward many a time was not of this type. What he wanted was that they both should take part in the struggle for independence as comrades. That was his idea of Hindu-Muslim Unity. The Hindus followed

Gandhiji's advice but the Muslims on every occasion, disregarded it and indulged in such behaviour as would be insulting to the Hindus, and at last, it has culminated in the vivisection and division of the country.

• 89. The mutual relations of Gandhiji and Mr. Jinnah are also worthy to note. When Mr. Jinnah who was once an ardent nationalist became rank communalist from 1920 and onward, since then he put forward one evident and clear fact that it was his intention to look to the interests of the Muslim community and that the Muslims should not at all rely upon the Congresss and the Congress leaders; and that the Muslims should not support the fight for freedom along with the Congress. Mr. Jinnah had also openly demanded Pakistan. He has preached these doctrines quite openly. He deceived no one as far as principles are concerned. His was the behaviour of an open enemy. He could talk of vivisecting this country with ease and wholly unfettered tongue.
• 90. Gandhiji had seen Mr. Jinnah many a time and called upon him. Every time he had to plead to him as "Brother Jinnah." He even offered to him the Premiership of the whole of India; but there was not a single occasion on which Mr. Jinnah had shown any inclination even to co-operate.
• 91. Gandhiji's inner voice, his spiritual power and his doctrine of non-violence of which so much is made of, all crumbled before Mr. Jinnah's iron will and proved to be powerless.
• 92. Having known that with his spiritual powers he could not influence Mr. Jinnah, Gandhiji should have either changed his policy or should have admitted his defeat and given way to others of different political views to deal with Mr. Jinnah and the Muslim League. But Gandhiji was not honest enough to do that. He could not forget his egoism or self even for national interest. There was, thus, no scope left for the practical politics while the great blunders—blunders as big as the Himalayas—were being committed.

completely massacred, and though Mr. Suhrawardy may be the leader of the Goondas, he should be allowed to move about freely and safely in Delhi. This will be evident from extracts given below from Gandhiji's post-prayer speches:

• (a) "We should with a cool mind reflect when we are being swept away. Hindus should never be angry against the Muslims even if the latter might make up their minds to undo even their existence. If they put all of us to the sword, we should court death bravely, may they, even rule the world, we shall inhabit the world. At least we should never fear death. We are destined to be born and die; then why need we feel gloomy over it? If all of us die with a smile on our lips, we shall enter a new life. We shall originate a new Hindustan." (6th April 1947).
• (b) "The few gentlemen from Rawalpindi who called upon me today were sturdy, brave and absorbed in business. I advised them to remain calm. After all God is great. There is no place where God does not exist, mediate on Him and take His name; everything will be all right. They asked me what about those who still remain in Pakistan. I asked them why all they came here (in Delhi). Why they did not die there? I still hold on to the belief one should stick to the place where we happen to live even if we are cruelly treated and even killed. Let us die if the people kill us; but we should die bravely with the name of God on our tongue. Even if our men are killed, why should we feel angry with anybody, you

should realise that even if they are killed they have had a good and proper end. May the heaven make us all so. May God send us the same way. This is what we should pray heartily for. I will advise you (and issue) as I did to the residents of Rawalpindi, that they should go there and meet the Sikhs and Hindu refugees, tell them politely to return to their places in Pakistan unaided either by Police or the Military." (23rd September 1947).

• is going to return. In the end we too have to go there. It is true that they were murdered but then some others die of cholera or due to other causes. He who is born must die. If those killed have died bravely they have not lost anything but earned something. But what to do with those who have slaughtered people, is a big question. One may concede that to err is human. A human being is a bundle of errors. In Punjab our protection is due to them (British troops) But is this protection? I want even if a handful of persons should protect themselves. They should not be afraid of death. After all the killers will be none other than our Muslim brothers. Will our brothers cease to be our brothers after change of their religion? And do we not act like them? What thing we left undone with women in Bihar."
• 94. Gandhiji need have taken into consideration that the desire for reprisals springing up in the Hindu mind was simply a natural reaction. Thousands of Hindus in the Muslim Provinces were being massacred simply because of the fault of their being Hindus, and

only by the idea of this sort of feeling of acute discontent against the misdeeds of the rulers. It would be quite impossible to put an end to the governance of the Society by the wicked, had it not been for such feelings of discontent, retaliation and revenge springing up against the wicked Dictators. The events of ancient history as depicted in Ramayana and Mahabharat, or the more modern wars of England and America against Germany and Japan too indicate the same sort

of action and reaction. It may be either good or bad. Such is the human nature.

