We all killed the Mahatma, or, why Rahul Gandhi should say sorry to RSS

A day after the Supreme Court asked Rahul Gandhi to either apologise to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) or face trial in a defamation case filed by the latter, the Congress vice-president seems determined to take the latter route. He perhaps thinks that standing against the RSS and reopening one of the saddest events of independent India’s history — the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi — might fortify his secular credentials.

Rahul Gandhi should avoid this debate for at least two reasons: One, is that this is a debate the RSS wants because at the end of it, the law will come to the same conclusion that the Supreme Court came to yesterday. There is nothing on record to suggest that the RSS was involved in the conspiracy to kill the Mahatma and and a trial (in the defamation case filed by the RSS against Rahul) will not change that one bit.

On the contrary — and that’s the second reason why Rahul Gandhi should avoid this adventurism with history — records show that a throwback to the times that created an atmosphere of hate for the Mahatma, might indict many stalwarts from the Congress party as well.

A brief detour in history is called for here.

“Marta hai to marne doh (if he has to die, let it be so)” was the full-throated slogan that rang in Mahatma Gandhi’s ears till his assassination on 30 January, 1948.

Crowds of refugees from Pakistan and Hindu-hardliners gathered outside Birla House in Lutyen’s Delhi where he put up in that winter and displayed uncharacteristic belligerence towards the father of the nation.

The Delhi Police used to cordon off the area to insulate Gandhi from the mob fury. Still they could not prevent some from hurling a stone or two at regular intervals to register their protests at Gandhi’s peddling for peace.

Prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru and deputy prime minister Sardar Patel were regular visitors. So was Governor General Lord Mountbatten but people’s fury knew no bounds. Gandhi was despised, booed and shunned by his own people for his adamant demand that India should help the new nation-state of Pakistan monetarily. Only a few days earlier — in the midst of all the mutual hatred that accompanied history’s bloodiest partition — he had persuaded the Nehru-Patel combine to part with Rs 50 crore in assistance to Pakistan.

Ten days before his assassination on 30 Januray, 1948, Madanlal Pahwa, one such refugee from Pakistan, threw bombs at Gandhi’s prayer meeting. He missed the target. Gandhi was unfazed and had refused to criticise that ‘bahadur ladka (bold boy)’. In true Mahatma style, he told his confidants: “Bachche hain, abhi yeh samajhte nahin, maroonga tab yaad karenge ki buddha theek kahta tha (they are child, do not know what they do. In my death they will realize that the old man was right.”

In a book titled The Men Who Killed Gandhi, writer Manohar Malgonkar, has chronicled the details of the events that preceded and culminated in Gandhi’s killing. He talked to those who were convicted and relatives of Nathuram Godse and Narayan Apte, two convicts hanged to death for the Mahatma’s assassination.

The reading of the book is quite instructive in light of the Supreme Court’s direction to Rahul Gandhi to either apologise for making a sweeping accusation against the RSS for Gandhi’s killing or face trial. This book reveals that should Rahul Gandhi decide to face the trial, the can of worms from history will not leave the tallest Congress leaders of those times unscathed. The reality was that the Congress leadership had virtually isolated Gandhi and often found him as an obstacle that was barely tolerable.

Of course, Nehru and Patel were extremely fond of him and rushed to him to get counsel on issues as petty as their bruised personal egos. Yet there were all indications that Gandhi became a loner towards the fag end of his life. In this meticulously researched book, Malgonkar points out that Pahwa’s attempt to assassinate Gandhi and subsequent investigations paint a clear picture about second, successful, attempt on Gandhi’s life. According to Malgonkar, Pahwa revealed as to how Hindu Mahasabha members — Nathuram Godse , Narayan Apte and Vishnu Karkare — were determined to kill Gandhi. The Delhi police had all the evidence but chose to look the other way.

Ironically in post-independent India, Gandhi’s life was apparently less precious than during the time of colonial India. The country was so consumed by the atmosphere of hatred and violence that it deeply infected even the most ardent devotees of the apostle of peace and truth. Even the Congress leadership was constantly at loggerheads with Gandhi’s idea of India and Pakistan. His message of communal amity and peace was construed as lamentation of an old man refusing to reconcile with the idea that he had lost his charm. In such circumstances, it would not be wrong to say that Gandhi emerged as the most “hated, despised and ridiculed” figure in a nation craving for revenge and violence well before he was done in by Godse.

In fact Godse’s conduct after Gandhi’s assassination was quite fascinating. He gave up before the police and asked them to recover his Bretta pistol snatched by the crowd. His depositions in court displayed his conviction in his cause. Though his motive was fed by the concept of deep-rooted Hindu nationalism, throughout the trial, he singularly owned up the decision to kill Gandhi. He did everything to project himself as symbol of the nation’s collective conscience. Witness the self-righteous tone of this statement during deposition: “Had this act not been done by me, of course 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 his natural death so that the world may know that he had to pay the penalty of his life for his unjust, anti-national and dangerous favouritism towards a fanatical section of the country.”

Gandhi’s assassination plunged the nation into a catharsis of guilt. Savarkar was arraigned in the court but let off for want of evidence. There was a vertical split in the Nehru cabinet on the issue of implicating Savarkar and others on false charges. This was confessed to Savarkar’s lawyer by no less a person than the then Union law minister BR Ambedkar during a conversation with Savarkar’s lawyer LB Bhopatkar. The acquittal of Savarkar made the case even against the Hindu Mahasabha untenable in the conspiracy to assassinate Gandhi.

Perhaps the most appropriate summarization of the nation’s dilemma and mood on Gandhi’s assassination was scripted by high court judge justice GD Khosla who delivered the verdict. He said, “Had the audience of the day (in the high court) 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.”

History has an uncanny tendency to reveal uncomfortable truths. In Gandhi’s assassination, Rahul Gandhi dabbled into a history which is bound to be unsavoury. Given the facts, it would be fooling ourselves to believe that Gandhi’s assassins belonged to a particular ideology. Far from it, we as a nation found the existence of Gandhi in Independent India too cumbersome and contributed in our own way to Godse’s plan.

Should Rahul Gandhi decide to ignore the Supreme Court’s advice to apologise to the RSS and rest the case, he is sure to encounter truths that may not be palatable to him individually and his party collectively. Had Gandhi been alive he would have said in his inimitable style, “bachcha hai abhi samajhta nahi hai”.

Let us not kill Gandhi all over again.