Gandhi’s killer Godse ‘real patriot’ for some Hindu nationalists
Ashok Sharma has devoted his life to championing the deeds of an Indian “patriot”: not revered independence hero Mahatma Gandhi, but the man who shot him dead.
Sharma is the custodian of a temple dedicated to Nathuram Godse, who on January 30, 1948, gunned down a figure celebrated the world over as an apostle of non-violent struggle.
For generations, the young religious zealot – hanged the following year – was roundly despised as the arch-villain of India’s long struggle to free itself from British colonial rule.
But since the election of Prime Minister Narendra Modi nearly a decade ago, an alternate history forged in Hindu nationalist ideology has left Sharma no longer a “lone warrior” in worshipping the assassin.
“I was ostracised by everyone, including my family and friends … but today I command respect for being Godse’s disciple,” he told AFP news agency at his shrine in the bustling city of Meerut, a couple of hours from New Delhi by car.
“There is a wind of change in the country and people have understood that Godse was the real patriot and Gandhi a traitor.”
Sharma established his unremarkable temple complex in 2015, a year after Modi took office, after several unsuccessful attempts under previous governments that saw him briefly jailed and his property seized.
Its inauguration was met with outrage and hand-wringing in the press, renewed in 2019 when it marked the anniversary of Gandhi’s death with a staged re-enactment of the killing using an effigy that spurted fake blood.
Now the humble shrine, featuring small ceramic busts of Godse and his chief accomplice, Narayan Apte, is visited by droves of people – some out of curiosity, but most to pay their respects.Sharma and his followers hold daily prayers in front of the Godse idol, chanting religious sermons that accuse Gandhi of betraying the nation despite his role in mobilising the mass protests that brought India’s independence.
In their view, Gandhi failed to stop Britain’s colony from being partitioned into the separate nations of India and Pakistan, thwarting it from becoming a state governed by ancient Hindu scriptures.
“It is because of Gandhi and his ideology that India was divided and Hindus had to bow before Muslims and outsiders,” said Abhishek Agarwal, like Sharma, a member of the century-old radical Hindu Mahasabha group.
Agarwal said Godse was denigrated by post-independence secular politicians in a conspiracy to suppress Hindu beliefs and impose democracy, a concept he claims is alien to local historical tradition.
“But now Gandhi is exposed and Godse’s word is spreading far and wide. The secular leaders cannot stop this storm and there will be a time when Gandhi’s name will be wiped out from the pious land,” he told AFP.
