On 30 January 1948, Gandhi was assassinated by Nathuram Godse in New Delhi. He never denied the fact, nor did he plead for clemency. In his defence he read out his statement in the Special Court on 8 November 1948. But politicians like Nehru and Sardar Patel who were in power, immediately banned its publication. Not one western journalist or reporter protested against this gagging. And they all pretended to be freedom-loving men!

Nathuram Godse and Nana Apte were executed in Ambala Jail on 15 November 1949.

It now sounds strange, but in Glasgow, there was one Mr Guy Aldred, a fearless journalist and editor. In his youth he had supported Savarkar (1906-10). He started a quarterly magazine entitled WORD. Its first issue came out in spring (April) 1950. It was called - Gandhi Murder Trial. It contained Official Account of the Trial of Godse, Apte, and others for Murder and conspiracy with Verbatim Reports of speeches by Godse and Savarkar.
No western author has taken any notice of this publication.

I was made aware of this magazine in 1986.There was a programme on British TV (on Channel 4, I think) alleging that the RSS and VHP were communal organisations and were involved in the killing of Gandhi and therefore both should be banned in U.K. Some Sangh workers did research and found out about the Special issue of WORD of Guy Aldred. Bhaskar-rao Gadre, chief of RSS in Pune, India, saw me at work at Edgware tube station, London and handed over a Xerox copy of that issue. I was stunned to read it.

In 1977, ban on publication of Nathuram's statement was lifted (after nearly 30 years) and it was published by Nathuram's younger brother Gopal Godse.

In 2007, I scanned the pages of book published by Gopal Godse. Before putting it on internet I compared it with the special issue of WORD. I realised that there are discrepancies between the two publications. We don't know how Guy Aldred obtained the details of court proceedings of Gandhi Murder Trial. So, it is possible that he did not get some passages in Nathuram's statement. However, one is astonished that many passages in Guy Aldred's magazine are NOT found in Gopal Godse's book. I contacted Gopal Godse's daughter Asilata and met her in Pune in February 2008 but got no satisfactory answer.

I have tried my best to combine the two versions of Nathuram's statement for the benefit of the readers.

Nathuram's testimony falls into three sections
1. Events in January 1948 that led to Gandhi's assassination.
2. Refutation of the allegation was that he was merely a tool in the hands of
Savarkar. He took strong objection to this and explains how he disagreed with
Savarkar and slowly drifted away from him and would not consult him in any way.
3. How Gandhi consistently betrayed Hindu interests with impunity and would not
mend his ways even after the tragedy of partition of India and would not retire from
politics.

He argues quite forcefully that the problem of Hyderabad was solved within 3 days
Only because he had killed Gandhi, leaving Nehru and Patel to act freely. If not that problem would have become another headache. No one can doubt that.

V S Godbole July 2008
England

GODSE'S STATEMENT

One
May It Please Your Honour

It was the Court of the Special Judge, Red Fort, Delhi. The prosecution had concluded its evidence in the Mahatma Gandhi Murder Case, viz. Rex versus Nathuram Vinayak Godse and others.

The Special Judge, Shri Atma Charan, had taken his seat. Quiet enveloped the Courtroom. The accused were seated in their respective seats in the dock. Counsels on either side were present. The Press reporters were ready tensely holding their pens.

The Courtroom was packed to capacity. People were allowed entry only with passes. The say of the accused was going to be heard. The day was November 8, 1948.

The Judge started examination of the accused under Section 342 of the Criminal Procedure Code. He announced, "Accused No. 1 Nathuram Vinayak Godse, Hindu, age 37 years, Editor, Hindurashtra, Poona -- "

Nathuram was up on his legs immediately after hearing 'accused No. 1.'

"You have heard" the Judge continued," the entire evidence produced on behalf of the prosecution as against you. What have you to say with regard to it? "

"I am to submit my written statement, Your Honour ", Nathuram replied.

"Go ahead; read your statement " said the Judge. At this stage Shri Daphtari, the Advocate General stood up to object. He said, " Your Honour, the accused may be allowed to depose only what is consistent with this case. Otherwise he may not be allowed to read his statement."

The Judge disallowed the objection.

Nathuram stood poised before the mike to read from his written statement. The silence, which had hollowed the Courtroom, was accentuated by the relay of echoes from the walls with his clear and resonant wards-.
MAY IT PLEASE YOUR HONOUR--

PART I
Answer to Charge-sheet

I, Nathuram Vinayak Godse, the first accused above named respectfully beg to state as under:

(1) Before I make my submission as regards the various charges I respectfully submit that the charges as framed are not according to law, in as much as there is a misjoinder of charges and there ought to have been two separate trials; one relating to the incident of the 20th of January 1948 and the other relating to the incident of the 30th of January 1948. The two having been mixed up together the whole trial is vitiated.

(2) Without prejudice to my above submission I make my submission in respect of the various charges as framed as stated hereafter.

The main charges against me are --
(a) conspiracy to murder and
(b) the actual murder of Gandhi on January 30, 1948.
The other charges that have been framed against me are under the Indian Arms Act and the Explosive Substances Act as well as under the Indian Penal Code of Abatement, but I do not wish to deal with these comparatively minor and technical charges.

I shall deal briefly with the first accusation. I submit with some degree of emphasis that in deciding to assassinate Gandhi I had conspired with none and had consulted none but my conscience and was guided by a sense of duty I owed to the Hindu race, to my religion and to my country.

To start with, and leaving aside for the time being the cases of the other accused, I deny categorically what the Prosecution has so falsely maintained that I was guided in my action by Veer Savarkar and that, but for his complicity, I could never have acted in the way I did. I take the strongest exception to this false and unjust charge and I further regard it as an insult to my intelligence and judgement. The Prosecution's attempt to make out that I was a mere tool in someone else's hands is an aspersion, which is far from the truth. Indeed it is a perversion of it.

(3) In the charge-sheet preferred against the accused, a number of counts has been stated and each of the accused individually and jointly with others has been charged with the commission of the various offences punishable under the Indian Penal Code and other statutes.

(4) It appears from the charge sheet that the prosecution takes the events that have happened on 20th January 1948 and thereafter on 30th January 1948 as one and the same or a chain of events in continuation of one and the same object culminating in the murder of Gandhiji. I therefore, wish to make it clear at the outset that the events up to 20th January 1948 are quite independent and they have no connection whatsoever with what happened thereafter and on 30th January 1948.

(5) The first and the foremost amongst the said charges is the charge of conspiracy amongst the accused to murder Gandhiji. I shall therefore first deal with the same. I say that there was no conspiracy of any kind whatsoever amongst the accused to commit any of the offences mentioned in the charge-sheet. I may also state here that I have not abetted any of the other accused in the commission of the alleged offences.

(6) I say that the evidence led by the Prosecution in this regard does not establish and prove that there was any conspiracy whatsoever. The only witness who deposes about the alleged conspiracy is Digambar R. Badge (Prosecution Witness 57). He is a totally unreliable witness as will be shown to Your Honour by my counsel when he will explain the evidence in the case and deal with the evidence of this witness, P.W.57.

(7) As regards the charge of collecting and, transporting arms and ammunition without licence, and abetment thereof on 20th January 1948, I say that I deny the said charge and say that I neither carried or transported gun-cotton slabs, hand-grenades, detonators, wicks, pistols, or revolvers and cartridges etc, as alleged, nor did I have under my control any of such arms and/or ammunition, nor did I abet and aid any of the accused to do so either before or on or about the 20th January 1948 or any other date. I deny therefore that I contravened any of the provisions of the Indian Arms Act or the Indian Explosives Substances Act and that I committed any offence punishable under the said Acts.

(8) The main evidence in regard to this charge is the evidence of Digambar R. Badge (P.W. 57), but as stated in paragraph 6 above, he is a totally unreliable witness. This witness Badge is known to me but he hardly used to come to me nor have I ever visited his place of residence since several years past. His statement that he came to the Hindu Rashtra Office on 10th January 1948, being brought there by Apte-the accused No. 2-is totally false and I deny that the said Badge saw me at the Hindu Rashtra Office or any other place on that day, or that in my presence Apte and he had any talk amongst themselves about gun-cotton slabs, hand-grenades, etc. and about the delivery thereof at Bombay as falsely alleged by the said Badge. His statement that Apte asked me to come out of the room and that Apte told me that Badge was prepared to hand over the hand grenades etc. and that one work was over is totally false. This is a story got up by Badge to implicate me and others into the alleged conspiracy. I further say that I neither saw nor met Badge on 14th January 1948 at Dadar either alone or in the company of Apte. I did not even know that Badge had come to Bombay on that day.

(9) I further deny that I had in my possession or under my control, while at Delhi, or abetted any one to have and possess on 20th January 1948, any arms or ammunition as stated in the charge-sheet under the heading "Secondly" paragraphs B (1) and (2)

Here also the evidence to support this charge is of Badge alone and I say that he has given false evidence to save his own skin; for on that condition alone he could secure the pardon promised and granted to him.

(10) As regards the charge under the heading "Thirdly ", I say that I deny the said charge and the abetment thereof as stated in several paragraphs A (1) and (2), and B (1) and (2).

(11) As regards the charge under the heading "Fourthly " paragraph 2, I deny that I abetted Madanlal K Pahwa either myself alone or along with others to explode a gun-cotton slab on 20th January 1948 at Birla House, I say that there is no evidence to substantiate this charge and whatever little evidence there may be, can hardly connect me with the explosion of the gun-cotton slab.

(12) As regards the charge of abetment in the " attempt to commit the murder of Mahatma Gandhi " under the said heading 'Fifthly' in the charge sheet, I deny the said charge and say I had no connection either directly or indirectly with Madanlal K. Pahwa or any other person whatsoever. I say there is no evidence whatsoever to support this charge.

(13) As regards the charge under the heading "Sixthly" in the charge-sheet as to paragraphs A (1) and (2) thereof, I say that I have not imported or brought unlicensed pistol and ammunition with the assistance of Narayan D. Apte. I also deny that Dr. Dattatraya S. Parchure and Narayan D. Apte procured the said pistol, or any one of them individually or jointly; abetted me or themselves each other in such procuration of the said pistol and the ammunition. I further say that the evidence produced by Prosecution in that behalf is not reliable. Without prejudice to the above, I further say that even if the acts mentioned in these paragraphs A (1) and (2) may have been committed; this Honourable Court has no jurisdiction to take any notice of them. I further say that so far as I am concerned the charge, if any, would merge under the charge in paragraph B (1) under this head.

(14) As regards the charge under paragraph 13(1) and (2) I admit that I had in my possession automatic pistol No. 606824 and cartridges. But I say that neither Narayan D. Apte nor Vishnu R. Karkare had anything to do with the pistol in my possession.

(15) But before I pass to the charge under the heading "Seventhly", it will not be out of place to explain here how I happened to come to Delhi, and why I came to Delhi. I had never made a secret about the fact that I supported the ideology or the school which was opposed to that of Gandhiji. I firmly believed that the teachings of absolute 'Ahimsa' as advocated by Gandhiji would ultimately result in the emasculation of the Hindu Community and thus make the community incapable of resisting the aggression or inroads of other communities especially the Muslims. To counteract this evil I resolved to enter public life and formed a group of persons who held like views. In this Apte and I took a leading part and as a part of propaganda started a daily newspaper 'Agrani'. I might mention here that it was not so much the Gandhian ' Ahimsa ' teachings that were opposed to by me and my group, but Gandhiji while advocating his views always showed or evinced a bias for Muslims, prejudicial and detrimental to the Hindu Community and its interests. I have fully described my point of view hereafter in detail and have quoted numerous instances which unmistakably establish how Gandhiji became responsible for a number of calamities which the Hindu Community had to suffer and undergo.

