It was January 30’1948 when Gandhiji was about to attend a meeting in Delhi’s Birla house. Gandhiji entered the place followed by his grandnieces Manuben and Abha. As he enters, a man wearing khaki bows down on knees on which Manuben said, “He is already late. Why do you embarrass him now?” But as soon as the words dropped from her mouth three shots of gun were heard to which Gandhi immediately falls to the ground. The killer then on the spot surrenders and confesses the crime and later to which doctor declared that Gandhiji is dead. Everyone was shocked and wanted to know why the person did named Nathuram killed Gandhiji?
To know the reason for why Nathuram killed Gandhiji, we have to understand what could be his mindset at the point that forced him to do so? What can be the circumstances that he was in during the situation? On the top of all, we have to understand who actually was Nathuram Godse, how his childhood passes and how did he grew up?
Nathuram Godse was actually born as Ramchandra Godse in a small village of Bombay-Pune belt. His parents were blessed with three baby boys but unfortunately all of them died during infancy. The parents were quite frightened and due to this they started the upbringing of Ramchandra as a girl until another son was born in the family. They had him pierced his nose and ears and he also started wearing a nose ring or nath. This is the reason why people started calling him Nathuram Godse. With this practices of his family he might have contravened the death but living as a girl had left him in extreme confusion and doubtful about his sexuality.
After Nathuram was arrested for the crime, he found Mahatma Gandhi’s son Devdas who was the editor of “Hindustan Times”. Gopal Godse, Nathuram’s brother, fellow inmate, and co-cabalist explained the encounter to Devdas when he visited the police station located in Parliament Street to see his father’s slayer. Gopal Godse has mentioned in his book titled, “Gandhiji’s Murder and After”, that “Devdas perhaps went there imagining to find some horrid-looking, blood-thirsty monster, who will seem ruthless; but Nathuram’s gentle and clear words and his self-composure were quite inconsistent to what Devdas expected.” Nathuram told Devdas, “I am Nathuram Vinayak Godse, the editor of a daily, “Hindu Rashtra”. I too was present there. Today you have lost your father and I am the cause of that tragedy. I am very much grieved at the dispossession that has befallen you and the rest of your family. Please trust me; I haven’t done any of this with any personal hatred, or any grudge or any evil intention towards you.”
When Gods was asked about the reason he told Devdas that, he respected Gandhi. He even studied whatever Veer Savarkar and Gandhiji both had written and spoken to the people. He said what Gandhi has done in South Africa for the rights of Indian community were commendable. But when he returned India he developed a mentality that he was the only person to judge what was right or wrong. “If the countrymen desired him to be in leadership, they had to accept his impeccability; if it did not, he would stand apart from the Congress and carry on his own way.”
This caused the change in the thought process of Nathuram. The other reason that provoked him to kill Gandhi was that Gandhiji was the one who supported the partition of India to create Pakistan. Godse said, “When the top leaders of Congress, having the consent of Gandhi, divided and tore the country into parts – which we consider as a deity of worship – my mind was filled with horrendous anger. I bear no ill will towards anyone individually but 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 Gandhi.”
Nathuram was also a member of RSS community. When Gandhi was shot, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Vallabhai Patel and Lord Mountbatten were the first person to run up to him and a voice from the audience spoke that a Muslim has killed Gandhi. To this, Lord Mountbatten replied, “the one who killed Gandhi is a Hindu and not a Muslim. After Godse joined RSS, his perspective towards Gandhi was completely changed. This is the reason fearing of what consequences RSS can lead, in one of his speech Sardar Vallabhai Patel said, “RSS leaders’ speech had enough venom.
It was the illicit passion, and the mindset of Godse against Gandhi that forced him to assassinate Gandhiji.