• 96. Looked at from the point of view of the Indian politics, I have already shown in my narration elsewhere, how Gandhiji had strongly opposed several efforts made for winning the freedom of the country. There was no consistency in his own political policy, in particular his behaviour at the time of the last war was quite unthinkable.
• 98. Gandhiji's release from jail in 1944 was followed by the release of other leaders also, but the

Government had to be assured by the Congress leaders of their help in the war against Japan. Gandhiji not only did not oppose this but actually supported the Government proposal.

• 99. In Gandhiji's politics there was no place for consitency of ideas and reasons. Truth was what Gandhiji only could define. His politics was supported by old superstitious belief such as the power of the soul, the innervoice, the fast, the prayer, and the purity of mind.
• 100. Gandhiji had once said, 'FREEDOM GOT FROM NON-VIOLENCE A THOUSAND YEARS LATER IS PREFERABLE TO THE FREEDOM GOT TO-DAY BY VIOLENCE.' Whether he acted as he said, or whether his atcions and sayings were diametrically opposed to each other can be inferred to some extent from the example cited above.
• 101. A recent example of the inconsistency of his doctrine of non-violence is worth being noted in particular. The problem of Kashmir followed very closely that of Pakistan. Pakistan had begun a dreadful invasion to conquer and gulp down the Kashmir. H.H. The Maharaja of Kashmir had asked for help from the Nehru Government, and the latter in return agreed to do so on condition that Sheikh Abdullah would be made the Chief Administrator. On every important matter Pt. Nehru had consulted Gandhiji. There was every chance of partiality being done, Kashmir being the birth-place of Pt. Nehru. And to give no way to this partiality, Pt. Nehru consulted Gandhiji about

sending Military help to Kashmir and it was only on the consent of Gandhiji that Pt. Nehru sent troops for the protection and defence of Kashmir. Pt. Nehru himself has told this in one of his speeches.

• beginning that the invasion of Kashmir by the raiders was supported by Pakistan. And it was therefore, evident that sending help to the Kashmir meant waging war directly against Pakistan. Gandhiji himself was opposed to the war with arms, and he has told this to the entire world again and again. But he gave his consent to Pt Nehru to send army in Kashmir. The only conclusion that could be drawn from what is happening in Kashmir is that, today after the attainment of freedom for the partitioned India, that under Gandhiji's blessings, our Government has resorted to the war where man-killing machinery is being used.
• 103. Had Gandhiji a firm belief in the doctrine of non-violence, he should have made a suggestion for sending Satyagrahis instead of the armed troops and tried the experiment. Orders should have been issued to send 'Takalis' in place of rifles and 'Spinning wheels' (i.e. Charkhas) isntead of the guns. It was a golden opportunity for Gandhiji to show the power of his Satyagraha by following his precept as an experiment at the beginning of our freedom.
• 104. But Ganehiji did nothing of the sort. He had begun a new war by his own will, at the very beginning of the existence of Free India. What does this inconsistency mean? Why did Gandhiji himself

so violently trample down the doctrines of non-violence, he had championed? To my mind, the reason for his doing so is quite obvious; and it is that this war is being fought for Sheikh Abdullah. The administrative power of Khasmir was going in the hands of Muslims and for this reason and this reason alone did Gandhiji consent to the destruction of the raiders by Armed Forces. Gandhiji was reading the dreadful news of Kashmir war, while at the same time fasting to death only because a few Muslims could not live safely in Delhi. But he was not bold enough to go on fast in front of the raiders of Kashmir, nor had he the courage to practise Satyagraha against them. All his fasts were to coerce Hindus.

that in the present 20th Century such a hypocrite should have been regarded as the leader of the All-India politics. The mind of this Mahatma was not affected by the attacks on the Hindus in Hyderabad State; and this Mahatma never asked the Nizam of Hyderabad to abandon his throne. If the Indian politics proceeded in this way under the guiding dominance of Gandhiji, even fhe preservation of freedom obtained today—even though in partitioned India—would be impossible. These thoughts arose in my mind again and again and it was full with them. As the above incidents were taking place, Gandhiji's fast for the Hindu-Muslim Unity was announced on 13th January 1948, and then I lost nearly my control on my feelings.

• 106, For the last four years, I had been working as the Editor of a daily newspaper, and even before this period, I have spent most of my time in the service of the public. As such therefore I was in a habit of being in touch with all the Indian political developments.