(16) In my papers 'Agrani' and ' Hindu-Rashtra'. I always strongly criticised Gandhiji's views and his methods such as fast for achieving his object, and after Gandhiji started holding prayer meetings, we-Apte and myself-decided, to stage peaceful demonstrations showing opposition. We had made such demonstrations at Panchagani, Poona, Bombay and Delhi. There was a wide gulf between the two ideologies and it became wider and wider as concessions after concessions were being made to the Muslims, either at the suggestion or connivance of Gandhiji and the Congress which was guided by Gandhiji, culminating in the partition of the Country on 15th of August 1947. I have dealt with this point in detail hereafter.

On 13th of January 1948 I learnt that Gandhiji had decided to go on fast unto death. The reason given for such fast was that he wanted an assurance of Hindu-Muslim unity in, Indian Dominion. But I and many others could easily see that the real motive behind the fast was not merely the so-called Hindu-Muslim Unity, but to compel the Dominion Government (of India) to pay the sum of Rs. 55 crores to Pakistan, the payment of which was emphatically refused by the Government. As an answer to this, Apte suggested the same old method to stage a strong but peaceful demonstration at the prayer meetings of Gandhiji. I consented to this half-heartedly, because I could easily see its futility. However, I agreed to join him as no alternative plan was as yet fixed in my mind. It was for this reason that N.D.Apte and myself went to Bombay on the 14th of January 1948.

(17) On 15th of January 1948 we-Apte and .myself-happened to go to the Hindu Sabha Office at Dadar in the morning. I happened to see Badge there. On seeing N. D. Apte and I, Badge talked to N. D. Apte and asked him the reason of his coming to Bombay. Apte told him the reason. Badge thereupon of his own accord offered to come to Delhi and join in the demonstration, if we had no objection to his coming there. We wanted men to back us and to shout slogans and we therefore accepted his offer. We told him as to when we were starting.

Badge thereupon told Apte that he had to give some stuff to Pravinchandra Sethia, that he would do so in a day or two and see us on the 17th January 1948.

(18) After we met Badge on the 15th of January 1948 in the Hindu Sabha Office at Dadar, I saw Badge on the 17th of January 1948 in the morning.

(19) The statements made by Badge about our going to Dixitji Maharaj along with him and seeing Dixitji Maharaj, about Apte having told Badge that Savarkar had entrusted Apte and myself the task of finishing Gandhiji, Pandit Jawaharlal and Suhrawardy is a pure concoction and product of Badge's brain. Neither Apte nor I have said anything like this to Badge or any other person.

(20) Badge's statements to the effect that I also wanted to go to Poona to meet my brother Gopal Godse who had undertaken to make arrangements for procuring a revolver and to bring him down to Bombay for accompanying us to Delhi, is also untrue. I had no talk with Badge when I met him on the 15th January 1948 except what is stated in paragraph 17 above. Further the statement of Badge that he met me on 16th January 1948 at Poona is also false. The alleged report of my conversation with him at Poona as deposed to by Badge in his evidence is also false and untrue. I was not in Poona on the 16th January 1948. It will be clear from this that it is not true that I gave him any pistol on that day for being exchanged for a big revolver.

(21) I have already stated that we-Apte and I -had planned to stage a strong but peaceful demonstration at Gandhiji's prayer meeting at the earliest possible opportunity at Delhi, and for that purpose Apte and myself were to go there. As stated in paragraph 17, Badge offered to come to Delhi to take part in the demonstration referred to above. We felt an urgent need of taking some volunteers with us for a successful demonstration. Before we started for Delhi we started collecting money to meet the expenses for the journey and for the expense of the volunteers.

(22) I emphatically deny that we saw Savarkar on the 17 January 1948 or that Savarkar blessed us with the words ' Yashasvi Houn Ya', 'Be successful and come back '.
It is obvious that Badge told these unscrupulous lies under police pressure, as only on such a condition would he be accepted as an Approver by the police, secure pardon and save his own skin. It will be a triumph for the police if by saving Badge they can falsely involve Savarkar.
Similarly I also deny that we had any conversation with Badge or that Apte or myself uttered the words ' Tatyaravani ase Bhavishya kele ahe ki Gandhijichi shambhar varshe bharali - ata apale kam nishchita honar yat kahi sanshaya nahi'. After we met Badge on the 15th of January 1948 at the Hindu Sabha Office at Dadar, we-Apte and I -went on, our business in connection with the Press.

(23) Apte and I came to Delhi by plane on the 17th of January 1948 and we put up at the Marina Hotel. On the morning of the 20th of January 1948 Badge came to the hotel and informed Apte in my presence that he and his servant Kistaiya would go to the prayer-ground in the evening with Apte just to see the scene of prayer where demonstrations would be held. When Badge came in the morning I was lying down on bed as I was feeling unwell owing to severe headache and I told Badge that I may not go to the prayer-ground as I was unwell.
The statements of Badge that Apte, Gopal Godse, Karkare, Madanlal, Badge and his servant Shankar all collected at Marina Hotel, that Shankar and Badge had their meals there, that Gopal Godse was found repairing the revolver, that Apte, Karkare, Madanlal and Badge went to the Bathroom and were fixing the detonators, Fuse-wires and primers to the gun-cotton slabs and hand-grenades or that Shankar and I were standing at the either sides of the door of the room are entirely false. Badge has put in my mouth the words " Badge, this is our last effort; the work must be accomplished - see to it that every thing is arranged properly."
I deny that I addressed the said or similar words to Badge on that day or any other day. As stated before, Badge came to the room in the morning and informed me that he would attend the prayer-meeting in the evening. We had no meeting at all on that day in my room as stated by Badge. Gopal Godse, to my knowledge, was not even in Delhi. Nobody arranged or fixed detonators fuse-wires or primers to gun-cotton slabs or hand-grenades in the room. In fact there was no such ammunition either with me or with Apte. Badge's vivid description about the distribution of arms and ammunition amongst the party and about assumption of false names is all false. It is not necessary for me to discuss the evidence and show the falsity of these statements as my counsel will do it in his address.

(24) As stated above, being unwell due to severe headache, I did not even go to the prayer-ground. Apte returned to the Marina Hotel at about 6 p.m. and informed me that he had a view of the prayer meeting and would be in a position to stage the demonstration in a day or two. After about an hour, we heard of some commotion at Gandhiji's prayer meeting due to an explosion and we further heard of an arrest, of a refugee. Apte thought it advisable to leave Delhi immediately and we left accordingly. It is not true that I met Badge at Hindu Sabha Bhavan on 20th January 1948. Several witnesses have deposed about my being at the Birla House on the 20th January 1948; but I emphatically say that they are grossly mistaken in saying so. I submit that they are confusing my presence with somebody else's. The identification by some of these witnesses is utterly unreliable in view of the fact that I had not been to the Birla House on that day. These witnesses have identified me as -I was shown to many of them by the Police while I was kept at Tughlak Road Police Station, Further it was easy to identify me on account of the bandage over my head which remained up to the 12th of February 1948. The Police witnesses who have deposed to the contrary have perjured themselves and I have made a complaint at the very first identification parade in respect of the Delhi witnesses held in Bombay about this.

(25) After a deliberate consideration of our future plan of staging the demonstration at Delhi in the prayer-meeting of Gandhiji; I very reluctantly consented to join Mr. Apte. It was not possible to get willing and able volunteers from Bombay and Poona under the new situation. Besides all our funds were exhausted and we were not in a position to spend for the batch of volunteers from Bombay to Delhi and back. We, therefore, decided to proceed to Gwalior and see Dr. Parchure who had under him the volunteers of Hindu Rashtra Sena. It was also a more or less economical plan to take volunteers from Gwalior to Delhi. We therefore started for Gwalior, after reaching Delhi by plane on the 271h of January 1948, by the night train reaching Gwalior very early morning. As it was dark at the time we halted in a Dharamshala near the Station and in the morning we saw Dr. Parchure at his residence. He was in a hurry to go to his dispensary. He asked us to see him in the afternoon. We saw him at about 4 p.m. and we found that he did not wish to help us and that his volunteers were busy in local affairs. Completely disappointed I asked Apte to go back to Bombay or Poona and try for volunteers there and I came back to Delhi telling Apte that I would myself try for volunteers from amongst the refugees.

I deny categorically and with all the emphasis at my command that Mr. Apte and I had been to Gwalior to secure a revolver or a pistol, as a number of such revolvers were being offered for sale clandestinely. Having reached Delhi in great despair I visited the refugee camps at Delhi. While moving in the camps my thoughts took a definite and final turn. By chance I came across a refugee who was dealing in arms and he showed me the pistol. I was tempted to have it and I bought it from him. It is the pistol which I later used in the shots I fired. On coming to the Delhi Railway station I spent the night of 29th thinking and re-thinking about my resolve to end the present chaos and further destruction of the Hindus.

I shall now deal about my relations with Veer Savarkar in political and other matters of which the prosecution has made so much.

(26) Born in a devotional Brahmin family, I instinctively came to revere Hindu religion, Hindu history and Hindu culture. They envisage human society free from narrow or aggressive mentalities, recognise the kin-hood of the entire race of man and consider the whole world as one family. I had, therefore, been intensely proud of Hindudom as a whole.
As I grew up I developed a tendency to free thinking unfettered by any superstitious allegiance to any 'ism', political or religious. All the evils which have crept into Hindu society, in particular the caste system and untouchability, I came to regard as excrescences and aberrations from the lofty conceptions of human relationship inherited by me from my faith "treat the whole world as your family", which Hindudom enjoins. That is why I worked actively for the eradication of untouchability and the caste system based on birth alone. I publicly joined anti-caste movements and maintained that all Hindus were of equal status and should enjoy equal rights - social and religious, and should be regarded as high or low on their merit alone and not through the accident of birth in a particular caste or profession. I used to take part publicly in organised anti-caste dinners in which thousands of Hindus, Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, Chamars (cobblers) and Bhangis (scavengers) broke the caste rules and dined in the company of each other.

(27) I have read the speeches and writings of Dadabhai Naoroji, Vivekanand, Gokhale, Tilak along with the books of ancient and modern history of India and some prominent countries in the world like England, France, America and Russia. Not only that, I studied tolerably well the current tenets of Socialism and Communism too. But above all I studied very closely whatever Veer Savarkar and Gandhiji had written and spoken, as to my mind these two ideologies had contributed more to mould the thought and action of modern India during the last thirty years or so, than any other single factor had done.

(28) All this reading and thinking brought me to believe that above all it was my first duty to serve the Hindudom and the Hindu people, as a patriot and even as a humanitarian. For, is it not true that to secure the freedom and to safeguard the just interests of some thirty crores (300 million) of Hindus constituted the freedom and the well-being of one fifth of human race? This conviction led me naturally to devote myself to the new Hindu Sanghatanist ideology and programme which alone I came to believe, could win and preserve the national independence of Hindusthan, my Motherland, and enable her to render true service to humanity as well. I have worked for several years in R. S. S. and subsequently joined the Hindu Mahasabha and volunteered myself to fight as a soldier under its pan-Hindu flag.

