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Thursday, Oct 28, 2004

Opinion

Opinion - Leader Page Articles

Assassination of the Mahatma

By K.N. Panikkar

The real assassin was not Nathuram Godse, but Hindu communalism of which Savarkar was the most ardent ideologue and practitioner.

THE AGITATION, both inside and outside Parliament, unleashed by the Bharatiya Janata Party, over the removal of the plaque from the Cellular Jail in the Andamans extolling Vinayak Damodar Savarkar as a great patriot and nationalist hardly aroused any public enthusiasm.

Even in Maharashtra, where Savarkar is supposed to be a cult figure because of his earlier revolutionary involvement, the controversy did not appeal to the people, as evident from the drubbing the BJP received at the hustings. In fact, if anything, the agitation turned out to be counter-productive. The unprecedented disruption of the parliamentary proceedings raised doubts, even in the minds of its liberal supporters, about the party's commitment to democratic values and practice.

At the same time, the focus on Savarkar automatically attracted attention to his role in the assassination of the Father of the Nation. The public debate and discussion that followed proved beyond doubt that Savarkar, the progenitor of the idea of Hindutva and the ideological mentor of the Sangh Parivar, was a moving force behind the assassination. Even the unabashed advocates of Hindutva were pushed to the back foot. However much they tried to conceal the facts about the assassination, as they did even by manipulating the textbooks, the nation became fully aware that Savarkar from whom the Sangh Parivar draws inspiration was a collaborator in the murder of the Mahatma.

The undoubted participation of Savarkar, who represented the rising force of Hindu communalism, in the conspiracy preceding the assassination raises the question why the Mahatma was assassinated. Was it because Gandhi was perceived to be pro-Muslim by a group of Hindu fanatics? For, he had suggested Muhammad Ali Jinnah as the Prime Minister of independent India and had undertaken a fast to ensure that India fulfilled the fiscal obligations to Pakistan arising out of Partition.

Or are there deeper causes, which do not necessarily lie in the political domain but in the contradiction between two different worldviews? In different interpretations of the nature of Indian civilisation? Or in the way in which Hinduism was understood and practised?

In all these spheres, there was sharp contradiction between the two. Gandhiji expressed this difference in outlook in the following words: "Those Hindus who like Dr. Moonje and Shri Savarkar [and] believe in the doctrine of the sword may seek to keep the Mussalmans under Hindu domination. I do not represent that section." Gandhi was a deeply religious person who like many of his predecessors such as Rammohan Roy, Keshab Chandra Sen and Ramakrishna was engaged in the quest for religious truth.

His enquiry led him to recognise, without diluting or renouncing his own faith, that all religions are different manifestations of a universal truth. He invoked the metaphor of a garden and a tree to drive home the point that all religions emanated from the same source. "There is in Hinduism room enough for Jesus, as there is for Mohammed, Zoraster and Moses. For me the different religions are beautiful flowers from the same garden, or they are branches of the same majestic tree."

He further argued that there is nothing to choose between one religion and the other. "My position is that all the great religions are fundamentally equal. We must have innate respect for other religions as we have for our own. Mind you, not mutual toleration, but equal respect."

Gandhi's attitude towards religions was therefore influenced by two fundamental principles: universality and equality of all faiths. As a consequence, he did not subscribe to the idea that truth is the prerogative of any particular religion. Instead, he upheld that all religions are true.

To him, there was no difference between different scriptures. All of them, "the Bible, the Quran and the Zend Avesta are as much divinely inspired as the Vedas." But the importance of Gandhi's thought is not that he subscribed to religious universalism. Many before him had done so.

The significance of Gandhi is that he transgressed the universalist principle that all religions are true to assert that truth is religion, thus defining religion as a moral and ethical system. Such a perspective on religion distinguished Gandhi from other religious and political thinkers inasmuch as it enabled him to introduce a moral quality in the relationship between religion and politics. "For me there is no politics without religion," he said. But "not the religion of the superstitious and the blind, religion that hates and fights, but the universal religion of toleration."

He thus gave an entirely different meaning to the relationship than what the political practitioners of religion such as the leaders of the Sangh Parivar strive to attribute. In this context the concept of Ramarajya that Gandhi advocated is relevant. "By Ramarajya I do not mean Hindu Raj. I mean by Ramarajya Divine Raj, the kingdom of god. For me Ram and Rahim are one and the same deity. I acknowledge no other God but the one God of truth and righteousness."

This notion of unity of god was at the heart of Gandhi's attitude towards inter-religious relationship, which led him to acknowledge communal harmony as the cornerstone of his political philosophy and programme. He rightly realised that without Hindu-Muslim unity Indian civilisation could not survive.

Gandhi's attitude towards Hinduism was equally governed by a sense of openness and catholicity. He questioned the claim of priests to interpret the scriptures, disapproved of the practice of obscurantist rituals in the name of tradition and opposed the tendency to equate the knowledge of scriptures with spirituality.

He refused to accept that Hinduism is an exclusive religion. "In Hinduism there is room for the worship of all the prophets of the world. It is not a missionary religion in the ordinary sense of the term. It has no doubt absorbed many tribes in its fold, but this absorption has been of an evolutionary imperceptible character. Hinduism tells everyone to worship God according to his own faith or dharma, and so it lives at peace with all religions."

Gandhi's conception of religion and the practice of Hinduism were diametrically opposed to the ones advocated by the Hindu communalists headed by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. They did not believe in the equality of all religions or in the universality of religious faith. Instead, irreconcilable antagonism was attributed to inter-religious relationship.

Neither non-violence nor communal harmony advocated by Gandhi received their approbation. This disapproval was expressed by M.S. Golwalkar: "Those who declare `no swaraj without Hindu-Muslim unity' have perpetrated the greatest treason in our society. They have committed the most heinous sin of killing the life spirit of a great and ancient people."

Gandhi was arguably the greatest Hindu of this generation. But his interpretation was antithetical to that of those who spoke in the name of Hinduism. Among them was Savarkar, who not only coined the concept of Hindutva and advanced the communal paradigm of the Indian nation, but also guided the Hindu communal project. The assassination of the Mahatma was inherent in that project.

Therefore, despite the acquittal of Savarkar due to a technical reason he cannot be absolved of the responsibility for the murder of the Mahatma. Nor can his contemporary disciples, so long as they defend him. For, the real assassin was not Nathuram Godse, but Hindu communalism of which Savarkar was the most ardent ideologue and practitioner.

Neither Savarkar nor his political progeny could be literally brought to the altar of justice but the nation could at least express its disapproval, as it did in the election to the Maharashtra State Assembly.

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