• 107. I was fully aware of the idea of the mutual relations among the three political bodies—the Muslim League, the Congress and the Hindu Mahasabha. The Muslim League had always dubbed the Congress as a Hindu organisation, but the Congress leaders were ashamed of being called a Hindu body. The Congressmen felt abused when called 'Communal.'
• 108. Really speaking, if any institution were to look to the interests of a particular community without hindering the growth of national spirit, why should one use the word 'Communal' in the sense of an abuse to that institution? It would be proper if an institution seeking the interests of any particular community by destroying the very essence of the national spirit were to be abused as being a selfish 'Communal minded' body. But the Congress has no such discretion. The Congress has styled both the Muslim League and the Hindu Mahaaabha as 'Communal' bodies using the word 'Communal' an expression of abuse. But the thing to be specially noted is that while the Congress has yielded to every demand of the Muslim League, it has not taken due notice of even the purely national policy of the Hindu Mahasabha and has carried on propaganda of distortion against Hindu Mahasabha and its leaders.
• 110. Was this the ideal of freedom and independence of India, torn by vivisection, before the Congress, after the foundation of which our great national, intelligent and sacrificing leaders laboured assiduously by keeping before them the ideal of the freedom of the whole nation, sacrificed even their lives for their ideal of the achievement of complete

democracy, and tried for the mutual co-operation among the major and minor communities of this vast country and in the freedom fight of which the parts of the Punjab, the Bengal, the Sind, and the N. W. F. Province, which now form the Pakistan, were in no way less prominent than any other part of India? So also, could those patriots with their ideal of the freedom of the whole of Bharatkhand, who were, though outside the Congress, in the forefront of the revolutionaries who either gladly went to the gallows or passed their days out of their motherland as exiles, or were rotting in the dark cells of the Andamans dream of freedom as envisaged in the freedom granted to the country by vivisection? It is but proper that the award for their incomparable sacrifices should be in the establishment of a State founded upon blind and fanatic religious faith in one part of the country?

111. But the Congress under the leadership of Gandhiji commenced its surrender to the Muslims, right from the time the 14 demands of Mr. Jinnah were made till the establishment of the Pakistan. Is it not a deplorable sight for people to see the Congress celebrate the occasion of the establishment of a Dominion Government in the rest of country shattered and vivisected by the Pakistan in the East and West and with the pricking thorn of Hyderabad in its midst. On seeing this downfall of the Congress under the dominance of Gandhiji, I am reminded of the well known verse of Raja Bhartrihari to the effect:

शिवः शार्वं स्वर्गात् पशुपति शिरस्तः क्षितिधरम् ।
महीश्रादुत्तुंगात् अवनिमवनेश्रापि जलिधम् ॥
अधोऽधो गंगेयं पदमुपगता स्तोकमधुना।
विवेकभ्रष्टानां भवति विनिषातः शतमुखः॥

(The Ganges has fallen from the Heavens on the head of Shiva, thence on the Himalayas, thence on the earth, and thence in the sea. In this manner, down and down she went and reached a very low stage. Truly it is said that indiscriminate persons deteriorate to the low position in a hundred ways).

Climax of Anti-National Appeasement

to remove Gandhiji from the political stage, it was clear to me that personally I shall be lost to everything that could be mine. I am not a moneyed person but I did have a place of honour and respect amongst those known as middle class society. I have been in the public life of my Province and the service that I have been able to render so far has given me a place of honour and respect amongst my people. Ideas of culture and civilisation are not strange to me. I had in my view before me some schemes of constructive work to be taken in hand in my future life and I felt I had enough

strength and enthusiasm to undertake them and carry them out successfully. I have maintained robust health and I do not suffer from any bodily defect and I am not addicted to any vice. Although I myself am not a much-learned man, I have a great regard and admiration for the learned.

Malaviya who was also a veteran leader of the Congress.

• of Nagpur founded the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangha in Maharashtra also. His oration greately impressed me and I joined the Sangha as a volunteer thereof. I am one of those volunteers of Maharashtra who joined the Sangha in its initial stage, I also worked for a few years on the intellectual side in the Province of Maharashtra. Having worked for the uplift of the Hindus I felt it necessary to take part in the political activities of the country for the protection of the just rights of Hindus. I therefore left the Sangha and joined the Hindu Mahasabha.
• 115. In the year 1938, I led the first batch of volunteers who marched into the territory of the Hyderabad State when the passive resisance movement was started by the Hindu Mahasabha, with a demand for Responsible Government in the State. I was arrested and sentenced to one year's imprisonment. I have a personal experience of the uncivilized, nay barbarous rule of Hyderabad, and have undergone the corporal punishment of dozens of cane slashes for the offence of singing the 'Vande Mataram' song at the time of prayer.
• 116. In the year 1943 the Bihar Government had issued a proclamation prohibiting the holding of the Hindu Mahasabha Session at Bhagalpur. The Mahasabha resolved to defy this ban as it felt that the action of the Government was unjust and

illegal. The session was held in spite of all the precautions taken by the Government for its prevention. I took a leading part in the preparation for the session keeping myself underground for nearly a month. During this period while reading newspapers I have come across items of news appreciating my work, I have also heard people expressing their approval of my part in public life. By nature I am not a person of violent temprament. The approver Badge in his deposition at Page 225 has stated that I took out a knife to stab Mr. Bhopatkar. This statement it totally false. Mr. Bhopatkar is at present leading the lawyers defending the accused. Had I made any such assault as described by the approver could he have come forward to render us assistance in our defence? If that alleged incident were true, I should have least thought of taking the help of Mr. Bhopatkar.