It was about the year 1936. Provincial autonomy was introduced in all the provinces of India as from April 1937. Mr. Jamnadas Mehta was invited to join the Bombay Government as Minister for Finance and Revenue. He accepted the invitation on condition that Veer Savarkar was restored to freedom, and so he was, to the great joy of every lover of freedom in the country. It may be added that by this time Veer Savarkar had suffered 15 years of transportation to the Andamans and a further period of 12 years by way of detention, in Ratnagiri, for his revolutionary activities against the British yoke.

(29) Soon after his release Veer Savarkar was elected to the President-ship of the Hindu Mahasabha. The Hindu Sanghatan Movement got verily electrified and vivified as never before, under his magnetic lead and whirlwind propaganda. Millions of Hindu Sanghatanists looked up to him as the chosen hero, as the ablest and most faithful advocate of Hindu cause. I too was one of them. I worked devotedly to carry on the Mahasabha activities and hence came to be personally acquainted with Savarkarji. I courted imprisonment in the successful Civil Resistance Movement against the Nizam, and fought in the Bhagalpur campaign also, under the Hindu Mahasabha flag.

(30) Later on my friend and co-worker in the Hindu cause, Mr. Apte and myself decided to start a daily paper devoted to Hindu Sanghatan Movement. We met a number of prominent Hindu Sanghatanist leaders and after securing sympathy and financial help from them met Veer Savarkar as the President of the Mahasabha. He too sympathised with our project and advanced, a sum of rupees fifteen thousand as his quota to the capital required, on condition that a limited company should be registered at our earliest convenience, and his advance should be transformed into so many shares.

(31) Accordingly, we started the daily Marathi paper 'Daily Agrani' and after some period a limited company was registered. The sums advanced by Veer Savarkar and others were converted into shares of Rs. 500 each. Amongst the directors and donors were such leading and respected gentlemen as Seth Gulab Chand (a brother of Shriman Seth Walchand Hirachandji), Mr. Shingre, an ex-Minister of Bhor, Shreeman Bhaiji Pendharkar, the film magnate of Kolhapur and others. Mr. Apte and I were the Managing Directors of the Company. I was the editor solely responsible for the policy of the paper. We conducted the paper for years on strictly constitutional lines, and pleaded the policy of Hindu Sanghatan in general.

(32) As press representatives of this daily, Mr. Apte and I used to visit the Hindu Sanghatan Office situated at Veer Savarkar's house in the middle hall on the ground floor. That Office was in the charge of Mr. G. V. Damle, the Secretary to Veer Savarkar and Mr. Appa Kasar, Veer Savarkar's body-guard. We used to visit this office to secure from Mr. Damle, the Secretary, public statements issued by Veer Savarkar for the Press in general, to note down other important information about the President's tours, interviews etc, which his Secretary was authorised to publish. Mr. A. S. Bhide, who used to edit an English Weekly namely Free Hindustan was also residing with his family as a tenant in a set of rooms on the same ground-floor Mr. Bhide was a prominent leader of the Hindu Mahasabha as well. The second reason why Mr. Apte and I used to visit Savarkar Sadan was to see Messrs Bhide, Damle, Kasar and other Hindu Sabha workers, who used to gather at the Hindu Sanghatan Office and were personal friends. We used to discuss with them the Hindu Sanghatan work and some of them used to help us in securing advertisements for our paper.

(33) But it must be specially noted that our casual visits to Savarkar Sadan were restricted generally to this Hindu Sanghatan Office, situated on the ground floor, for the above mentioned reasons.
Veer Savarkar was residing on the first floor of the house. It was only very rarely that we could interview Veer Savarkar personally and that too by special appointment,

(34) Some three years ago Veer Savarkar's health got seriously impaired and since then he was generally confined to bed. He thereafter suspended all his public activities and more or less retired from public life. Thus deprived of us of his virile leadership and magnetic influence, the activities and influence of the Hindu Mahasabha too got crippled and when Dr. Mookerjee became its President the Mahasabha was actually reduced to the position of a handmaid to the Congress. It became quite incapable of counteracting the dangerous anti-Hindu activities of Gandhite cabal on the one hand and the Muslim League on the other. Seeing this I lost all hope in the efficiency of the policy of running the Hindu Sanghatan movement on the constitutional lines of the Mahasabha and began to shift myself. I determined to organise a youthful band of Hindu Sanghatanists and adopt a fighting programme both against the Congress and the League without consulting any of those prominent but old leaders of the Mahasabha.

(35) I shall just mention here two striking instances only out of a number of them which painfully opened my eyes about this time to the fact that Veer Savarkar and other old leaders of Mahasabha could no longer be relied upon by me and the Hindu youths of my persuasion to guide or even to appreciate the fighting programme with which we aimed to counteract Gandhiji's activities inside and the Muslim League outside.

----------------------------------------------------
In 1946 or thereabout the Muslim atrocities perpetrated on the Hindus under the Government patronage of Surhawardy in Noakhali (now in Bangladesh), made our blood boil. Our shame and indignation knew no bounds, when we saw that Gandhiji had come forward to shield that very Surhawardy and began to style him as 'Shahid Saheb' - a Martyr Soul (!) even in his prayer meetings. Not only that but after coming to Delhi, Gandhiji began to hold his prayer meetings in a Hindu temple in Bhangi Colony and persisted in reading passages from Quoran as a part of the prayer in that Hindu temple in spite of the protest of the Hindu worshippers there. Of course he dared not read the Geeta in a mosque in the teeth of Muslim opposition. He knew what a terrible Muslim reaction would have been if he had done so. But he could safely trample over the feelings of the tolerant Hindu. To belie this belief I determined to prove to Gandhiji that the Hindu too could be intolerant when his honour was insulted.

Gandhi made a great show of catholicity in all matters. To him, we were told, all religions were alike and in order to prove that, the Mahatma started reading the Koran in Hindu temples. At the time of the funeral ceremony of the late Mrs. Kasturba Gandhi, the Mahatma started the funeral prayer by quotations from the Koran. This was intended to show the sincerity of the Mahatma. I am in favour of such catholicity in all matters, religious and social, political and economic-a uniform standard for all human beings.
Toleration is the hallmark of a civilized and cultured man. I am also not against the voluntary conversion of anybody from his ancestral faith to another faith if the conversion is free from fraud or force. In. fact it will be a Heyday in the history of the world when the Muslims allow the chanting of the Vedas in Mosques by Hindus and the Hindus allow Muslims to recite the Koran in Hindu temples. Indeed every, shrine should be a house of God and every human being should have complete liberty to pray there according to his lights whether he be a Hindu, Muslim, Christian or other. But there is no catholicity in reciting the Koran only in a Hindu temple unless the Mahatma was prepared to recite the Bhagavad-Gita in a Mosque, but he did not venture to do so, because if he had, the Muslims would have shown him what they thought of it and he might not have been alive on the next day to recite the Koran in a Hindu temple. I also think that it was a great act of irreverence towards the Baishanavite faith, for it is extremely unlikely that the Mahatma would have done this during Kasturba's lifetime. Such a theatrical pretence of catholicity seems ridiculous when it is only practised against the mild Hindus, but the Mahatma's catholicity never went beyond that very easy virtue.

(36) Mr. Apte and I decided to stage a series of demonstrations in Delhi at his prayer meetings and make it impossible for Gandhi to hold such prayers. Mr. Apte with a large section of the refugees took out a procession in Delhi condemning Gandhiji and his Shahid Surhawardy and raided his prayer meeting in the Bhangi Colony. Seeing the tumultuous protest that followed, Gandhiji slyly took shelter behind barred and guarded doors although at that time we had not the slightest idea of using any force.

(37) But when Veer Savarkar read the report of this demonstration, instead of appreciating our move, he called me and blamed me privately for such anarchical tactics, even though this demonstration was peaceful. He said '' Just as I condemn the Congressites for breaking up your party meetings and election booths by disorderly conduct, so do I condemn any such undemocratic conduct on the part of Hindu Sanghatanist also. If Gandhi has anti-Hindu teachings in his prayer meetings, you should hold your party meetings and condemn his teachings. Amongst us, all different parties should conduct their propaganda on strictly constitutional lines."

(38) The second leading incident took place just after this, when the partition of India was actually decided on. A group of Hindu Mahassbhaites wanted to know what the Hindu Mahasabha's attitude should be with regard to the Congress Government which was certain to be the Government of the New State, ruling over the so-called Indian State in the remaining part of India. Veer Savarkar quickly and emphatically said that any Indian Government formed to run the Indian State should be no longer looked upon as a Government of a party-a Congress Government-but must be honoured and obeyed as a National Government of Hindusthan, and howsoever they deplored the creation of Pakistan their future motto should be a loyal and all out support to the newly born Free Indian State. Thus alone would it be possible to safeguard the newly won Freedom. Any attempt on our part to undermine the Indian State would bring in a Civil War and enable the Muslims to realise their secret aim to turn the whole of India into Pakistan;

Then he opened his famous book The History of the National Rising of 1857, which had been recently released by the Congress Government from the ban, imposed on it by the British Government and read a passage explaining the causes which contributed to the ultimate defeat of that partially successful revolution. The passage was to the effect that the successful revolution failed in the end because the people failed to transform the revolutionary mentality into a constitutional one and began to fight amongst themselves. They failed to observe the principle that after a successful revolution the motto of the Nationalists should be constructiveness.

Veer Savarkar insisted that this should be our motto now. When asked what our policy should be if the Congressites continued to be at the helm of the Government and followed the Gandhian policy of surrendering further to Muslim demands in the pursuit of the mirage of Hindu - Muslim unity, he replied, "So long as the new Government Is based on democratic elections, whatever changes you want to bring about should be democratically effected." Here our visits ended.

(39) My friends and I however returned unconvinced. We felt in our heart of hearts that time had come when we should bid good-bye to Veer Savarkar's lead and cease to consult him in our future policy and programme, nor should we confide to him our future plans.

(40) Just after that followed the terrible outburst of Muslim fanaticism in the Punjab and other parts of India. The Congress Government instead of suppressing Muslim atrocities on the Hindus began to persecute, prosecute, and shoot the Hindus themselves who dared to resist the Muslim forces in Bihar, Calcutta, Punjab and other places. Our worst fears seemed to be coming true; and yet how painful and disgraceful it was for us to find that the 15th of August 1947 was celebrated with illumination and festivities, while the whole of the Punjab was set in flames by the Muslims and Hindu blood ran in the rivers. The Hindu Mahasabhaites of my persuasion decided to boycott the festivities and the Congressite Government and to launch a fighting programme to check Muslim onslaughts.

(41) The 'working committee' of the Hindu Mahasabha and All India Hindu Convention were to meet on or about the 9th or 10th of August 1947, in Delhi. Veer Savarkar was to preside. Mr. Apte and other friends and I wanted to make a last effort to bring the Mahasabha and its veteran leaders like Veer Savarkar, Dr. Mookerjee, Mr. L. B. Bhopatkar and others to our views and to adopt a fighting resolution. As press representatives, we joined the party accompanying Veer Savarkar to Delhi.

But the Mahasabha Working Committee did not accept our suggestion to appoint a council of action against Hyderabad or boycott the Congress Government which was to run the newly created State of Divided India. To my mind to recognise a State of Divided India was tantamount to be a party to the cursed vivisection of India. The Working Committee passed a frothy resolution and asked people to hoist the Bhagwa Flag on their houses on the day of August 15th, 1947. Veer Savarkar went further and actually insisted that the tri-colour flag with the wheel should be recognised as a National Flag. We openly resented his attitude.

