Nathuram godse last words

On 12 January 1948, Mahatma Gandhi went on a fast to put pressure on the government to pay Rs 55 crore it owed to Pakistan. This was part of the 17.5 percent liquid assets that Pakistan was entitled to as part of the deal that formalised the partition of India, or the ‘Terms of Alimony’ as some called it. These liquid assets included printed currency, stocks, coins, postal and revenue stamps, gold reserves, and assets of the Reserve Bank of India. India had paid the first instalment of Rs 20 crore but had halted the rest of the payment (Rs 55 crore) asking Pakistan to first resolve the Kashmir issue. Gandhi’s decision to fast was the final straw for Nathuram Godse and Narayan Apte, who decided that Gandhi must die – and 20 January 1948 was to be the D day. On Gandhi’s 70th death anniversary, The Quint revisits the events that preceded the assassination as well as the trial that saw Godse and his close associate Narayan Apte be hanged. On 20 January 1948, a week into his fast, Mahatma Gandhi made his first public appearance at Birla House in New Delhi, where he usually held his prayer meetings. The crowd on the day was larger than usual. The speakers were not working due to electrical problems. So, a close associate repeated Gandhi’s words for everyone to hear. In ‘The Murder of the Mahatma’, GD Khosla, the former chief justice of Punjab, who heard the appeals of Nathuram Godse and others in the assassination case, recounted what had happened on the day. After he had conclu...

Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images Mug shot of Nathuram Godse, the man who killed Gandhi. May 12, 1948. By the late 1940s, Mahatma Gandhi was an icon both in his native India and across the globe for his activism in working toward freeing his country from British colonial rule. His nonviolent ideals and leadership of the Indian Independence movement had gained him hundreds of thousands of devoted followers. But some of his beliefs also gained him opponents — and Nathuram Godse, the man who killed Gandhi, was ultimately the most zealous opponent of them all. Late in the afternoon of Jan. 30, 1948, Nathuram Godse walked up to Gandhi before a prayer service in New Delhi and shot him three times in the chest. With that, the great leader was dead, but the infamy of the man who killed Gandhi lives on to this day. The Early Life Of Nathuram Godse, The Man Who Killed Gandhi Nathuram Godse Because only his sister had survived, his parents believed that their male children were cursed, with the only way to get rid of the curse was to raise their next son as a girl. So when Godse was born, he was named Ramchandra, his nose was pierced so he could wear a nose ring, and he was raised as a girl. His name was shortened to “Ram” and his parents began to call him “Nathuram” which means “Ram who wears a nose ring.” Finally, after his younger brother was born, his parents began to raise him as a boy. As a child, his family believed that he had special oracular powers. He would sit in front...

By Prabhash K Dutta: Nathuram Godse, the murderer of Mahatma Gandhi, has resurfaced. He has beocme a talking point in the national election when India is preparing to vote for 59 seats in the final phase of the Lok Sabha polls. This comes almost 70 years after Godse was hanged for the assassination of the Father of the Nation. It began with a statement by actor-turned-politician Kamal Haasan at a public meeting in Tamil Nadu on May 12. "Free India’s first terrorist was a Hindu, his name is Nathuram Godse. There it [terrorism] starts," Kamal Haasan was quoted as saying hours after the polling ended in the penultimate phase of Lok Sabha election. Four days later, Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur -- BJP’s Bhopal Lok Sabha candidate, responded to Kamal Haasan saying, "Nathuram Godse was a deshbhakt, is a deshbhakt and will remain a deshbhakt." Both have retracted their statements. Kamal Haasan, in his clarification, said he did not use the word terrorist but extremist for Godse. Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, under pressure from the BJP leadership, apologised and withdrew her statement. This was not the first time when Godse was praised as a patriot. In late 1990s, a play was staged in Maharashtra when it was under BJP-Shiv Sena rule describing the circumstances and giving out the arguments behind Godse and his accomplices’ conspiracy to assassinate Mahatma Gandhi in 1948. As late as 2017, the Hindu Mahasabha Godse was a member of the group unveiled a temple dedicated him in Gwalior. G...