117. Those, who personally know me, take me as a person of quiet temperament. But when the toprank leaders of the Congress with the consent of Gandhiji divided and tore the country—which we consider as a deity of worship—my mind became full with the thoughts of direful angar.

I wish to make it clear that I am not an enemy of the Congress. I have always regarded that body as the premier institution which has worked for the political uplift of the country. I had and have my differences with its leaders. This will be clearly seen from my letter addressed to Veer Savarkar on 28th February 1933 (RX D/30) which is in my hand and signed by me and I admit its contents.

• 118. There was no enmity between Gandhiji and myself on any personal grounds. To those who speak of Gandhiji's honest motive in supporting Pakistan, I have only to say that I had nothing but the purest interest of our nation at my heart in taking the extreme step against the person of Gandhiji, who was the most responsible and answerable person for the terrible event culminating in the creation of Pakistan. I could foresee the result of my action against the life of Gandhiji and did very well realise that the moment the people come to know about it they would change their view about me in spite of the circumstances. My status and honour in the society and the sympathies which the people entertained for me will be smashed completely. I fully realised that I would be looked upon as the most despicable fellow in the society.
• that would be launched against me in the Press. But I never thought that I could be cowed down by the fire poured against me by the Press. For, had the Indian Press impartially criticised the anti-national policy carried on by Gandhiji and had they impressed upon the people that the interest of the nation was far greater than the whim of any individual howsoever great he may be, Gandhiji and his followers could never have dared concede Pakistan to the Muslims as easily as has been done. The Press had displayed such weakness and submission to the High Command of the Congress that it allowed the mistakes of leaders pass away freely and unnoticed and made vivisection

easy by their policy. The fear about such Press—weak and subservient as it was—could not therefore dislodge me from my resolve.

• 120. It is stated in some quarters that the people could not have got the independence unless Pakistan was conceded. But I took it to be an utterly incorrect and untrue view. To me it appears to be merely a poor excuse to justify the action taken by the leaders. The leaders of the Gandhian creed often claim to have conquered 'Swarajya' by their struggle. If they had conquered Swarajya, then it would be clearly seen that it is most ridiculous to say that those Britishers who yielded, were in a position to lay down the condition of Pakistan before the grant of independence could be only one reason for Gandhiji and his followers to give their consent to the creation of Pakistan and it is that these people were accustomed to make a show of hesitation and resistance in the beginning and ultimately to surrender to the Muslim demands
• 121. Pakistan was conceded on the 5th of August 1947, and how? Pakistan was conceded by deceiving the people and without any consideration for the feelings and opinions of the people of Punjab, Bengal N.W.F. Province, Sind, etc. Indivisible Bharat was divided into two and in one of its parts a theocratic State was established. The Muslims obtained the fruit of their anti-national movements and actions in the shape of Pakistan. The leaders of the Gandhian creed ridiculed the opponents of

Pakistan as traitors and communal minded, while they themselves helped in the establishment of a Muslim State in India yielding to the demands of Mr. Jinnah. This event of Pakistan had upset the tranquillity of my mind. But even after the establishment of Pakistan if this Gandhian Government had taken any steps to protect the interests of Hindus in Pakistan it could have been possible for me to control my mind which was terribly shaken on account of this terrible deception of the people. But, after handing over crores of Hindus to the mercy of the Muslims of Pakistan Gandhiji and his followers have been advising them not to leave Pakistan but continue to stay on. The Hindus thus were caught in the hands of Muslim authorities quite unawares and in such circumstances series of calamities followed one after the other. When I bring to my mind all these happenings my body simply feels a horror of burning fire, even now.

122. Every day that dawned brought forth the news about thousands of Hindus being massacred, Sikhs numbering 15 000 having been shot dead, hundreds of women torn of their clothes being made naked and taken into procession and that Hindu women were being sold in the market places like cattle. Thousands and thousands of Hindus had to run away for their lives and they had lost everything of theirs. A long line of refugees extending over the length of 40 miles was moving towards the Indian Union. How was this terrible happening counter-acted by the Union Government? Oh! by throwing bread to the refugees from the air!

• 124. When all these happenings were taking place in Pakistan, Gandhiji did not even by a singl word protest and censure the Pakistan Government or the Muslims concerned. The Muslim atrocities resorted to in Pakistan to root out the Hindu culture and the Hindu society have been entirely due to the teachings of Gandhiji and his behaviour. If the Indian

politics had been handled in a practical manner there would never have been the terrible human slaughter as has taken place—a thing without any precedent in History.