(42) Not only that but on the 15th August, Veer Savarkar setting aside the will of the majority of Hindu Sanghatanists hoisted this new flag with the wheel (charkha), as a National Flag, on his house along with the Bhagwa. In addition to that when Dr. Mookerji asked his permission through a trunk call to Veer Savarkar, as to whether Dr. Mookerji should accept a portfolio in the Indian Union Ministry, Veer Savarkar emphatically replied that the new Government must be recognised as a National Government whatever may be the elected party leading it, and must be supported by all patriots and consequently Hindu Sanghatanists ought to extend co-operation by accepting a portfolio if called upon to do so. He also congratulated the Congressite Ministers for the conciliatory attitude they were taking in calling on a Hindu Sabha leader like Dr. Mookerji to participate in the forming of the National Ministry Mr Bhopatkar too supported Dr. Mookerji.

(43) By this time it came to light that some top leaders of the Congress and some of their provincial leaders too had contacted Veer Savarkar. There were brisk negotiations between them for forming a united front to support the new State, which policy Veer Savarkar had already advocated. I myself could not be opposed to a common front of patriots, but while the Congress Government continued to be so sheepishly under the thumb of Gandhiji and while Gandhiji could thrust his anti-Hindu fads on that Congressite Government by resorting to such a simple trick as threatening a fast, it was clear to me that any common front under such circumstances was bound to be another form of setting up Gandhiji's Dictatorship and consequently a betrayal of Hindudom.

(44) Every one of these steps taken by Veer Savarkar were so deeply resented by me that I myself along with Mr. Apte and some of the young Hindu Sanghatanist friends decided once for all to work out our active programme quite independently of the Hindu Maha Sabha or its old veteran leaders. We resolved not to confide any of our new plans to any of them including Veer Savarkar.

(45) I began to criticise the Hindu Maha Sabha and the policy of its old leaders in my daily paper 'Agrani' or 'Hindu Rashtra' and to openly call upon the young generation of Hindu Sanghatanists to accept our own active programme.
Veer Savarkar resented the criticism of the Mahasabha in my paper but I persisted in it. At the same time I must make it perfectly clear that our political estrangement from Veer Savarkar did in no way lessen the reverence, personal affection and gratitude which we felt for him for his monumental patriotic services, sacrifices and sufferings.

(46) In order to work out my new independent programme I decided to undertake two definite items in hand to begin with. The first item was to organise a series of powerful though peaceful demonstrations against Gandhiji so as to make him feel the impact of organised Hindu discontent, and to reinforce our protest by creating confusion and disorder in his obnoxious prayer meetings through which he then carried out his anti-Hindu propaganda; and secondly to carry on an agitation against the Hyderabad Stale to defend our Hindu brothers and sisters near about the frontier line from the fanatic atrocities committed on them by the Muslims.

As such a programme could only be carried out on secret and dictatorial lines we resolved to divulge it only to those who believed in it and would obey our orders without questioning.

(47) I would not have referred to the above details in this statement but for the learned prosecutor's opening speech in which be painted me as a mere tool in the hands of Veer Savarkar. I consider that statement to be a deliberate insult to my independence of judgment and action. The above facts had to be mentioned to dispel the incorrect impression about me, if any. Consequently, before I begin to narrate the rest of my statement, I reassert that it is not true that Veer Savarkar had any knowledge of my activities which ultimately led me to fire shots at Gandhiji.

I repeat that it is not true and it is totally false that either Mr. Apte in my presence or I myself told Badge that Veer Savarkar had given us an order to finish Gandhiji, Nehru and Suhrawardy as the approver is made to state falsely. It is not true that we ever took Badge to Veer Savarkar's house to have the last Darshan of Veer Savarkar in connection with any such plot or that Veer Savarkar ever said to us 'Be successful and come back' -'Yashasvi houn ya,' Neither Mr. Apte in my presence nor I myself ever told Badge that Veer Savarkar told us that Gandhiji's hundred years were over and therefore we were bound to be successful. I was neither so superstitious as to crave such blessings, nor so childish as to believe in such fortune-telling.

I shall now relate how I tried to carry out; my new and active programme in
co-operation with Mr. Apte and others and why later on I lost faith in the efficacy of that work. In particular I wish to explain how I came to part company with Apte and others and how, after leaving them, I used to retire to a secluded place brooding intensely on the atrocities practised on Hindudom and on its dark and deadly future if left to face the Muslims outside and Gandhites inside the Hindu fold; and finally how I decided suddenly to shoot Gandhi without letting my intentions be known to anyone and without seeking co-operation from anyone with whom I used to keep company occasionally in their demonstrations and protests so that they might not feel disheartened. But I kept my counsels to myself. I wish to set out the circumstances that led me to resort to this extreme step.

PART II
Gandhij's Politics X-rayed

SECTION I

(48) The background to the event of the 30th January 1948 was wholly and exclusively political and I would like to explain it at some length. The fact that Gandhiji honoured the religious books of Hindus, Muslims and others or that he used to recite during his prayers verses from the Geeta, the Quoran and the Bible never provoked any ill will in me towards him. To my mind it is not at all objectionable to study comparative religion. Indeed it is a merit.

(49) The territory bounded by the North Western Frontier in North and Cape Comorian in the South and the areas between Karachi and Assam that is the whole of pre-partition India has always been to me my motherland. In this vast area live people of various faiths and I hold that these creeds should have full and equal freedom for following their ideals and beliefs. In this area the Hindus are the most numerous. They have no place which they can call their own beyond or outside this country. Hindusthan is thus both the motherland and the holy land for the Hindus from times immemorial. To the Hindus largely this country owes its fame and glory, its culture and art, knowledge, science and philosophy. Next to the Hindus the Muslims are numerically predominant. They made systematic inroads into this country since the 10th century and gradually succeeded in establishing Muslim rule over the greater part of India.

(50) Before the advent of the British both Hindus and Muslims as a result of centuries of experience had come to realise that the Muslims could not remain as masters in India; nor could they be driven away. Both had clearly understood that both had come to stay. Owing to the rise of the Maharattas, the revolt of the Rajputs and the upraise of the Sikhs, the Muslim hold on the country had become very feeble and although some of them continued to aspire for supremacy in India, practical people could see clearly that such hopes were futile. On the other hand the British had proved more powerful in battle and in intrigue than either the Hindus or Musalmans, and by their adoption of improved methods of administration and the assurance of the security of the life and property without any discrimination both the Hindus and the Muslims accepted them as inevitable.

Differences between the Hindus and the Muslims did exist even before the British came. Nevertheless it is a fact that the British made the most unscrupulous use of these differences and created more differences in order to maintain their power and authority. The Indian National Congress which was started with the object of winning power for the people in the governance of the country had from the beginning kept before it the ideal of complete nationalism which implies that all Indians should enjoy equal rights and complete equality on the basis of democracy. This ideal of removing the foreign rule and replacing it by the democratic power and authority of the people appealed to me most from the very start of my public career.

(51) In my writings and speeches I have always advocated that the religious and communal considerations should be entirely eschewed in the public affairs of the country, at elections, inside and outside the legislatures and in the making and unmaking of Cabinets. I have throughout stood for a secular State with joint electorates and to my mind this is the only sensible thing to do. (Here Nathuram read parts of the resolutions passed at the Bilaspur Session of the Hindu Mahasabha held in December 1944. Annexure Pages 12 and 13). Under the influence of the Congress this ideal was steadily making headway amongst the Hindus.

But the Muslims as a community first stood aloof and later on under the corroding influence of the 'Divide and Rule' Policy of the foreign masters, were encouraged to cherish the ambition of dominating the Hindus. The first indication of this outlook was the demand for separate electorates instigated by the then Viceroy Lord Minto in 1906. The British Government accepted this demand under the excuse of minority protection while the Congress party offered a verbal opposition; it progressively supported separatism by ultimately adopting the notorious formula of neither accepting nor rejecting in 1934 (the communal award).

(52) Thus originated and intensified the demand for the disintegration of this country. What was the thin end of the wedge in the beginning became Pakistan in the end. The mistake however was begun with the laudable object of bringing out a united front of all classes in India in order to drive out the foreigner and it was hoped that separatism would eventually disappear.

(53) In spite of my advocacy of joint electorates in principle I reconciled myself with the temporary introduction of separate electorate since the Muslims were keen on them. I, however, insisted that representation should be granted in strict proportion to the number of every community and no more. I have consistently maintained this stand.

(54) Under the inspiration of our British masters on the one hand and the encouragement by the Congress under Gandhiji's leadership on the other, the Muslim League went on increasing its demands on Communal basis. The Muslim community continuously backed the Muslim League; each successive election proved that the Muslim League was able to bank on the fanaticism and ignorance of the Muslim masses and the League was thus encouraged, in its policy of separatism on an ever increasing scale year after year.

(55) As I have shown before despite their objection to the principle of communal electorates the unreasonable demands of the Muslim League were conceded by the Congress firstly by the Lucknow Pact of 1916 and at each successive revision of the constitution thereafter, This lapse from nationalism and democracy on the part of the Congress has proved an expensive calamity as the sequel has shown.

(56) Since the year 1920, that is to say after the demise of Lokamanya Tilak, Gandhiji's influence in the Congress first increased and then became supreme. His activities for public awakening were phenomenal in their intensity and were reinforced by the slogan of truth and non-violence which he ostentatiously paraded before the country. No sensible or enlightened person could object to these slogans; in fact there is nothing new or original in them. They are implicit in every constitutional public movement. To imagine that the bulk of mankind is or can ever become capable of scrupulous adherence to these lofty principles in its normal life from day to day is a mere dream.
In fact honour, duty and love of one's own kith and kin and country might often compel us to disregard non-violence. I could never conceive that an armed resistance to the aggressor is unjust. I will consider it a religious and moral duty to resist and if possible to overpower such an enemy by the use of force.
Shree Ramchandra killed Ravan in a tumultuous fight and relieved Sita. Shree Krishna killed Kansa to end his wickedness. In the Mahabharat, Arjun had to fight and slay, quite a number of his friends and relations including the revered Bhishma, because the latter was on the side of the aggressor. It is my firm belief that in dubbing Rama, Krishna and Arjuna as guilty of violence is to betray a total ignorance of the springs of human action. It was the heroic fight put up by the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj that first checked and eventually destroyed Muslim tyranny in India. It was absolutely correct tactics for Shivaji to kill Afzul Khan as the latter would otherwise have surely killed him. In condemning Shivaji, Rana Pratap and Guru Govind (Singh) as misguided patriots, Gandhiji has merely exposed his self-conceit.

(57) Each of the heroes in his time resisted aggression on our country, protected the people against the atrocities and outrages by alien fanatics and won back the motherland from the invader. On the other hand during more than thirty years of the undisputed leadership of the Mahatma there were more desecrations of temples, more forcible and fraudulent conversions, more outrages on women and finally the loss of one third of the country. It is therefore astounding that his followers cannot see what is clear even to the blind, viz. that the Mahatma was a mere pigmy before Shivaji, Rana Pratap and Guru Govind (Singh). His condemnation of these illustrious heroes was to say the least, most presumptuous.

(58) The clique who has got into power with the patronage of British imperialism by a cowardly surrender to the Partition of India at the point of Muslim violence is now trying to exploit Gandhiji's death in hundred hectic ways for its own selfish aims. But history will give to them their proper place in the niche of fame. Gandhiji was, paradoxical as it may appear, a violent pacifist who brought untold calamities on the country in the name of truth and non-violence, while Rana Pratap, Shivaji and Guru Givind (Singh) will remain enshrined in the hearts of their countrymen for ever and for ever for the freedom they brought to them.

