Gandhi assassinated due to partition riots, not Hindu fanaticism: Savarkar
GOANEWS DESK, PANAJI | 30 January 2016 22:33 IST
Satyaki Savarkar (middle) releases the book on Godse
Nobody justifies assassination of Mahatma Gandhi by Nathuram Godse, but the killing happened out of the situation arisen from India-Pakistan partition and atrocities on Hindus, says Satyaki Savarkar, grandnephew of Swatantryaveer Vinayak Damodar Savarkar.
After shifting the venue from Ravindra Bhavan due to government decision to withdraw his booking, the book by Anup Sardesai, ‘Nathuram Godse: The Story of as Assassin’ was released today evening at MCC hall in Margao.
Savarkar said even the family of Godse did not justify Nathuram’s act of shooting down the Mahatma.
When Nathuram’s mother was asked whether he could be pardoned by the court, she said it would lead to people losing faith in the judiciary, said the young heir of Savarkar.
“The whole family of Godse was law-abiding like how majority Hindu community is still law-abiding.”
In spite of this, he said, the pseudo Gandhians burnt down houses in Pune and harassed the Godse family. These facts need to be brought to light.
Sardesai, who has authored the English book, said he has brought all the facts to the light without becoming judgemental about the incident of assassination or glorifying Nathuram.
“Nathuram was denied appointment by Gandhi to discuss the situation arisen out of Hindu-Muslim riots following which he took the extreme step to assassinate him”, said Savarkar.
According to him, Nathuram was disturbed because the Hindus always believed in Gandhi and consulted him while the Hindu community became the victim of riots. At this stage, he thought Gandhi should not remain alive.
“Gandhi has always been portrayed as the victim of Hindu terrorism, but in reality he was the victim of the situation arisen out of partition which led to the worst communal riots the country witnessed soon after independence”, said Savarkar.
He also quoted Acharya Kriplani, who reportedly has written down that Gandhi had failed to find a solution based on his non-violence theory when the whole country was burning due to communal riots.
Sanjay Vaishyampayan, Pune-based president of Hindu Mahasabha, on the occasion said people should judge after knowing all the sides, who was the Mahatma – Gandhi or Godse.
This view was suppressed for several decades by the so-called sentinels of demicracy. After assasination of Gandhi his death, rather than his life, was exploited by then regime. Any contrary view other than that of establishment was regarded as intolerance to Gandhi.
While no one can justify the killing of Gandhi it is true to certain extent that Hindu communalism was not the reason for the killing.Gandhi's agreeing to pay the compensation to Pakistan and his inability to stop Indians being killed in Pakistan was more of a reason.
This books release is proof that there are people in Goa who feel that assassination has reasons .Are Goans that peaceful ?