• that Gandhiji never cared for the opinion of the people so far as Muslims were concerned. His theme of non-violence had now been deeply soaked in human blood and it was impossible for people to entertain any idea in favour of Pakistan. So long as there is a theocratic State and Government by the side of Indian Union, the peace and tranquillity of the Union shall ever remain in danger. But in spite of all these facts, Gandhiji had taken in his hand the task of a propaganda which even the staunchest adherent of the Muslim League would scarcely have been able to do for stopping the spread of unfavourable opinion about Pakistan in the minds of the people.
• 126. About this very time he resorted to his last fast unto death. Every condition given by him for giving up the fast is in favour of Muslims and against the Hindus.
• Gandhiji for the breaking of his fast unto death related to the mosques in Delhi occupied by the Refugees. This condition was to the effect that all the mosques in Delhi which were occupied by the Refugees should be vacated or got vacated and be made over to the Muslims. Gandhiji got this condition accepted by the Government and a number of leaders by

past experience that Mr. Jinnah was not at all perturbed or influenced by his fast and that the Muslim League hardly attached any value to the 'Inner voice' of Gandhiji.

• 128. It would not be out of place to state here that the remains—ashes—of Gandhiji were distributed in large towns and many rivers in India and abroad but the said ashes could not be immersed in the Holy Indus passing through the Pakistan in spite of the endeavours of Shri Shree Prakash, the Indian High Commissioner in Pakistan.
• 129. Let us then take the case of 55 crores. Here read from the Indian Information dated 2nd February 1948 the following extracts:
       • Extracts from the speech of the Houourable Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel at the press conference held on 12th January, 1948.
       • Extract from the speech of the Honourable
         Sir Shanmukham Chetty.
       • India's spontaneous gesture of good will, and
       • An extract from the Honourable the Prime Minister's statement.

Gandhiji himself has said about these 55 crores that it is always very difficult to make any Government to alter its decisions. But the Government have altered and changed their original decision of withholding the payment of Rs. 55 crores of Pakistan and the

reason for doing so was his fast unto death. (Gandhiji's sermon at Prayer-Meeting held on or about the 21st of January 1948). The decision to with-hold the payment of Rs. 55 cores to Pakistan was taken up by our Government which claims to be the people's Government. But this decision of the people's Government was reversed to suit the tune of Gandhiji's fast. It was evident to my mind that the force of public opinion was nothing but a trifle when compared with the leanings of Gandhiji favourable to Pakistan.

• 130. The creation of Pakistan is the result of the Muslim hosility to the national movement of India. A number of people who showed their allegiance to Pakistan have been clapped in jail as fifth columnists by this very Government. But to my mind Gandhiji himself was the greatest supporter and advocate of Pakistan and no power could have any control on him in this attitude of his.
• 131. In these circumstances the only effective remedy to relieve the Hindus from the Muslim atrocities was, to my mind, to remove Gaudhiji from this world.
• 132. Gandhiji is being referred to as the Father of the Nation—an epithet of high reverence. But if so, he has failed in his paternal duty in as much as he has acted very treacherously to the nation by his consenting to the partitioning of it. Had Gandhiji really maintained his opposition to the creation of Pakistan, the Muslim League could have had no strength to claim it and the Britishers also could not have created

it in spite of all their utmost efforts for its establishment. The reason for this is not far to seek. The people of this country were eager and vehement in their opposition to Pakistan. But Gandhiji played false with the people and gave parts of the country to the Wuslims for the creation of Pakistan. I stoutly maintain that Gandhiji in doing so has failed in his duty which was incumbent upon him to carry out, as the Father of the Nation. He has proved to be the Father of Pakistan. It was for this reason alone that I as a dutiful son of Mother India thought it my duty to put an end to the life of the socalled Father of the Nation, who had played a very prominent part in bringing about the vivisection of the country—Our Motherland.

history. It is not at all necessary to refer to the atrocious misdeeds perpetrated by the Nizam's Ministers and the Razakars. Laik Ali the Prime Minister of Hyderabad had an interview with Gandhiji during the last week of January 1948. It was evident from the manner in which Gandhiji looked at these Hyderabad affairs, that Gandhiji would soon start his experiments of non-violence in the State of Hyderabad and treat Kasim Razvi as his adopted son just as Suhrawardy. It was not at all difficult to see that is was impossible for the Government in spite of all the powers to take any strong measures against the Muslim State like Hyderabad so long as Gandhiji was there. Had the Government then decided to take any military of police action against Hyderabad it would have been compelled to withdraw its decision just as was done

in the case of the payment of Rs. 55 crores, for Gandhiji would have gone on fast unto death and Government's hands would have been forced to save the life of Gandhiji

