When an English film maker Richard Attenborough was going to make a film on Mahatma Gandhi in the 1980s, I was one of the few people in India who were of the opinion that this English man will make a distorted film on Mahatma Gandhi, so we went around telling many Gandhian people not to support him.
But after watching the movie made by that Englishman named Gandhi, I was proved wrong. And that movie has become one of the best movies of the world. Richard Attenborough was born in England. And using his non-violent methods, Mahatma Gandhi forced the British to leave India on 15th August 1947, removing the power of his ancestors from India. And Richard Attenborough makes a movie on the same theme. The theme which Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia has compared to civil disobedience. Which Mahatma Gandhi first invented in 1906 in South Africa at the age of thirty-five. Which he first called as ‘Satyagraha’ and later as ‘Satyagraha’. In the human history of the world, even an ordinary man or woman, if alone and unarmed, can protest against the injustice done to them, sitting or standing or walking on the ground, for justice. So there are dozens of examples of its success. And in the competition of various weapons in the world, such a powerful weapon was invented by Mahatma Gandhi 119 years ago. And today it is seen being used in every country in the whole world.
And as far as I have understood Richard Attenborough’s film titled Gandhi includes the farmer movements in South Africa, Champaran and Kheda (Bardoli), the Dandi March of 1930, the Salt Satyagraha and the Quit India Movement of 1942, and the peace and harmony work done during the riots in Bengal, Bihar and Delhi, which our country’s last Viceroy Lord Mountbatten likens to a ‘one man’ army. Richard Attenborough has been successful in showing all this in his film of more than three hours. And this is why an English filmmaker has made the most famous film of the world at that time, breaking all the record-breaking awards of that time, for covering the essence of Mahatma Gandhi’s life to a great extent.
Mahatma Gandhi has been one of the people who has influenced all the talented people of the world. That is why cinema, drama, stories, novels, paintings, cartoonists, poets, sculptors and people of every kind of expression have expressed themselves on him through all kinds of genres. And since India is identified as the country of Gandhiji, it is natural for all kinds of artists of our country to express themselves on him through their art.
A commercial Hindi film titled ‘Gandhi Godse: Ek Yudh’ released on 25 January 2023, which is based on the famous Urdu and Hindi writer, Mr. Asghar Wajahat’s play ‘Godse @ Gandhi.com’, has been made by Rajkumar Santoshi. The film is named ‘Gandhi Godse: Ek Yudh’ and has been shot in Madhya Pradesh. Therefore, at the beginning of the film, special thanks have been expressed to Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan and a Banfem Minister. And the Vishwa Hindu Parishad has recommended showing this film in every school and college and making it tax free. The meaning is clear. After Kashmir Files, now the present government is not satisfied with just controlling the electronic media, so it has also used Bollywood cinema to propagate its communal agenda, mainly by making a propaganda film named ‘Kashmir Files’ by Vivek Agnihotri, and the Prime Minister of India himself promoting it, and making it tax free in BJP ruled states and organizing its shows at government level. And perhaps after seeing all this, Rajkumar Santoshi must have also felt like getting his hands dirty in the flowing Ganga.
In particular, to polarize the communal divide of his party, to project films that are useful and some film producers and directors have also joined that race. Now Rajkumar Santoshi, in order to please the present government, presented distorted facts in a film named (‘Kashmir Files’) after Vivek Agnihotri. And people at the international level also strongly commented that it has been certified as a cheap and useless film made for propaganda.