(59) As pointed out below Gandhiji's political activities can be conveniently divided under three heads. He returned to India from England some time about the end of 1914 and plunged into the public life of this country almost immediately. Unfortunately soon after his arrival Sir Pherozeshah Mehta and Mr. G. K. Gokhale, the latter whom Gandhiji called his Guru, died within a short space of time. Gandhiji began his work by starting an Ashram in Ahmedabad on the banks of the Sabarmati River, and made Truth and Non-violence his slogans. He himself has admitted that he had often acted contrary to his professed principles and if it was for appeasing the Muslims he hardly had any scruple in doing so. Truth and Non-violence are most excellent as ideals and admirable as guides in action. These are, however, to be practised in actual day-to-day life and not in the air. I shall show later on that Gandhiji himself was guilty of glaring breaches of his much vaunted ideals.

(60) Gandhiji's political career will be divided as already stated under three heads :

(i) The period between 1915 and 1939-40.

(ii) The period between 1939-40 and 3rd June 1947, when the Indian National Congress surrendered to Mr. Jinnah and accepted Pakistan under the leadership of the Mahatma.

(iii) The period between the date of partition and the day of his last fast unto death resulting in the payment of Rs. 55 crores (Rs 550million) to Pakistan and the Mahatma's death at my hands.

1915 to 1939/40
(61) When Gandhiji finally returned to India at the end of 1914, he brought with him a very high reputation for courageous leadership of Indians in South Africa. He had placed himself at the head of the struggle for the assertion and vindication of the national self-respect of India and for our rights of citizenship against white tyranny in that country. He was honoured and obeyed by Hindus, Muslims and Parsees alike and was universally acclaimed as the leader of all Indians in South Africa. His simplicity of life, his unselfish devotion to the cause which he had made his own, his self-sacrifice and earnestness in fighting against the racial arrogance of the Afrikaners had raised the prestige of Indians. In India he had endeared himself to all.

(62) When he returned here to serve his countrymen in their struggle for freedom, he had legitimately hoped that as in Africa he would command the unchallenged confidence and respect of all communities. But in this hope he soon found himself disappointed. India was not South Africa. In South Africa, Indians had claimed nothing but elementary rights of citizenship which were denied to them. They had all a common and acute grievance. The Boer and the British both had treated them like doormats. Hindus, Muslims and Parsees therefore stood united like one man against the common enemy. They had no other quarrel with the South African Government.

The Indian problem at home was quite different. We were fighting for home-rule, self-Government and even independence. We were intent on overthrowing an Imperial Power, that was firmly entrenched in this soil and was determined to continue its sway over us by all possible means including the policy of 'Divide and Rule' which had created cleavage between the Hindus and Muslims. Gandhiji was thus confronted at the very outset with a problem the like of which he had never experienced in South Africa. Indeed in South Africa he had smooth sailing throughout. The identity of interest between the various communities there was complete and every Indian had ranged himself behind him. But in India communal franchise, separate electorates and the like had already undermined the solidarity of the nation, more of such were in the offing and the sinister policy of communal favouritism was being pursued by the British with the utmost tenacity without any scruple. Gandhiji therefore, found it most difficult to obtain the unquestioned leadership of the Hindus and the Muslims in India as in South Africa. But he had been accustomed to be the leader of all Indians and quite frankly he could not understand the leadership of a divided country. It was absurd for his honest mind to think of accepting the general-ship of an army divided against itself.

(63) For the first five years after his return to India there was not much scope for the attainment by him of supreme leadership in Indian politics. Dadabhai Naoroji, Sir Pherozeshah Mehta, Lokmanya Tilak and Mr. G. K. Gokhale and others were still alive and Gandhiji honoured as he was, popular as he was, was still a junior compared to those veterans both in age and experience. But an inexorable fate removed all of them in five years and with the death of Lokmanya Tilak in August 1920 Gandhiji was at once thrown into the front line.

(64) He saw that the foreign rulers by the policy of 'Divide and Rule' were corrupting the patriotism of the Muslims and that there was little chance of his leading a united host to the battle for Freedom unless he was able to cement fellow feeling and common devotion to the Motherland. He, therefore, made Hindu-Muslim Unity the foundation of his policy. As a counterblast to the British tactics he started making the most friendly approaches to the Muslim community and reinforced them by making generous and extravagant and fantastic promises to the Muslims. This, of course, was not wrong in itself so long as it was done consistently with India's struggle for democratic national freedom; but Gandhiji completely forgot this, the most essential aspect of his campaign for unity, with what results we all know by now.

The British authorities in India and the President of the Muslim League took a full measure of Gandhian politics; adopted ways and means to nonplus and eventually defeat him. Mr. Jinnah was direct and frank. He was unequivocal and un-enigmatic. He never concealed his distrust of the Mahatma and his contempt for the Hindus. He never recognised a Mahatma in Gandhi. He never relied on Gandhi's words. The much desired spiritual power, of the Mahatma, his alleged inner voice, his high-sounding doctrines of truth and his non-violence left Mr. Jinnah completely cold. He made no scruple about exploiting the ignorance and fanaticism of the Muslim masses. Although a completely westernised man, he had to profess that he was an orthodox Muslim. He was extraordinarily conceited but he was incorruptible. He knew what he wanted and how to get it. He had the whole-hearted support of the British Imperialists and he knew its value.

British Diplomacy sized up the Mahatma long ago. It pretended the greatest admiration for the Mahatma and humoured him in every way but the British kept him at arms distance so far as their real policy was concerned and in reality backed Mr Jinnah all along and in spite of a professed wish to transfer power to the Indians and their desire for Indian Unity. They could manoeuvre the Mahatma and the Congress into an acceptance of Pakistan. The British had the sense to keep the Indian Muslims on their side as the Muslim world in the Middle-East would thereby remain pro-British. The Mahatma played into the British hands. His character was unblemished and he was even more incorruptible than Mr Jinnah but his methods were subjective. His intelligence was keen but static as he never thought he had anything to learn from any quarter. On the contrary, he believed that he was born to be the saviour not merely or India but of the whole world. He was not open to reason. If you wanted to work with him you must accept his methods without demur.

Hindu-Muslim unity was an obsession with him. It was good as a method but he made it into a creed and a faith. He proclaimed his infallibility by the assertion that a satyagrahi could never fail and you had to accept that he was the only satyagrahi. Neither the Czar of Russia nor the Pope of Rome, neither Charles the 1st nor Louis the XIV, neither the Kaiser. Neither Mussolini nor Hitler had ever claimed such complete infallibility. The British diplomats took full advantage of the Mahatma's egoism.

They put Mr Jinnah in the front and working from behind they completely fooled the Mahatma, and thereby vivisected India with the support of the Congress and the Mahatma. British diplomacy was completely triumphant.

(65) Our British rulers were able, out of Indian resource continuously, to make concessions to Muslims and to keep the various communities divided. By 1919 Gandhiji had become desperate in his endeavours to get the Muslims' to trust him and went from one absurd promise to another. He promised 'a blank cheque' to the Muslims. He backed the Khilafat movement in this country and was able to enlist the full support of the National Congress in that policy. For a time, Gandhiji appeared to succeed and prominent Muslim leaders in India became his followers; Mr. Jinnah was nowhere in 1920-21, and the Ali Brothers became de facto Muslim leaders. Gandhiji welcomed this as the coming promise of leadership of the Muslims. He made most of the Ali Brothers, raised them to the skies by flattery and unending concessions; but what he wanted never happened. The Muslims ran the Khalifat Committee as a distinct political-religious organisation and throughout maintained it as a separate entity from the Congress. There was never any merger of the Congress and the Khilafat Committees and very soon the Moplah Rebellion showed that the Muslims had not the slightest idea of national unity on which Gandhiji had set his heart and had staked so much. There followed as usual in such cases, a huge slaughter of the Hindus, numerous forcible conversions, rape and arson. The British Government entirely unmoved by the rebellion suppressed it in a few months and left to Gandhiji the joy of his Hindu-Muslim Unity. The Khilafat agitation had failed and let down Gandhiji. British Imperialism emerged stronger, the Muslims became more fanatical and the consequences were visited on the Hindus.

Undaunted by the tactics of the British Rulers, Gandhiji became more stubborn in the pursuit of his phantom of Hindu-Muslim Unity. By the Act of 1919 separate electorates were enlarged and communal representation was continued not merely in the legislature and the local bodies but even extended within the Cabinet. The services began to be distributed on the communal basis and the Muslims obtained high jobs from our British Masters not on merit but by remaining aloof from the struggle for freedom and because they were the followers of Islam. Government patronage to Muslims in the name of Minority protection penetrated throughout the body-politic of the Indian State and the Mahatma's meaningless slogans were no match against this wholesale corruption of the Muslim mind. But Gandhiji did not relent. He still lived in the hope of being the common leader both of the Hindus and Muslims and the more he was defeated, the more he indulged in encouraging the Muslims by extravagant methods. The position continued to deteriorate and by 1925 it became patent to all that the Government had won all along the line; but like the proverbial gambler Gandhiji increased his stake. He agreed to the separation of Sind (from Bombay Province) and to the creation of a separate province in the North West Frontier. He also went on conceding one undemocratic demand after another to the Muslim League in the vain hope of enlisting its support in the national struggle.

By this time the stock of the Ali Brothers had gone down and Mr. Jinnah who had staged a come-back was having the best of both the worlds. Whatever concessions the Government and the Congress made, Mr. Jinnah accepted and asked for more. Separation of Sind from Bombay and the creation of the N. W Frontier were followed by the Round Table Conference in which the minority question loomed large. Mr. Jinnah stood out against the federation until Gandhiji himself requested Mr. Ramsay McDonald the Labour Premier, to give the Communal Award. Further seeds were thereby sown for the disintegration of this country. The communal principle became deeply imbedded in the Reforms of 1935. Mr. Jinnah took the fullest advantage of every situation. The Federation of India which was to consolidate Indian Nationhood was in fact, defeated. Mr. Jinnah had never taken kindly to it. The Congress continued to support the Communal Award under the very hypocritical term of neither supporting nor opposing, which really meant its tacit acceptance.

During the War 1939-44, Mr. Jinnah took up openly one attitude - a sort of benevolent neutrality and promised to support the war as long as the Muslims rights were conceded. In April 1940, within six months of the War, Mr. Jinnah came out with the demand for Pakistan on the basis of his two nation theory. Mr. Jinnah totally ignored the fact that there were Hindus and Muslims in large numbers in every part of India. There may be a majority of Hindus in some cases and a majority of Muslims in other Provinces and vice versa, but there was no Province in India where either the Hindus or the Muslims were negligible in numbers and that any division of India would leave the minority question wholly unsolved.

1940-47

(66) The British Government liked the Pakistan idea as it kept Hindus and Muslims estranged during the war and thereby avoided embarrassing the Government. The Muslims did not obstruct the war efforts and the Congress sometimes remained neutral and sometimes opposed. On the other hand Mr. Savarkar realised that any foreign invasion would devastate India and that there was no sense, out of spite for one master, in welcoming another. He, therefore, actively promoted the recruitment of Indians and generally supported the war effort. The result was that nearly one and a half million Hindus learned the art of war and mastered the mechanized aspect of modern warfare. This was an opportunity for our young men to have a military training, which is absolutely essential for our nation, and from which we were rather kept far away intentionally by the British. But due to this war the doors of Army, Navy and Air Force were opened to us, and Mahasabha urged our countrymen to militarise Hindus. The result was that nearly 1/2 million of Hindus learnt the art of war and mastered the mechanised aspect of modern warfare.