• Gandhiji is to endure or put up with the blows of the aggressor without showing any resistance either by weapon or by physical force. Gandhiji has, while describing his nonviolence given the example of a 'tiger becoming a follower of the creed of nonviolence after the cows allowed themselves to be killed and swallowed in such large numbers that the tiger ultimately god tired of killing them.' It will be remembered that at Kanpur, Ganesh Shanker Vidyarthi fell a victim to the murderous assault by the Muslims of the place on him. Gandhiji has often cited this submission to the Muslims' blows as an ideal example of embracing death for the creed of non-violence. I firmly believed and believe that the non-violence of the type described above will lead the nation to ruin and make it easy for Pakistan to enter the remaining India and occupy the same.
• 135. Briefly speaking, I thought to myself and foresaw that I shall be totally ruined and the only thing that 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 for kill Gandhiji. But at the same time I felt that the Indian politics in the absence of Gandhiji would surely be 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 reason which I consider to be necessary for sound nationbuilding. After having fully considered the question, I took the final decision in the matter but I did not speak about it to any one whatsoever. I took courage in my both hands and I did fire the shots at Gandhiji on 30th January, 1948 on the prayer grounds in Birla House.

• 136. There now remains hardly anything for me to say. If devotion to one's country amounts to a sin, I admit I have committed that sin. If it is meritorious, I humbly claim the merit thereof. I fully and confidently believe that if there be any other court of justice beyond the one founded by the mortals, my act will not be taken as unjust. If after the death there be no such place to reach or to go, there is nothing to be said. I have resorted to the action I did purely for the benefit of the humanity. I do say that my shots were fired at the person whose policy and action had brought rack and ruin and destruction to lakhs of Hindus.
• 137. Really speaking, my life also came to an end simultaneously with the shorts fired by me at Gandhiji. Since then I have been passing my days as if in trance and meditation. Whatever I have seen and observed during this time has given me complete satisfaction.
• 138. The problem of the State of Hyderabad which had been unnecessarily delayed and postponed

has been rightly solved by our Government by the use of armed force after the demise of Gandhiji. The present Government of the remaining India is seen taking the course of practical politics. The Home Member is said to have expressed the view that the nation must be possessed of armies fully equipped with modern arms and fighting machinery. While giving out such expressiods he does say that such a step would be in keeping with the ideale of Gandhiji. He may say so for his satisfaction. But one must not forget that if that were so there would be no difference in the means for the protection of the country devised by Hitler, Mussolici or Churchill or Rusevelt, and scheme based on non-violence as envisaged by Gandhiji. It would then be impossible to say that there was any new and special message of non-violence of Gandhiji.

139. I am prepared to concede that Gandhiji did undergo sufferings for the sake of the nation. He did bring about an awakening in the minds of the people. He also did nothing for personal gain; but it pains me to say that he was not honest enough to acknowledge the defeat and failure of the principle of non-violence on all sides. I have read the lives of other intelligent and powerful Indian patriots who have made sacrifices even greater than those done by Gandhiji. I have seen personally some of them. But whatever that may de, I shall bow in respect to the service done by Gandhiji to the country, and to Gandhiji himself for the said service. and before I fired the shots I actually wished him and bowed to

servant of the country had no right to vivisect the country—the image of our worship—by deceiving the people. But he did it all the same. There was no legal machinery by which such an offender could be brought to book and it was therefore that I resorted to the firing of shots at Gandhiji as that was the only thing for me to do.

• it would have been better for me. But circumstances were beyond my control. So strong was the impulse of my mind that I felt that this man should not be allowed to meet a natural peath so that the world may know that he had to pay the penalty of his life for his unjust, anti-national and dengerous favouritism towards a fanatical section of the country. I decided to put an end to this matter and to the further massance of lacs of Hindus for no fault of theirs. May God now pardon him for his egoistic nature which proved to be too disastrous for the beloved sons of this Holy Land.
• 141. I bear no ill-will or enmity towards anyone individual. Nor do I think that any person is inimical towards me personally. 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 Gandhiji in that behalf. But in the absence of such pressure, the way is now open for the establishment of a secular State in the true sense of that word. I have to say with

great regret that the Hon'ble Prime Minister Pandit Nehruji quite forgets that his actions and deeds are at times opposed to each other, when he talks about secular State in season and out of season; because it is significant to note that the Hon'ble Pandit Nehruji has himself taken a leading part in acquiescing to the establishment of Pakistan, a theocratic State. But he should have realised that it will never bring prosperity to Indian Union with a State founded on fantastically blind religious faith and basis by its side. After having considered absolutely to myself, my mind impelled me to take the action against Gandhiji. No one has brought and could bring any pressure on me in this act of mine.