Dantewada, Jun 9 (PTI) Union Minister Giriraj Singh on Friday termed Nathuram Godse a ‘saput’ (worthy son) of India and said the assassin of Mahatma Gandhi was not an invader like Mughal rulers Babar and Aurangzeb as he was born in India. Talking to reporters in Dantewada city of Chhattisgarh, the BJP leader, who holds the rural development and panchayati raj portfolio, said those who feel happy in calling themselves children of Babar and Aurangzeb cannot be true sons of mother India. Queried about a statement of AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi related to Godse while reacting to Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis’s comment on Aurangzeb, Singh said, “If he was the killer of Gandhi, he (Godse) was also a saput of India. He was born in India. He was not an invader like Babar and Aurangzeb.” Referring to recent violence in a few cities of Maharashtra, Fadnavis said on Wednesday that suddenly Aurangzeb’s “aulad” (progenies) had taken birth in the state, prompting Owaisi to counter who was “Godse ki aulad”. Singh accused the Bhupesh Baghel-led Congress government in Chhattisgarh of spreading terror and encouraging religious conversion. “Tribals and non-tribals are being converted in the state as part of a conspiracy. When BJP is elected to power in the state, a stringent law will be enacted against conversion,” he said. Targeting the state’s Congress government, the Union minister claimed misappropriation of funds given to Chhattisgarh under...

Nathuram Godse was arrested immediately after he assassinated Gandhiji, based on a F. I. R. filed by Nandlal Mehta at the Tughlak Road Police staton at Delhi . The trial, which was held in camera, began on May 27, 1948 and concluded on February 10, 1949. He was sentenced to death. An appeal to the Punjab High Court, then in session at Simla, did not find favour and the sentence was upheld. The statement that you are about to read is the last made by Godse before the Court on the May 5, 1949. Such was the power and eloquence of this statement that one of the judges, G. D. Khosla, later wrote, “I have, however, no doubt that had the audience of that day been constituted into a jury and entrusted with the task of deciding Godse’s appeal, they would have brought a verdict of ‘not Guilty’ by an overwhelming majority” WHY I KILLED GANDHI Born in a devotional Brahmin family, I instinctively came to revere Hindu religion, Hindu history and Hindu culture. I had, therefore, been intensely proud of Hinduism as a whole. As I grew up I developed a tendency to free thinking unfettered by any superstitious allegiance to any isms, political or religious. That is why I worked actively for the eradication of untouchability and the caste system based on birth alone. I openly joined RSS wing of anti-caste movements and maintained that all Hindus were of equal status as to rights, social and religious and should be considered high or low on merit alone and not through the accident of birth in ...

Also Read: Later speaking to news agency ANI, Sibal said the statement is basically glorifying murderers. “His statement reflects whoever, if born in India, kills someone, they are ‘saput’.…'Saput’ means a good son...was Godse a good son of India?” he asked. “Being a Union minister, his views are reflecting those of the Modi government…does PM Modi, Amit Shah agree?,” he added, mentioning his tweet, calling for condemnation of Singh’s statement by the party's top brass. Sibal further said that he has doubts though, that (condemnation) would ever happen. “BJP did not participate in the freedom struggle… Singh’s comment on Kolhapur violence Singh’s statement came while he was on a visit to the Bastar region in Bihar to meet party workers. Speaking to reporters there, he said “those who feel happy in calling themselves children of Babar and Aurangzeb cannot be true sons of mother India" and praised Godse. Also Read: His statement was a response to Fadnavis, while appealing for peace, had defended the aggression saying “there is bound to be a reaction if Aurangzeb is glorified.” “Suddenly, in some districts of Maharashtra, aulad (progenies) of Aurangzeb took birth," he said. To this, Owaisi asked “expert” Fadnavis to “call out the offsprings” of Godse. This followed the Bihar BJP leader’s comments that “If he (Godse) was the killer of Gandhi, he (Godse) was also a ‘saput’ of India. He was born in India. He was not an invader like Babar and Aurangzeb.”

Born Ramachandra Vinayak Godse to a Chitpavan Brahmin family on May 19, 1910, Godse began his life in unusual fashion: Three earlier boys had all died in infancy, so his parents initially raised their fourth as a girl in an attempt to break the "curse." This included the traditional feminine piercing of his nose with a ring, or "nath," inspiring a nickname that stuck. His parents also believed their first surviving boy had a gift for communicating with spirits, and Godse indulged them by allegedly falling into trances and receiving messages from the family deity, until foregoing the practice as a teenager. By the time he attended high school in the city of Pune, Godse was developing some of his nationalist sensibilities, including an admiration for He was influenced by Hindu nationalist V.D. Savarkar Godse's life took a major turn when he moved with his father to the town of Ratnagiri at age 19. There, in this otherwise unremarkable coastal locale, activist Vinayak Damodar Savarkar was granted freedom to walk the streets as he served out a 50-year sentence for supporting an armed uprising against the British. Godse soon fell under the spell of the battle-tested scholar and firebrand. Along with his unwavering commitment to the expulsion of the British Raj, Savankar introduced the concept of "Hindutva," a Hindu-dominated country that theoretically offered religious freedom but also left little room for a shared existence with Muslims. Following a few months at Savarkar’s si...