Nathuram Godse, the man who killed Gandhi

Nathuram Godse

Today is the anniversary of the birth of Nathuram Godse, the criminal who killed Mahatama Gandhi in cold blood. I don't think it's great date to remember, but in India this anniversary is celebrated by many people, too, as if it were a national holiday to celebrate a hero, then I say something too.

Personally I have a different opinion of the heroes and even if we find them among those who use violence, we could hardly considered hero who in cold blood with a gun kill a defenseless old man.

So, Nathuram Vinayak Godse was born May 19, 1910 at Ambala in a family of Brahmins. Since his youth he joined the Indian independence movement and also participated in several initiatives of civil disobedience organized by Gandhi against the British Raj, he was arrested for this and tortured by the police.

His proximity to Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, Hindu fundamentalist leader, however, led him to positions antithetical to those of the Mahatma and as regards the rejection of violence and most of all for hatred against Muslims.

Precisely the attitude that Gandhi had towards the Indians of Islamic faith is the main fault that Godse and most of the Indians integralistici imputed (and impute) to the Mahatma.

Gandhi is accused of being too accommodating with Indian Muslims, of being responsible for the partition and the creation of Pakistan, of having fasted against massacres of Muslims in India and not of Hindus in Pakistan and, finally, of demanding that the Indian Republic gave to the newborn Pakistan state funding they were entitled under the agreements of the partition.

Godse decided to kill Gandhi when he began a fast for the massacres of Muslims by Hindu fundamentalists, "the accumulating provocation (of Gandhi) of thirty-two years, culminating in his last pro-Muslim fast, - Godse said during the trial - at last goaded me to the conclusion that the existence of Gandhi should be brought to an end immediately.... I do say - continued Godse - that my shots were fired at the person whose policy and action had brought rack and ruin and destruction to millions of Hindus."

For the murder of Gandhi, Godse was arrested and sentenced to death along with his accomplice Narayan Apte. Despite the opposition of the followers of the Mahatma, Godse and Apte were hanged on November 15, 1949.