The Congress Governments are enjoying the fruits of the Mahasabha's foresight because the troops they are using in Kashmir and had employed in Hyderabad would not have been there ready made but for the efforts of Savarkar.

The Congress in 1942 started the 'Quit India' movement in the name of Freedom. Violent outrages were perpetrated by Congress men in every Province. In the Province of North Bihar there was hardly a railway station which was not burnt or destroyed by the Congress non-co-operators but in spite of all the opposition of the Congress, the Germans were beaten in April 1945 and the Japanese in August, 1945. The atomic bomb brought the collapse of the Japanese resistance and the British won against Japanese and Germans in spite of the opposition of the Congress party. The 'Quit India' campaign of 1942 had completely failed. Britishers had triumphed and the Congress leaders decided to come to terms with them. Indeed in the subsequent years the Congress policy can be quite correctly described as 'Peace at any Price' and 'Congress in Office at all cost.'

The Congress compromised with the British who placed it in office and in return the Congress surrendered to the violence of Mr. Jinnah, carved out one-third of India to him an explicitly racial and theological State and destroyed two million human beings in the process. Pandit Nehru now professes again and again that the Congress stands for a secular State and violently denounces those who reminded him that only last year he agreed to a communal and theological State; his vociferous adherence to a 'Secular State' is nothing but a case of 'my lady protests too much.'

(67) The 'Quit India' movement had to be abandoned by the Congress support to the war against Japan had to be assured and the Viceroy Lord Wavell had to be accepted as the head of the Government of India before the Congress was to be called into the Conference Chamber.

Partition of India
(68) This section summarises the background of the agony of India's partition and the tragedy of Gandhiji's assassination. Neither the one nor the other gives me any pleasure to record or to remember, but the Indian people and the world at large ought to know the history of the last thirty years during which India has been torn into pieces by the Imperialist policy of Britain and how under a mistaken policy of communal unity, the Mahatma was betrayed into action which has ultimately led not to the Hindu-Muslim Unity but to the shattering of the whole basis of that unity.

Five crores (50 millions) of Indian Muslims have ceased to be our countrymen. Virtually the non-Muslim minority in Western Pakistan have been liquidated either by the most brutal murders or by a forced tragic removal from their moorings of centuries. The same process is furiously at work in Eastern Pakistan. One hundred and ten million people have become torn from their homes of which not less than four millions are Muslims. When I found that even after such terrible results Gandhiji continued to pursue the same policy of appeasement, my blood boiled, and I could not tolerate him any longer. I do not mean to use hard words against Gandhiji personally nor do I wish to conceal my utter dissent from and disapproval of the very foundations of his policy and methods. Gandhiji in fact succeeded in doing what the British always wanted to do in pursuance of their policy of 'Divide and Rule'. He helped them in dividing India and it is not yet certain whether their rule has ceased.

Pandit Nehru is vigorously hammering out in London a method for associating this country with those who have, for two hundred years, looted us mercilessly and who, last year, gave us a parting kick by vivisecting India. The so-called Commonwealth is not a Commonwealth but the biggest and most fraudulent instrument for the exploitation of four hundred and fifty millions of non-white races in all the five continents.

Part II
Gandhiji's Politics X-rayed

SECTION II

(69) The accumulating provocation of 32 years culminating in his last pro-Muslim fast at last goaded me to the conclusion that the existence of Gandhiji should be brought to an end immediately. Gandhi had done very good work in South Africa to uphold the rights and self-respect of the Indian community there. But on coming back to India he developed a subjective mentality under which he alone was to be the final judge of what was right or wrong. If the country wanted his leadership it had to accept his infallibility; if it did not he would stand aloof from the Congress and carry on in his own way. Against such an attitude there can be no half way house. Either the Congress had to surrender its will to his and had to be content with playing the second fiddle to all his eccentricity, whimsicality, metaphysics and primitive vision or it had to carry on without him. He alone was the judge of every one and everything. He was the master brain guiding the civil disobedience movement; no-body else could know the technique of that movement. He alone knew when to begin it and when to withdraw it. The movement may succeed or fail; it may bring untold disasters and political reverses but that could make no difference to the Mahatma's infallibility. 'A Satyagrahi can never fail' was his formula for declaring his own infallibility and nobody except himself knew who a Satyagrahi was.

Thus Gandhiji became the judge and jury in his own case. These childish inanities and obstinacies coupled with a most severe austerity of life, ceaseless work and lofty character made Gandhiji formidable and irresistible. Many people thought his politics were irrational but they had either to withdraw from the Congress or to place their intelligence at his feet to do what he liked with it. In a position of such absolute irresponsibility Gandhiji was guilty of blunder after blunder, failure after failure and disaster after disaster. Not one single political victory can be claimed to his credit during 33 years of his political predominance.

Herein below I mention in some detail the series of blunders which he committed during 32 years of his undisputed leadership.

As already stated, the Mahatma found out in the course of a few years after his return to India that it was not easy for him to become the undisputed leader of the Hindus and the Muslims in India as it had been in South Africa and that the fight for political freedom in this country would have to be carried on in the light of circumstances prevailing as a result of this "Divide and Rule" policy of our imperial masters. He, therefore, decided to make the achievement of Hindu-Muslim unity the condition and the sure means of getting the Swaraj for India. It was an admirable decision and he had the support of all. But the Mahatma underestimated the difficulties and did not realise that the whole of British Imperial interests was bound up with the success or the 'divide and rule' policy and that the government was determined to pursue that policy undeterred by any considerations of right or wrong. The Mahatma also ignored the fact that the policy had been nearly fifteen years in operation and had achieved all the results its authors had desired. He further overlooked the risk involved to nationalism and democracy in adopting a communal approach to the solution of national questions.

(36) As a journalist, I had carefully watched and studied the Mahatma from all points; of the Congress, the League and the Hindu Mahasabha. Throughout, and after 1921, the Muslims acted according to their communal character and had demanded unjust and excessive rights for the Muslim community. The Hindu Mahasabha is 100 per cent nationalist and democratic in its outlook, policy, and programme. I state this as a fact in spite of all the mendacity of the mercenary rags of the Congress party since the Mahatma became its leader. Congress has remained nationalist only in name. It is in fact an abject anti-democratic and pro-Muslim body.

That policy has lost us one third of India. It has been directly responsible for the death or two million Hindu men, women and children under atrocious conditions. It has been the instrument for the dislocation of vast areas; the wreckage of millions or happy homes; and for the loss of thousands of crores of wealth accumulated during, centuries; and. finally, it has rendered millions of Hindus and Muslims hopeless and homeless. Gandhi has been responsible for the forcible conversion of lakhs of Hindus and for the rape of thousands of the purest and noblest Hindu sisters. All this evil and much more he did out of an un-natural ambition to become the sole leader, not merely of the Hindus, but of the Muslims.

After more than thirty years of such a vain hope, it has been shattered. Hindu-Muslim unity became a corpse on August 15, 1947.

Gandhi should have been a sadder but wiser man. But "a Satyagrahi never fails" was his immovable consolation.

(70) I shall now describe briefly the enormous mischief done by the slogans and the nostrums which Gandhiji prescribed and followed, in pursuance of his policy, with the fatal results that we now know. Here are some of them:

(a) Khilafat-As a result of the First World War, Turkey had lost most of its Empire in Africa and the Middle East. It had lost all its European Imperial possessions also and by 1914 only a strip of land was all that was left to her on the continent of Europe. The young Turks had forced the Sultan of Turkey to abdicate and with his disappearance the Khilafat was also abolished. The Indian Muslims' devotion to the Khilafat was strong and earnest and they believed that it was Britain that had brought about the downfall of the Sultan and the Khilafat. They therefore started a campaign for the revival of the Khilafat. In the moment of opportunism the Mahatma misconceived the idea that by helping the Khilafat Movement he would become the leader of the Muslims in India as he already was of the Hindus and that with the Hindu-Muslim Unity thus achieved the British would soon have to concede Swaraj. But again, Gandhiji miscalculated and by leading the Indian National Congress to identify itself with the Khilafat Movement, he quite gratuitously introduced theological element into the political movement which has proved a tragic and expensive calamity. For the moment the movement for the revival of the Khilafat appeared to be
succeeding. The Muslims who were not with the Khilafat Movement soon became out of date and the Ali Brothers who were its foremost leaders swam on the crest of a wave of popularity and carried everything before them. Mr. Jinnah found himself a lonely figure and was of no consideration for a few years. The movement however failed.

Our British Masters were not unduly shaken and as a combined result of repression and the Montague Chelmsford Reforms they were able to tide over the Khilafat Movement in a few years time. The Muslims had kept the Khilafat movement distinct from the Congress all along; they welcomed the Congress support but they did not merge with it.

When failure came the Muslims became desperate with disappointment and their anger was sited on the Hindus. Innumerable riots in the various parts of India followed, the chief victims being the Hindus everywhere. The Hindu-Muslim Unity of the Mahatma became a mirage.

(b) Moplah Rebellion-Malabar, Punjab, Bengal and North West Frontier Province were the scene of repeated outrages on the Hindus. The Moplah rebellion as it was called was the most prolonged and concentrated attack on the Hindu religion, Hindu honour, Hindu life and Hindu property. Hundreds of Hindus were forcibly converted to Islam, crores of women were outraged. The Mahatma who had brought about this entire calamity on India by his communal policy kept mum. He never uttered a single word of reproach against the aggressors nor did he allow the Congress to take any active steps whereby repetition of such outrages could be prevented. On the other hand he went to the length of denying the numerous cases of forcible conversions in Malabar and actually published in his paper 'Young India' that there was only one case of forcible conversion. His own Muslim friends informed him that he was wrong and that the forcible conversions were numerous in Malabar. He never corrected his miss-statements but went to the absurd length of starting a relief fund for the Moplahs instead of for their victims; but the promised land of Hindu-Muslim Unity was not yet in sight.

(c) Afghan Amir Intrigue-When the Khilafat movement failed Ali Brothers decided to do something which might keep alive the Khilafat sentiments. Their slogan was that whoever was the enemy of the Khilafat was also the enemy of Islam and as the British were chiefly responsible for the defeat and the dethronement of the Sultan of Turkey, every faithful Muslim was in solemn duty bound to be a bitter enemy of Britain. With that object they secretly intrigued to invite the Amir of Afghanistan to invade India and promised him every support. There is a long history behind this intrigue. The Ali brothers never denied their share in the conspiracy. The Mahatma pursued his tactics of getting Hindu-Muslim Unity by supporting the Ali brothers through thick and thin. He publicly poured his affection on them and promised them unstinted support in the restoration of the Khilafat.

Even regarding the invasion of India by the Amir the Mahatma directly and indirectly supported the Ali Brothers. This is proved beyond the shadow of a doubt. The late Mr. Shastri, Mr. C. Y. Chintamani the Editor of the ' Leader ' of Allahabad and even the Mahatma's life-long friend, the late Rev. C. F. Andrews told the Mahatma quite clearly that his speeches and writings amounted to a definite support to the Ali Brothers in their invitation to the Amir of Afghanistan to invade India. The following quotations from the Mahatma's writing in those days should make it clear that he had forgotten his own country in his one consuming desire to please the Muslims and had become a party to the invasion of his motherland by a foreign Ruler.
Here are his words, "I cannot understand why the Ali brothers are going to be arrested as the rumours go and why I am to remain free. They have done nothing which I would not do. If they had sent a message to the Amir, I also would send one to inform the Amir that if he came, no Indian, so long as I can help it, would help this Government to drive him back."