Now, where do you want to sit in the competition with Richard Attenborough , brother Rajkumar Santoshi? Is there any justification for glorifying a murderer? Since the governments of Madhya Pradesh and the Centre are the political units of the RSS and the Sangh is a corrupt copy of Indian fascism, the campaign to defame Gandhiji has been going on in the RSS branches since the beginning. And Nathuram Godse was the product of that campaign. And that is why despite killing Gandhi (on 30 January 1948), he was expelled from our organisation immediately after that (due to his extremist views). As stated in the court. The same statement has been given by the Sangh in the same words after seeing the news of Pragya Singh Thakur being involved in the Malegaon blast. And during the 2019 Bhopal Lok Sabha elections, I myself saw with my own eyes that the people of the Sangh were going door-to-door to campaign for Pragya Singh Thakur. And in the same election, Pragya had praised Nathuram Godse a lot. And the great Prime Minister has said in strong words that “I can never forgive Pragya Singh Thakur in my life”. Such hypocrisy is hardly seen anywhere else. Today the people of the Sangh are trying to glorify Nathuram. After seeing you people joining them, after Vivek Agnihotri, Rajkumar Santoshi has also got another volunteer for the anti-Gandhi propaganda of the Sangh. But remember that these days are also going to change. Because ninety years ago, Hitler in Germany killed lakhs of Jews as part of the experiment of fascism for fifteen years from 1930 to 1945. And before that, in the same way, with the help of Dr. Goebbels, he has used the media organizations of Germany. And there is a history of using Agnihotri and Santoshi like this. But on 30 April 1945, Hitler himself had to put a gun to his temple and end his life. This proves that history is very ruthless.
Now for the last 30-35 years, attacks organized by Hindutva elements against minority communities in India, following Hitler’s example, from the Gujarat riots 23 years ago, to Adityanath’s act of bulldozing and destroying houses of minority community people in Uttar Pradesh, or the present Maharashtra government’s action in Nagpur last month which has been imitated by Uttar Pradesh, and the court has ruled that the government has done wrong. Seeing all this, we are reminded of fascist Germany and currently Zionist Israel.
Nathuram was 38 years old on 30 January 1948 (born on 19 May 1910). Accused number two Narayan Apte (1911) and accused number three Vishnu Karkare were orphans. But they were also estimated to be below forty. And the fourth Nathuram’s younger brother Gopal Godse and the fifth Madanlal Pahwa, after being displaced due to partition, used to work as a firecracker maker in Mumbai. And he threw a bomb on 20 January 1948 at Gandhiji’s prayer meeting from a window of the servants’ houses of Birla House. Out of these five, the first two Nathuram and Narayan Apte were sentenced to death on 21 June 1949. And Vishnu Karkare, Gopal Godse, Madanlal Pahwa, Shankar Kishtaiya were sentenced to life imprisonment. And Dattatreya Parchure and Vinayak Damodar Savarkar were acquitted due to lack of evidence. But the Kapoor Commission later stated “that the Mumbai and Delhi police deliberately ignored certain facts about Savarkar to protect him.” For example, he had told the court, “that he did not recognize Nathuram.” Nathuram, who was nineteen years old, had failed in his matriculation examination in 1929, and his father had been transferred to the post office in Ratnagiri. Within three days Nathuram came to know that Vinayak Damodar Savarkar was also in Ratnagiri under house arrest. So, every morning in 1929, he would go to the house where Savarkar was kept and return home before going to sleep at night. Nathuram was not going to that school. That is why he has specially helped him in teaching Sanskrit, English and Marathi. And Savarkar used to help him financially and as a writer in his Marathi magazine named ‘Agrani’. And he says in the court, “I have never met Nathuram in my life”. And Nathuram also says in the court, “I have never met Savarkar” to save Savarkar, even if it is as his Guru Dakshina. Perhaps Savarkar has specially used his knowledge of barristership studies, without doing any practice, to save himself from every conspiracy, to carry out around a dozen terrorist attacks in his life, from Madanlal Dhingra to Nathuram. The last terrorist was Nathuram. But I have never met Nathuram, a nineteen year old man in Ratnagiri, who used to spend more than twelve hours every day in Savarkar’s company, Savarkar says in the court. And Nathuram also says to save him that “we never met Savarkar. And the most important thing is that even the so called historical 90 page statement of Nathuram which was read in the court was written by barrister Savarkar. After Nathuram read it, some people say that the court was mesmerized for a few moments. And the Marathi play written on Nathuram ‘Me Nathuram Boltoy’ (I am Nathuram speaking) and the cinemas being made on it are also trying to show that statement in a very dramatic way. The government lawyer did not say anything about this lie. All this is very surprising. At that time Mr. Morarji Desai was the Home Minister of Mumbai State. And a senior police officer named Nagarwala had asked Morarji Desai for permission to take Savarkar into custody in view of Savarkar’s suspicious activities. And Morarji Desai, far from giving permission, refused to give permission to Nagarwala. On the contrary, he refused to give permission to Savarkar. Threatened that “Beware if you even touch Savarkar.” Looking at all the incidents of those days from Mumbai to Delhi, I feel that “right from the time of the inception of the Sangh, by infiltrating its people from the police to the army, there has been special help in killing Mahatma Gandhi.”
