Nehru & Gandhi V/S Savarkar & Godse...Political journey of India

In this post I sought to find out the reasons for the new found love towards Savarkar and the attempts to create a martyr out of a cold blooded murder…. “Shri” Nathuram Godse by the Hindutva-vadi forces.

India is a nation which simply loves Hero worshipping. Indians are so much into hero worship that they occasionally put the interest of their hero’s ahead of their own interests. Another thing that common people do is that they just refuse to think with their own brains and think with the brains of their Hero’s or the self proclaimed protectors of their Hero’s ideological linage. That’s the reason why Indians are easy to fool. Politicians do it all the time. They will show Shivaji Maharaj’s photo and woo the Maratha vote, they will display Dr. Ambedkars photo and ask dalits to vote for them. Show the photos of Ram and get the Hindu votes. It really doesn’t matter if they follow the same ideology. All that matter for them is that they should be good at displaying the photos and claiming legacy.

If we look into Indian political history we will find that post independence almost till 1995 the political rule was mainly dominated by Congress with perhaps one or two small stints by Janta Dal and others. To understand what this monopoly of Congress is and its implication on common people’s lives, it is imperative to understand the condition of India post independence and the public psyche.

But before that, understand that every nation is controlled by three types of power. Every one is aware of political power. But there are two more very important powers. The economic power (controlled by the Industrialists) and the spiritual powers (Controlled by the Brahmins and spiritual leaders and various important temple trustees).These powers are self complimenting and balancing each other. Each one strives for the happiness of the other coz they know that as long as the other two are with them, they will rule the nation. Any unbalance could lead to turmoil in the nation. Now let us turn back to India.

Thanks to the traditional caste system and the atrocity of the British Empire, India was flooded with illiterates and hero worshippers during the Independence. These were the people who had shed their blood, lost their kin’s and made all the supreme sacrifice without ever bothering for the lime lights, in the pursuit of a world of freedom justice and peace, an utopian world that the Congress and Nehru promised to bring. But Nehru’s utopian society never became a reality. The promise never really got delivered.



Yet time and again Congress came back in power time and again. They could do so because they had an ace in their sleeves…the Photo of Mahatma Gandhi. Illiterate Indians actually trusted that Congress is carrying forward the legacy of Mahatma Gandhi. Looking at the photo and their past experience that Mahatma Gandhi gave them the freedom, common man felt that it was his patriotic duty to vote for congress. Nehru himself was an iconic figure as well. So actually Congress had 2 photos, one of Mahatma Gandhi and another of Nehru. Congress had its rule assured and it not only became complacent but many a politicians became arrogant as well.



Yet the congress had no fears. They had all the powers in their pocket. The industrialists were supporting them whole heartedly and Congress were making rules and regulations or rather twisting the rules and regulations to accommodate the industrialist.

Congress largely compromised of either Gandhi followers or Tilak followers and both these leaders had publicly upheld the caste system. Despite having made caste discrimination as a crime, the position of the Brahmins on the top of caste hierarchy was safe under congress rule due to these people. They showered their blessings on Congress.

The Muslims were also happy that Congress had accommodated their leaders as well.

In short, Congress was the face of the Hindu’s and Muslim’s at the national level. Those were the early days after independence. Dalits were struggling to make their ends meet and also take up education at the same time. They hardly voted or even if they did, it was under the influence of the local people and landlords of their villages. They were not a vote bank.

But slowly the dalits started getting education and demanding their rights. Initially all attempts were made to crush the dalits demands. Even for a minor demand like renaming the Maratha University after Dr.Ambedkar was made possible only after dalits self-immolated themselves. I mean seriously what great objection could any one have if Marathvada University got Ambedkars name? Many of the readers would have been too young to recall, but the argument in “secular” India was that if Ambedkars name is given to the university, the standard of the university will go down!!! Another bigotry of the savarnas is visible through their derogatory argument…why name it Ambedkar university, make Marathvada as Maharwada university…What could be more ridiculous than this? …Shahid Gautam Waghmare had to kill himself to give Ambedkars name to the University.(And for this act of renaming the university, hundereds of Dalits were killed and raped in the Marathvada region)….But R S Gavai’s long march had shown that even dalits were a power to reckon with. The Dalit panther had shown that Dalits were now willing to fight back. Though the actual renaming happened in 1994 the struggle had begun in early 1980’s.It was clear indication the dalits were waking up from their slumber...

Left with no options, the only way out was dalit appeasement. Schemes for the dalit empowerment began. Backlogs were taken little more seriously. Their problems were getting addressed to (not solve), just to show that dalits were being cared.

When all this was happening Savarkar was in the closet. No one bothered with either giving him respect or even commenting about his letters. Savarkar was neither a hero nor a villain. He was just another freedom fighter turned into social reformer, with serious allegations. Many people even from Nasik didn’t know that Savarkar was a Nasikite. And many believed him to be the murderer of Gandhiji.

But as and when the Dalits began getting empowered, the Brahmins felt their position threatened. After all they were taught that the Dalits are their unpaid servants. Now those very servants were sitting next to them, most of the times as their subordinates and some times even their superiors. This was too much for the Brahmins. They were of the opinion that Congress was responsible for the sudden rise of the dalits, or at least that Congress was not doing enough to crush the dalits.

Now happened the rift between the Congress and the Brahmins. They were unhappy with the way Congress was handling the Dalits and Congress knew that Majority was with the Dalits; Brahmins formed a mere 4%.