The vigilance of the British broke the conspiracy. Nothing came out of the Ali Brothers' grotesque scheme of the invasion of India and Hindu-Muslim Unity remained as far away as before.

Gandhi, in his overweening desire to become a leader of the Muslims, invented and shouted absurd slogans like "Blank cheque for the Muslims", "Nizam to be the first emperor of India", "Full Swaraj if the Nizam rules India" and "Jinnah to be the first President of Free Indian Democracy". These and other continuous appeals to Muslim greed and selfishness made the situation worse than before. The Khilafat movement was slowly dying and Mr. Jinnah and the Muslim League were once more looking up. By keeping aloof from the Congress and fighting for what were called Muslim rights, they soon became formidable. The British most generously yielded to Mr. Jinnah in his demand and the League became more and more powerful. Gandhi was not to be beaten. He almost entered into rivalry with the British Imperialists in conceding one demand after another to the Muslim League, regardless of the trend and direction which his policy was giving to Indian politics. Till then, the Indian National Congress was fighting a national struggle against the alien yoke by democratic methods and on the basis of the unity of the Indian nation, but Gandhi vied with the British in supporting the communalism of the Muslim League. Thus Jinnah became increasingly important. Communal electorates were extended to municipalities and other local bodies and even to other public services. As against these concessions given by the government, Gandhi could give only promises. The government took the wind out of Gandhi's sails by actually giving the Muslims what the Mahatma could only promise in theory. Naturally Hindu-Muslim unity never came.

(d) (i) Attack on Arya Samaj - Gandhiji ostentatiously displayed his love for Muslims by a most unworthy and unprovoked attack on the Arya Samaj in 1924. He publicly denounced the Samaj for its supposed sins of omission and commission. It was an utterly un-warranted, reckless and discreditable attack, but whatever would please the Mohammedans was the chief desire of Gandhiji. The Arya Samaj made a powerful but polite retort and for some time Gandhiji was silenced, but the growing political influence of Gandhiji weakened the Arya Samaj. No follower of Swami Dayanand could possibly be a Gandhian Congressman in politics. The two things are entirely incompatible; but the lure of office and leadership has induced numerous Arya Samajists to play the double game of claiming to be Gandhian Congressmen and Arya Samajists at the same time. The result was that a ban on Satyartha Prakash was imposed by the Government of Sind four years ago and the Arya Samaj on the whole took it lying down. As a result its hold on Hindu social and religious life has been crippled considerably. Individual members of the Samaj are and were strong nationalists. The late Lala Lajpat Rai, and Swami Shraddha Nand to mention only two names were staunch Arya Samajisfs but they were foremost amongst the leaders of the Congress till their deaths. They did not stand for blind support to Gandhi, but were definitely opposed to his pro-Muslim policy, and openly fought him on that issue. But these great men are gone now, and among the leaders of the Arya Samaj there are now more office-seekers than patriots and martyrs. We know that the bulk of the Arya Samaj continues to be what they always were but they are ill-informed and badly led by the self-seeking section of the Samaj. The Samaj has ceased to be the force and the power that it was at one time.

(d) (ii) Gandhiji's attack did not improve Hindu-Muslim relations and his popularity with the Muslims but it provoked a Muslim youth to murder Swami Shraddhanandji within a few months (23 December 1926).The charge against the Samaj that it was a reactionary body was manifestly false. Everybody knew that far from being a reactionary body the Samaj had been the vanguard of social reforms among the Hindus. The Samaj had for a hundred years stood for the abolition of untouchability long before the birth of Gandhiji. The Samaj had popularised re-marriages of widows. The Samaj had denounced the caste system and preached the oneness of not merely the Hindus but of all those who were prepared to follow its tenets. Gandhiji was completely silenced for some time but his leadership made the people forget his baseless attack on the Arya Samaj and even weakened the Samaj to a large extent. Swami Dayanand Saraswati, the founder of the Arya Samaj had no fad about violence or non-violence. In his teaching the use of force was not ruled out but was permissible if morally desirable. It must have been a struggle for the leaders of the Arya Samaj whether to remain within the Congress or not, because Gandhiji insisted on non-violence in all cases and Swami Dayanand made no bones about it. But Swamiji was dead and Gandhiji's star was ascendant in the political firmament.

Love of office, of leadership, of personal advantages induced numerous Arya Samajists to enter Congress and to remain Arya Samajists at the same time. Such opportunist patriotism carries its own condemnation and the Arya Samaj has since then continuously lost ground as a militant and courageous body of reformers.

(e) Separation of Sind -By 1928 Mr. Jinnah's stock had risen very high and the Mahatma had already conceded many unfair and improper demands of Mr. Jinnah at the expense of Indian democracy and the Indian nation and the Hindus. The Mahatma even supported the separation of Sind from the Bombay Presidency and threw the Hindus of Sind to the communal wolves. Numerous riots took place in Sind - Karachi, Sukkur, Shikarpur and other places in which the Hindus were the only sufferers and the Hindu-Muslim Unity receded further from the horizon.

(f) League's Good Bye to Congress-
With each defeat Gandhiji became even more keener on his method of achieving Hindu-Muslim Unity. Like the gambler who had lost heavily he became more desperate and increased his stakes each time and indulged in the most irrational concessions if only they could placate Mr. Jinnah and enlist his support under the Mahatma's leadership in the fight for freedom. But the aloofness of the Muslims from the Congress increased with the advance of years and the Muslim League refused to have anything to do with the Congress after 1928. The resolution of Independence passed by the Congress at its Lahore Session in 1929 found the Muslims conspicuous by their absence and strongly aloof from the Congress organisation.

The hope of Hindu Muslim Unity was hardly entertained, by anybody thereafter; but Gandhiji continued to be resolutely optimistic and surrendered more and more to Muslim communalism.

(g) Round-Table Conference and Communal Award-
The British authorities both in India and in England, had realised that the demand for a bigger and truer instalment of constitutional reforms was most insistent and clamant in India and that in spite of their unscrupulous policy of 'Divide and Rule' and the communal discord which it had generated, the resulting situation had brought them no permanence and security so far as British Rule in India was concerned. They therefore decided by the end of 1929 to convene a Round Table Conference in England early in the next year and made a declaration to that effect. Mr. Ramsay Mac-Donald was the Prime Minister and a Labour Government was in power but the action was too late.

The resolution of (Complete) Independence was passed a month later at the Lahore Session of the Congress. In spite of the aforesaid declaration (by British Government) the Congress Party decided to boycott the Round Table Conference. Instead, a Salt Campaign was started after a few months which created tremendous enthusiasm and nearly 70,000 people went to jail in breaking the provisions of the Salt Act. The Congress however soon regretted its boycott of the First Round Table Conference. At the Karachi Congress of 1931 it was decided to send Gandhiji alone as the Congress Representative to Second Session of Round Table Conference.(in fact, Gandhi insisted that he alone will go to represent Congress, even though the British had offered 14 delegates to Congress). Anybody who reads the proceeding of that Session will realise that Gandhiji was the biggest factor in bringing about the total failure of the Conference.

Not one of the decisions of the Round Table Conference was in support of democracy or nationalism and the Mahatma went to the length of inviting Mr. Ramsay McDonald to decide what was called the Communal Award, thereby strengthening the disintegrating forces of communalism which had already corroded the body politic for 24 years past. The Mahatma was thus responsible for a direct and substantial intrusion of communal electorate and communal franchise in the future Parliament of India.

There is no wonder that when the Communal Award was given by Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, the Mahatma refused to oppose it and the members of the Assembly were asked 'Neither to support nor to reject it.' Gandhiji himself put an axe on the communal unity on which he had staked so much during the previous fifteen years. No wonder under the garb of minority protection we got in the Government of India Act of 1935 a permanent statutory recognition of communal franchise, communal electorate and even weightage for the minorities especially the Muslims, both in the Provinces and in the Centre. Those elected on the communal franchise would be naturally communal minded and would have no interest in bridging the gulf between communalism and nationalism. The formation of a parliamentary party on political and economic grounds thus became impossible. Hindus and Muslims became divided in opposite camps and worked as rival parties, placing increased momentum to separatism. Almost everywhere Hindus became victims of communal orgies at the hands of the Muslims. People became perfectly cynical about any possibility of unity between Hindus and Muslims but the Mahatma kept on repeating his barren formula all the time. (Here refer to Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya's speech against the acceptance of Communal Award.)

(h) Acceptance of Office and Resigning in Huff-
Provincial Autonomy was introduced from the 1st of April 1937 under the Government of India Act 1935. The act was bristling with safeguards, special powers, and protection to British vested interests and continuation of the existing British personnel in the various services intact. The Congress therefore would not accept office at first but soon found out that in every Province a Ministry was constituted and that at least in five Provinces they were functioning in the normal manner. In the other six Province the Ministers were in a minority but they were forging ahead with their nation-building programme and the Congress felt that it would be left out in the cold if it persisted in its policy of barren negation. It therefore decided to accept office in July 1937. In doing so it committed a serious blunder in excluding the members of the Muslim League from effective participation in the Cabinet. They only admitted into the Cabinet such Muslims as were congress-men.

This was the right policy for a country with citizen franchise and without communal representation but having accepted communal electorate and communal franchise and other paraphernalia of separatism, it became untenable to keep out the members of Muslim League who represented the bulk of the Muslims in every province, where they were in a minority. The Nationalist Muslims who became Ministers were not representatives of the Muslims in the sense in which the Muslim League Members were and in not taking the League Members in the Cabinet the Congress openly repudiated its own action in statutorily having recognised itself communalism by statute. On the other hand the Muslims were quite unwilling to come under the Congress control; their interest never needed protection.
The Governors were there always ready and willing to offer the most sympathetic support, but the rejection of Muslim League Members as Ministers gave Mr. Jinnah a tactical advantage which he utilised to the full and in 1939 when the Congress resigned Office in a huff, it completely played in the hand of the Muslim League and British Imperialism. Under Section 93 of the Government of India Act 1935 the Governments of the Congress Provinces were taken over by the Governors and the Muslim League Ministries remained in power and authority in the remaining Provinces. The Governors carried on the administration with a definite leaning towards the Muslims as an Imperial Policy of Britain and communalism reigned throughout the country through the Muslim Ministries on the one hand and the pro-Muslim Governors on the other. The Hindu-Muslim Unity of Gandhiji became a dream, if it were ever anything else; but Gandhiji did not care. His ambition was to become the leader of Hindu and Muslims alike and in resigning the Ministries the Congress again sacrificed democracy and nationalism. The fundamental rights of the Hindus, religious, political, economic and social, all were sacrificed at the alter of the Mahatmic obstinacy.

(i) League Taking Advantage of War-
Encouraged by the situation thus created the Muslim Governments in five Provinces and the pro-Muslim Governors in the other six, Mr. Jinnah went ahead in full speed. The congress opposed the war in one way or another. Mr. Jinnah and the League had a very clear policy. They remained neutral and created no trouble for the Government; but in the year following, the Lahore Session of the Muslim League passed a resolution for the partition of India as a condition for their co-operation in the war. Lord Linlithgow within a few months of the Lahore Resolution gave full support to the Muslims in their policy of separation by a declaration of Government Policy which assured the Muslims that no change in the political constitution of India will be made without the consent of all the elements in India's national life. The Muslim League and Mr. Jinnah were thus vested with a veto over the political progress of this country by the pledge given by the Viceroy of India. From that day the progress of disintegration advanced with accumulated force. Muslims were not prohibited by the League from getting recruited to the Army, Navy and Air Force and they did so in large numbers. This was honest and direct co-operation by the Muslims in the war although it appears to be half-hearted.

