FRIDAY was the anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi`s assassination by Nathuram Godse. He was killed at a prayer meeting in Delhi on Jan 30, 1948, interestingly the same date when Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany in 1930. But the plot to kill Gandhi was hatched on Jan 13 when he began a fast to press a point in favour of Pakistan. It is disheartening that Pakistani schoolchildren, in fact, even their Indian counterparts, are kept in the dark about the reasons for the plotters to kill him.

It is strange in many ways that Godse who thought Gandhi appeased Muslims shot in cold blood the man reviled as a wily Hindu leader in Pakistan. How many schoolchildren or even adult Pakistanis know the reason why Gandhi became the target of Godse`s sinister plot? That fact is that before he was killed, Gandhi was protesting against the refusal by the Indian government to transfer Rs550 million it owed Pakistan. Godse and his group of plotters felt the money would be used by Pakistan to kill Indian soldiers in Kashmir. But Gandhi, as always, had his way. He got India to release the money and broke his fast, not unaware that his support for Pakistan could cost him his life. So that was at least part of the reason why they killed him.

One of the reasons I wait for Gandhi`s anniversaries is that we get to hear some good music, including bhajans he liked or would have liked to hear. This year we heard Sawani Mudgal for the first time, a young lady from the well-known Gharana of musicians of which the late Kumar Gandharva was better known in Pakistan and elsewhere. Sawani sings with unusual poise and her voice is sweet and well groomed. She sang the heart-tugging Vaishnav Jana to tene kahiye, a bhajan in Gujarati dialect that extols the compassionate human being. Her concluding bhajan, Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram, celebrates the bonding between Hindus and Muslims through the prism of shared divinity, in which Ishwar and Allah are two names of one God. Extremists on both sides would differ. But there was this way Muslims used to celebrate Lord Ram before he was snatched away by zealots to play politics with. Of Ram, whose name was abused in Karnataka recently by his spurious followers, Allama Iqbal said

Hai Ram ke wajood pe Hindostan ko naaz

Ahl-e-nazar samajhte hain usko imam-e-Hind.

In a nutshell it means that Ram may be seen as an idol by a few, but the discerning see him as an ideal, an imam of India. Gandhi`s thoughts may seem somewhat maudlin or even out of place in today`s India. Misguided Muslims in Pakistan revile him and mistrusting Hindus in India, whose numbers unfortunately have increased dramatically, killed him. I read somewhere that Gandhi`s two sons and Jawaharlal Nehru had opposed the hanging of his assassin and Narayan Apte, one of the accomplices. They argued that death sentence was against the spirit of non-violence, which Gandhi had died for. But South Asians have always had a strange violent streak. So they hanged Godse and Apte, both colleagues in a Marathi newspaper they founded.

Gandhi may have had many angularities in his personality that riled his detractors. The Dalits still think he let them down by his gesture of shunning untouchability but not doing anything to get them land so that they could subsist with dignity. But to call him wily and dangerous as Hindu revivalists in India and Muslim extremists in Pakistan do, is an exaggeration. To kill his killers was equally foolish. Just look at the consequences of that momentary vengefulness. The entire lot of Malegaon false flag plotters - Hindus pretending to be Muslims - sworn to kill Muslims (and Hindus too if they crossed swords) have become heroes in Gujarat and now even in Karnataka. Had we been more open to dissidence, even if it propagated violence, we would be able to understand their perspective better - and perhaps wean them away from their disastrous course.

When Indira Gandhi hanged Maqbool Butt, the Kashmiri rebel had already become a vegetable after years of torture in jail. What did his hanging do to resolve the issue of Kashmir? Did it deter his followers from venting even more anger against Indian troops in their state? Now there is a huge demand to hang Afzal Guru, the Kashmiri convict on death row for his involvement in the parliament attack case. Will it solve a single problem? Can anyone deter suicide bombers with threats to kill them? And yet Gandhi`s detractors are raising slogans such as two eyes for an eye; a jaw for a tooth. There is a clamour for India to have mediaeval laws worse than Iraq and Afghanistan as though these were great success stories in their war with terrorism.

There is so much blind hatred of alleged or real terrorists that very intelligent minds in India have joined the chorus to deny Ajmal Qasab a fair trial. They believe that the heartless killer of Mumbai should not be given even a lawyer to defend himself. Only a very brave lawyer will, therefore, stick his neck out and in the knowledge that there would be retribution. All this defies the fair legal system the country loves to flaunt. Qasab will probably face the death penalty. Suppose he is hanged, would that deter terrorists from carrying out another outrage? Many Indians and many more people confronting terrorism elsewhere would like to know and understand Qasab`s mind. They would want to know the mind of Godse too.

Unfortunately, there is not much original research being done to help us understand why simple people become evil. There is no valid reason why a play proclaiming the point of view of Nathuram Godse was banned, more so when it was allowed to be shown in the United States. We could have only learnt from it.

Somewhere in Pradeep Dalvi`s play based on the assassins` writings This is Nathuram Godse speaking - Gandhi`s killer says “Time is eternal, indestructible. You can turn its pages but never, never tear them out. Gandhi has acquired some position in history, which nobody can deny, not even Nathuram. The page will be there forever, in fact. Sometime in the future, in some storm, the pages will flutter and there will be that same Gandhi`s page before the world. I don`t refute Gandhi`s theory of non-violence. He may be a saint but he is not a politician. His theory of non-violence denies self-defence and self-interest. The non-violence that defines the fight for survival as violence is a theory not of non-violence but of self-destruction.” I think this is exactly the logic of Al Qaeda and religious extremists elsewhere.

A conversation between Nana Apte and Nathuram Godse is worth noting as it deals with their views on Mohammed Ali Jinnah.

Apte Jinnah wanted to be the prime minister...

Nathuram But we never opposed a Muslim prime minister. In a democracy you cannot put forward your demands at today...

Nana They are also equally responsible.

Nathuram Of course, they are responsible! Gandhi blackmailed them with his fast unto death. His body, his threats to die are causing the destruction geographical as well as economical of the nation. Today, Muslims have taken a part of the nation, tomorrow Sikhs may ask for Punjab. The religions are again divided into castes; they will demand sub-divisions of the divisions. What remains of the concept of one nation, national integration? Why did we fight the British in unison for independence? Why not separately? Bhagat Singh did not ask only for an independent Punjab or Subhash Chandra Bose for an independent Bengal?

Had the play not been banned, it would be that much more difficult for Godse`s supporters to be brazen in their attack on M.F. Husain`s paintings, or a Safdar Hashmi exhibition. It would have made it easier for Indians and others to take evasive action against rising wave of “Indian Taliban”, both the Hindu and Muslim variety. There are good reasons why Qasab deserves an open trial. In which case why deny a fair hearing to Godse?

jawednaqvi@gmail.com