The only option left for them was to make a new political refuge. But the Brahmins knew all the time that their small population is a big stumbling block in their path to make a new political party. They would have absolutely no chance of making any progress unless others also thought that their salvation lied in the salvation of Brahmins. Their traditional practice came in handy once again. Brahmins, as pointed out by Dr.Ambedkar himself, has always conveniently changed his role between a Hindu and a Brahmin. When ever there was a chance to enjoy the cake he became a Brahmin and claimed the first right on it (irrespective of his contribution), but whenever he was under a threat he became a hindu, cried Hinduism is under threat and disappeared into the crowd urging others to fight. Again when the enemy was defeated he became a Brahmin and claimed his share in to rule.

Right now it was again the Brahmin who was threatened and he sought back to the same old cry…Hinduism under threat. But for Hinduism to be under threat some one needed to attack it. Who could be blamed for that? Dalits couldn’t be the scapegoats (coz their attack was more towards Brahminism). Obvious choice was the Muslim community.



To make this issue more believable, they raked up the age old Babri Masjid issue..Nothing to do with faith….It was plainly obvious...The Babri Masjid was never a problem in India post independence till 1984 when VHP brought out this issue..Hindutva card of BJP was out.Muslim community which was largely silent till those days post independence was intentionally provoked. They started hurling all abuses toward the Muslim community. There were slogans that “Muslim is a foreigner kick him out” by those very people with the same intensity said that “Muslims forcibly convert Indians”(without even seeing this as funny that they were indirectly saying kick Indians out of India because they are not Indians and are foreigners). And the final nail in the coffin was the demolition of the Babari Masjid. Any community would retaliate to such a cohesive execution of power without any regards to the law. Till 1984 even the BJP had no objections to the age old structure. But just to create an issue, they started an all out war against the Muslims. Demolition followed by riots. ISI and Pak saw this as a god sent opportunity to disrupt India. Then started the series of attacks and counter attacks…riots followed by bomb blasts and bomb blasts followed by riots.

For all this time Savarkar was still in the closet. But BJP was gaining power. It was posing as a serious threat to the Congress. But they had to negate the strength of Congress with their own. Congress still had Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru’s photos. To counter the Gandhian ideology, BJP needed a personality who would have to be actively involved in Freedom Struggle, who would be a critic of Gandhiji and who supported the Hindutva cause….



Who else?….. Savarkar had all the qualifications. But the only problem was that he was long forgotten. But that was never a problem. All that was needed was just one issue. And this was an easy task. Savarkar’s photo should be hung in the parliament….was all that BJP needed to be asked. BJP knew fully well that Congress would never agree to this as Savarkar was one of the accused in Gandhiji Murder case. An issue was raised as expected and taking the advantage of the chaos created BJP RSS and other hindutvavadi parties started character assassination of Gandhiji and Nehru. Quotes were being brought about from “My experiments with Truth” and Nehru’s Islamic ties were brought out in the open. Sever criticism on his character started happening. After all the real intentions were to pull Gandhiji and Nehru from their iconic stature and make Savarkar larger than life. All the things that were being said about Gandhiji and Nehru were present right from the time of independence. But no hindutvavadi’s thought about talking of them till then. The reasons were that Hindutva forces were kept happy. Only when they began to get neglected by the Congress, these things started.

After the personal attacks it was necessary for the BJP to some how associate Congress with Anti-Nationalism. And for that began another notorious attempt. After Gandhiji’s murder even the RSS and Hindu Mahasabha had disassociated themselves from Nathuram Godse. He was, as described by Times of India, a lunatic and terrorist and no one seemed to have any problem with that.Efforts to make Godse as a martyr were done with this point of view.Coz if Godse becomes a hero then naturally the person he killed becomes a villan. Naturally image cleansing of Godse had to be done. Attempts were made to show that this very lunatic was actually a genius of a strong Character. “Hindutva is nationalism” was the cry of this saffron brigade which had gelled well with the common mass. Godse died for this very cause was being said.After creating Savarkar follwers the Hindutvavadi forces were creating Godse fans.You will rarely find that a person who claims to be Savarkars follower criticizes Godse as well, Because both types are actually the product of same school of thought.




It was very clear that Godse couldn’t be elevated to the status of Gandhiji Nehru or Savarkar. What ever little image cleaning was done was used by the BJP. Strong Anti-Gandhi statements like Gandhi was father of Pakistan and not India were being said through his mouths. Attacks on Gandhiji were done using Godse. Godse who was a long forgotten criminal was suddenly into the limelight and the sole purpose of bringing out the skeleton of this murderer was to tackle Gandhiji. And they are successful in that. Proof of it is easily visible…open google and type “Shri Nathuram Gode” in quotes and over 160 pages will be found.

When BJP was attacking Congress, how could Congress remain silent? BJP had attacked the supreme of the Congress so congress had to hit back …their strike would have to be the Supreme of the Hindutva ideology. If BJP was going to bring out the dark side of Gandhiji, Congress would bring out the dark side of Savarkar was well. Savarkar’s letters came out in the Market.(Know More) A big question mark on Savarkar’s patriotism was put up. Now coming to think about it, even Savarkar’s letters were present from 1947.No one spoke about it till now. The only reason that it saw the day of the light was because of Counter attack by the Congress.

The lust for power by both is compelling them to do the shameful acts. But no one seems to regret about it…After all what they say about the politicians is true…Politicians are thick skinned pigs and pigs are always going to get dirty and make others dirty.The only positive thing is that truth which was carefully concealed till then started coming out.

It certainly doesn’t seem to be out of place for the BJP, whose farce of Hindutva started with the rise of Dalits, should oppose Dalits at every possible opportunity. Under the guise of changing the constitution, they want to put an end to reservation system…the only way for the emancipation of Dalits.

Today politics is played over dead Gandhiji dead Nehru dead Savarkar and dead Godse and the life of living citizens is made hell.(Muslims live in fear of riots, Dalits are getting raped and killed).One just wonders what is the next low they are going to stoop to?

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