• regared to the impulse my mind received and the action I did thereunder and may pass against me such orders of sentence as may be proper. I have no desire to say anything about it. I do not desire any mercy to be shown to me. I do not also wish that anyone on my behalf should beg for mercy towards me.

• 143. Several persons are arraigned along with me in this trial as conspirators. I have already said that in the act I did, I had no companions and I alon am solely responsible for my act. Had they not been arraigend with me I would not have even given any defence for me as would be clear from the fact that I desired and enjoined upon my counsel not to crossexamine any of the witnesses connected with the incident of the 30th of January, 1948.

• had never accepted the idea of peaceful demonstration even on 20th January, 1948 even for effective propaganda. However, I agreed to join this peaceful demonstration in the prayer-meeting of Gandhiji, though with great reluctance. But as luck would have it, I could not take part in it. And when I found that even such demonstration could not be effectively staged for one reason or the other, I became rather disappointed and desperate. Efforts of Mr. Apte and others to secure volvnteers made at Bombay, Poona and Gwalior bore no fruit. I could not then see any other way except to take the extreme course.

• 145. With these thoughts in my mind, while moving through the refugee Camp in Delhi, I met a photographer with a camera on his back, He asked me to get myself photographed. He seemed to be a refugee. I agreed and got myself photographed by him. On returning to the Delhi Railwey Station, I wrote two letters to Apte giving a faint idea of my mental state enclosing therewith my photographs as I felt it my duty to inform Mr Nanarao Apte as he was my close associate in my business of the press; one of such letter was addressed to him personally at his home address at Poona and another was sent to the Hindu Rashtra Office.
• 146. I wish to further state that all the statements made by me herein are entirely true and correct and each of them is made by reference to authoritative reference books. I have made use of the several issues of the Indian Information, an official organ of the

Government of India for the information of the public, Indian Year Book, History of the Congress, Gandhiji's Autobiography, Congress Bulletins issued from time to time and the files of Harijan and Young India, and Gandhiji's Post Prayer speeches. I have made this rather long statement not because I want the people to eulogise my act. My only object in doing so is to leave no room for any misunderstanding about me, and there should be no vagueness in their mind about my views.

• 147. May the country properly known as Hindusthan be again united and be one, and may the people be taught to discard the defeatist mentality leading them to submit to the aggressors. This is my last wish and prayer to the Almighty.
• 148. I have now finished; but before I sit down must sincerely and respectfully express my gratitude to Your Aonour for the patient hearing given, courtesy shown and facilities given to me. Similarly I express my gratitude to my legal advisers and counsel for their legal help in this great trial. I have no ill-will towards the Police Officers concerned with this case. I sincerely thank them for the kindness and the treatment given by them to me. Similarly, I also thank the Jail authorities for the good treatment given by them.
• 149. It is a fact that in the presence of a crowd numbering 300 to 400 people I did fire shots at Gandhiji in open daylight. I did not make any attempt to run away; in fact I never entertained any idea of running away. I did not try to shoot myself. It was

never my intention to do so, for, it was my ardent desire to give vent to my thoughts in an open Court.

150. 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 honest writers of history will weigh my act and find the true value thereof on some day in future.

'AKHANDA BHARAT AMAR RAHE' 'VANDE MATARAM'

Nathwam V. Godina.

Delhi, 8-11-1948

Sd/-ATMA CHARAN, 8th; November, 1948.

Two

Summary of List of Documents Annexed

• (1) Dy. Prime Minister's statement dated January 12, 1948. Payment of Cash Balances to Pakistan. Late Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, then Dy. Prime Minitser has in his statement exposed Pakistan's highhandedness and double game of acquiring cash balances from India and at the same time continuing the invasion on Kashmir. He has strongly defended in the statement India's stand of withholding the money.
• (2) The Finance Minister's account of negotiations reaffirms Sardar Patel's stand and sounds a note of warning that India cannot be cowed down by the campaion of

hectoring, bullying and scandalizing on the part of responsible Ministers of Pakistan.

• (3) The extract "India's spontaneous gesture of goodwill" first reiterates India's stand as just but then it yields to Gandhiji's fast and declares immediate releese of the cash balances of Rs. 55 crores.
• (4) This in an extract from the Prime Minister's statement. It avers that after consultation with Gandhiji Government had decided to release Rs. 55 crores.
• (5) The resolutions of Hindu Mahasabha at its Bilaspur session in December, 1944: They were supported by Shri N. V. Godse.
• (i) Basic principles of Constitution of independent Hindusthan: which will be styled as "Constitution of Hindusthan Free State."
• (ii) Historically, politically, ethnologically and culturally Hindusthan is one, whole and indivisible and so she shall remain.
• (iii) The Government to be democratic and federal in character
• (iv) The Federal Legislature to be bi-cameral in structure.
• (v) Election to be on adult franchise on one manone vote basis. The electrorates to be joint with reservation of seats for minorities on population basis.
• (vi) Fundamental Rights: All citizens to be equal in and before law. There shall be no law, civil or criminal, substantive or procedural, of a discriminative nature.