In fact the Punjabi Muslims resented that their percentage in the Indian Army was getting reduced, with a view to preparing for eventualities in future Muslim State as is being done in Kashmir today, and of course the Muslim League never created any difficulty for the Government throughout the six years of the global war. (Here refer to the speech of the late Sir Sikandar Hyat Khan delivered at Cairo to the armed forces during the last World War) All that they wanted was that no changes should be made in the constitution of India without their full consent and that full consent could be obtained if only Pakistan was conceded. This assurance was virtually given by Lord Linlithgow in August 1940.

(j) Cripps's Partition Proposal Accepted-
The Congress did not know its own mind as to whether it should support the war, oppose it or remain neutral. All these attitudes were expressed in turn, one after the other; sometimes by way of speeches, sometimes by way of resolutions, sometimes through Press campaigns and sometimes in other ways. Government naturally felt that the Congress has no mind of its own except verbose condemnation. The war was carried on without let or hindrance till 1942. The Government could get all the men, all the money, and all the material which their war efforts needed. Every Government loan was fully subscribed.
In 1942 came the Cripps Mission which presented to the Congress and to the rest of India a Dead Sea Apple of useless promises, coupled as it was, with a clear hint of partition of India in the background. Naturally the Mission failed, but the Congress even while opposing the Mission's proposals yielded to the principle of partition after a very hypocritical resolution reiterating its adherence to democracy and nationalism. At a meeting of the All-India Congress Committee held in April 1942 at Allahabad the principle of partition was repudiated by an overwhelming majority - the minority consisting of the present Governor General Mr. C. Rajagopalchari and his half dozen supporters. But Maulana Azad, the so-called nationalist Muslim, was then the President of the Congress. He gave a ruling a few months later that the Allahabad Resolution had no effect on the earlier resolution of the Working Committee which conceded the principle of Pakistan, however remotely. The Congress was completely at the end of its wits.
The British Government went on effectively controlling the whole country through Muslim Ministries and through pro-Muslim Governors. The Princes wholly identified themselves with the war. Labour refused to keep aloof. The capitalist class supported the Congress in words and the Government indeed by supplying the Government everything it wanted at top prices. Even Khaddar enthusiasts sold blankets to Government. The Congress could see no way out of its absolute paralysis; it was out of office and Government was carried on in spite of its nominal opposition.

(k) 'Quit-India ' by Congress and ' Divide and Quit' by League-
Out of sheer desperation Gandhiji evolved the 'Quit India' Policy which was endorsed by the Congress. It was supposed to the greatest national rebellion against foreign rule! Gandhiji had ordered the people to 'do or die'. But except that the leaders were quickly arrested and detained behind the prison bars-some furtive (fugitive?) acts of violence were practised by Congressmen for a few weeks. In less than three months the whole movement was throttled by Government with firmness and discretion. The movement soon collapsed. What remained was a series of piteous appeals by the Congress Press and the Congress supporters, who were outside the jail, for the release of the arrested leaders without formally withdrawing the ' Quit India' movement, which had already collapsed. Gandhiji even staged a fast to capacity for his release, but for two years until the Germans were decisively beaten, the leaders had to remain in jails and our Imperial masters were triumphant all along. Mr. Jinnah openly opposed the 'Quit India' Movement as hostile to the Muslims and raised a counter slogan ' Divide and Quit'. That is the point that the Mahatma's Hindu-Muslim unity had reached.

(I) Hindi versus Hindustani -
Absurdly pro-Muslim policy of Gandhiji is nowhere more blatantly illustrated than in his perverse attitude on the question of the National Language of India. By all the tests of a scientific language, Hindi has the most prior claim to be accepted as the National Language of this country. In the beginning of his career in India, Gandhiji gave a great impetus to Hindi but as he found that the Muslims did not like it, he became a turncoat and blossomed forth as the champion of what is called Hindustani. Every body in India knows that there is no language called Hindustani; it has no grammar; it has no vocabulary. It is a mere dialect. It is spoken but not written. It is a bastard tongue and a cross-breed between Hindi and Urdu and not even the Mahatma's sophistry could make it popular; but in his desire to please the Muslims he insisted that Hindustani alone should be the national language of India. Of course, his followers blindly supported him and the so-called hybrid tongue began to be used. Words like 'Badshah Ram' and 'Begum Sita ' were spoken and written but the Mahatma never dared to speak of Mr. Jinnah as Shreejut Jinnah and Maulana Azad as Pandit Azad.

All his experiments were at the expense of the Hindus. His was a one-way traffic in his search of Hindu-Muslim Unity. The charm and the purity of the Hindi Language were to be prostituted to please the Muslims, but even Congressmen apart from the rest of India refused to digest this nostrum. Gandhi persisted in his support of Hindustani. The bulk of the Hindus however proved to be stronger and more loyal to their culture and to their mother tongue and refused to bow down to the Mahatmic fiat. The result was that Gandhiji did not prevail in the Hindi Parishad and had to resign from that body.

His pernicious influence however remains and the Congress Governments in India still hesitate whether to select Hindi or Hindustani as the National Language of India. The barest common sense should make it clear to the meanest intelligence that the language of 80 per cent of the people must be the language of the country, but his ostentatious support of the Muslims made Gandhi look almost idiotic when he continued to stand for Hindustani. Happily there are millions and millions of champions of the Hindi language and the Devnagari script.

The U P Government has adopted Hindi as the language of the Province. The Committee appointed by the Government of India has translated the whole of the Draft Constitution in pure Hindi and it now remains for the Congress Party in the legislature to adopt the common view in favour of Hindi or assert their loyalty to the Mahatma in their mad endeavour to force a foreign language on a great country like India. For practical purposes Hindustani is only Urdu under a different name, but Gandhiji could not have the courage to advocate the adoption of Urdu as against Hindi, hence the subterfuge of smuggling Urdu under the garb of Hindustani. Urdu is not barred by any nationalist Hindu but to smuggle it under the garb of Hindustani is a fraud and a crime. That is what the Mahatma tried to do. To bolster up a dialect as a scientific language out of spite for Hindi; to force it in the schools' curriculum and in educational institutions because it pleased the Muslims was the communalism of the worst type on the part of the Mahatma. All these for Hindu-Muslim Unity!

(m) Vande Mataram not to be sung -
The infatuation of Gandhiji for the Muslims and his incorrigible craving for Muslim leadership without any regard for right or wrong for truth or justice and in utter contempt of the sentiments of the Hindus as a whole was the high water-mark of the Mahatmic benevolence. It is notorious that some Muslims disliked the celebrated song of ' Vande Mataram ' and the Mahatma forthwith stopped its singing or recital wherever he could. This song has been honoured for a century as the most inspiring exhortation to the Bengalees to stand up like one man for their nation and their country. In the anti-partition agitation of 1905 in Bengal the song came to a special prominence and popularity. The Bengalees swore by it and dedicated themselves to the Motherland at countless meetings where this song was sung. The British Administrator did not understand the true meaning of the song which simply meant 'Hail Motherland!' but some British civilians and planters and plutocrats interpreted it as Bandke Mare-"Bundle him up and thrash him". Government therefore banned its singing forty years ago.

For a time, that only led to its increased popularity all over the country. It continued to be sung at all Congress and other national Gatherings but as soon as one Muslim objected to it Gandhiji utterly disregarded the national sentiment behind it and persuaded the Congress also not to insist upon the singing as the national song. We are now asked to adopt Rabindranath Tagore's 'Jana Gana Mana, as a substitute for Vande Mataram'. Could anything be more demoralising or pitiful than this brazen-faced action against a song of world-wide fame? Simply because one ignorant fanatic disliked it. The right way to proceed would have been to enlighten the ignorant and remove the prejudice. But that is a course which, during the thirty years of unbounded popularity and leadership, Gandhiji could not muster courage to pursue. His Hindu-Muslim Unity idea only meant to surrender, capitulation, and conceding whatever the Muslims wanted. No wonder the Will o' the Wisp unity never came and never could have come.

(n) Shiva Bavani Banned -
Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj raised the Bhagva Flag of the Hindus against Muslim tyranny and fanaticism and during his life of 50 years. The great warrior
re-established Swaraj in Maharastra by hunting out the Muslim oppressors. He made giant strides in driving the Muslims out of other provinces. His name and fame were so widespread as an intrepid patriot that Emperor Aurangazeb called him spitefully "The Mountain Rat" who sniped at his empire out of his mountain fastness and who must be destroyed. Every Hindu saw a ray of hope, feeling that Muslim tyranny had been effectively challenged by Shivaji Maharaj and that Hindu religion was safe against continuous attack.

A Hindu poet extolled Shivaji's valour and achievement in 52 Hindi verses (Shiva Bavani), the refrain of which was that if Shivaji had not been born all Hindus would have been circumcised, i.e., converted to Islam. These 52 verses are very stirring. They glorify Shivaji and his career. They have great literary merit but the Mahatma found that the Muslims were offended by their very existence.
Gandhiji banned the public recital or perusal of Shiv Bavani. Since then, in Congress gatherings or in provinces where Congress governments rule, the recitation of Shiva Bavani is not permitted. Such are the methods with which the Mahatma tried to promote Hindu-Muslim unity.

(Here recite the couplet from the Book ' Shiva Bavani' ending with the words-

Kashiji Ki Kala jati Mathura masjid hoti
Shivaji jo na hot to Sunnat hoti Sabki

This was the delight of millions of contemporary history and a beautiful piece of literature, but Gandhiji would have none of it. Hindu-Muslim Unity indeed!

(o) Suhrawardy Patronised -
When the Muslim League refused to join the provisional Government which Lord Wavell invited Pandit Nehru to form, the League started a Council of Direct Action against any Government formed by Pandit Nehru, On the 15th of August 1946 a little more than two weeks before Pandit Nehru was to take office, there broke out in Calcutta an open massacre of the Hindus which continued for three days unchecked. The horrors of these days are described in the "Statesman" newspaper of Calcutta. At the time it was considered that the Government which could permit such outrages on its citizens must be thrown out. There were actual suggestions that Mr. Suhrawardy's Government should be dismissed, but the socialist Governor (Mr Burrows - an Australian) refused to take up the administration under Section 93 of the Government of India Act.

Gandhiji however went to Calcutta and contracted a strange friendship with the author of these massacres. In fact he intervened on behalf of Suhrawardy and the Muslim League. During the three days that the massacre of Hindus took place, the police in Calcutta did not interfere for the protection of life or property. Innumerable outrages were practised under the very eyes and nose of the guardians of law, but nothing mattered to Gandhiji. To him Suhrawardy was an object of admiration from which he could not be diverted and publicly described Suhrawardy as a Martyr. No wonder two months later there was the most virulent outbreak of Muslim fanaticism in Noakhali and Tipperah. 30,000 Hindu women were forcibly converted according to a report of Arya Samaj. The total number of Hindus (men, women and children) killed or wounded was three lacs (300,000) not to mention the crores of rupees worth of property looted and destroyed.

Gandhiji then undertook, ostensibly alone, a tour of Noakhali (now in Bangladesh) District. It is well-known that Suhrawardy gave him protection wherever he went and even with that protection Gandhiji never ventured to enter Noakhali District. All these outrages, loss of life and property were done when Surhawardy was the Prime Minister (of Bengal Province) and to such a monster of inequity and communal poison Gandhiji gave the unsolicited title of Martyr. [Ref - Wavell The Viceroy's Journal, edited by Penderel Noo