(vii) No citizen by reason of his colour, caste or creed to be prejudiced in any way in regard to public employment, office or power or honour or exercise of any profession, trade of calling.

(viii) All citizens shall, subject to public order or morality, enjoy freedom of conscience and profession and practice of religion and protetcion of cufture and language and no law shall be made directly or indirectly to endow any religion or prohibit or restrict the free exercise thereof or give any peference or impose disability on account of religious belief of religious status.

Prosecution and Defence Counsels

Sitting: third:

Shri Atma Charan, I.C.S., Judge, Special Court, Red Fort, Delhi.

Three

The Will

The will of Nathuram is in the form of a letter in Hindi, addressed to Shri Dattatraya Vinayak Godse, his younger brother. The Magistrate put a seal over it on November 15, 1949. The Jail authorities passed on the letter to Shri Dattatray.

Nethuram left behind only valuable property—his ashes—and instructed how to dispose them of.

Ambala Jail,

My dear Dattatraya,

I you are allowed to perform last rites of my body you may perform them in any manner. But I am to express herewith a specific wish.

The river Indus (Sindhu), on the banks of which our pre-historic Rishis composed the Vedas is the Boundaro of our Bharatvarsha i.e. Hindusthan.

My ashes may be sunk in the Holy Sindhu river when she will again flow freely under the aegis of the flag of Hindutshan. That will be the sacred day for us.

It hardly matters even if it took a couple of generations for realising my wish. Preserve the ashes till then, and if that day would not dawn in your life time, pass on the remains to posterity for translating my desire into reality.

If and when the Government lifts ban on my statement made in the Court, I authorise you to publish it.*

14-11-1949

Nathuram Vinayak Godse

I have donated Rs. 101/- on this day for its utilisation for the dome (kalasha) of the sacred Somnath temple which is under construction.

15-11-1949

Nathuram Vinayak Godse

7-15 a.m.

Seal of The Magistrate

Shri Dattatraya has passed on to the author of this book the rights of publishing the statement, for which the author is dutifully grateful. The author is younger to Shri Dettatraya.

EWATANTRYA VEER VINAYAK DAMODAR SAVARKAR Acquitted on 10th Feb. 1949.

GOPAL GODSE
(Publisher of this book) Transportation for life
Released on 13th Oct. 1964.

VISHNU KARKARE: Transportation for Life Released on 13th Oct. 1964.

MADANLAL PAHWA: Transportation for Life Released on 13th Oct. 1964.

NATHURAM GODSE Executed on 15th Nov. 1949.

NARAYAÑ APTE Executed on 15th Nov. 1949.

Other Books by the Author

Gandhi Hatya Ani Mee (Marathi) Rs. 40.00 (Gandhi Assassination and I)
Translated into Hindi, Kannad and Udia.

Pandhavan Kotinche Bali (Marethi) Rs. 12.50 (Victims of Fifty-five Crores) (Out of Print)

Translated into Hindi under title Gandhi Vadh Kyon? (The reasons of Gandhi Murder)

Krantikarakancha Adhyatmavad Rs. 8.00 (Marathi)

(Spiritual Philosophy of the Revolutionaries)
(Out of Print)

Jaya Mrityunjaya (Marathi) Rs. 4.0 (Reverence to the Immoratal; Poems on Veer Savarkar (Out of Print)

Shaeene Ka Lihila Jaee Rashtracha
Itihas (Marathi)
Rs. 12.00
(History of the Nation is not written with\nink) (Stories of Revolutionaries unknown)
(Out of Print)

Has a Life convict to Die in prison under the Indian Law? (English) Rs. 15.00 (Out of Print)

English Version of 'Gandhi Assossination | and I' will be published shortly.

My life also came to an end simultaneously with the shots fired by me at Gandhiji. Since then I have been passing my days as if in trance and meditation.

I am prepared to concede that Gandhiji did undergo sufferings for the sake of the Nation. I shall bow in respect to the service and to him. But even this servant of the country had no right to vivisect the country by deceiving the people.

I do not desire any mercy to be shown to me. I do not also wish that any one on my behalf should beg mercy towards me.

If devotion to one's own country amounts to a sin, I admit I have committed that sin. If it is meritorious, I humbly claim the merit thereof.

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.

Nathuram V. Go-die.
November 8, 1948