There is a mention of Vishkanya (poisonous girl) in the Puranas. In the same way, Savarkar has prepared more than a dozen poisonous men in his life. Savarkar was sentenced to Kala Pani for preparing this previous history, starting from Madanlal Dhingra and many others. But seeing the conduct of our court and the lawyers arguing in it, I feel that there has been some confusion in the Gandhi murder case from the beginning till the end. And this is the reason behind Nathuram Godse’s so-called nine-hour plea (which is believed to have been written by Savarkar himself).
And I have heard reports of some audience in the auditorium clapping, from Marathi to Urdu-Hindi eminent litterateur Mr. Asghar Wajahat, for exaggerating its dramatic quality.
The campaign of defamation against Mahatma Gandhi being run by Hindutvaists has been going on since the inception of the Sangh. But our leftist friend, Mr. Asghar Wajahat is probably a communist. Yes, there can be a possibility that the communists also have a long history of running a campaign of defamation against Mahatma Gandhi. I have personally read Yashpal’s ‘Gandhivad ki Shavpariksha’, the writings accusing him of being a broker of capitalists and an imperialist, as well as books written by E.M.S. Nabundipad, B.T. Ranadive and Rahul Sankrityayan, Bimal Mitra and other leftists. And in my collection, Gopal Godse’s book titled “Gandhi Hatya Aur Me” and Manohar Malgaonkar’s book titled “THE MEN WHO KILLED GANDHI” which is written only on the Gandhi murder case. In which, from the letters of the conspirators to their air tickets (in fake names) and hotel bills, they have also been photocopied. The communists have long maligned Gandhiji and have portrayed him as a broker of capitalists. Now, seeing the growing influence of the Sangh’s Hindutva, the communists are singing a slightly different tune about Gandhiji. But what does this act of people like Asghar Wajahat indicate?
And the same mistake was made by the founder leader of Bahujan Samaj Party, Shri Kanshi Ram Ji, while working in the defense department in Pune (in the 70s). Our friend, who writes in Marathi after doing a deep study of communalism and caste-religion, told me personally that one day Kanshi Ram suddenly came to my house in Pune and said that he had found an enemy for his politics! I asked him who? Kanshi Ram Ji said Mahatma Gandhi. I asked him how? Kanshi Ram Ji said Poona Pact. I said, “Brother, Dalits have got more than double the seats in Poona Pact, and the photo of Dr. Baba Saheb Ambedkar Ji himself holding a two-finger hand outside Yerwada Jail after signing the Poona Pact as a victory sign is a well-known history. How can you spread such false propaganda? So Kanshiram ji said in a cold voice that “political parties need some enemy. And we have got such a big enemy like Gandhi. And we will weave the fabric of our politics around him” and today the present is in front of us. How many types of people have followed the hatred towards Gandhi?
From Hindutvaists to Muslim League, both do politics on the basis of communalism. And the Communists, who have a history of supporting Mrs. Indira Gandhi in the freedom movement in 1942 and after the declaration of emergency in 1975, and the most surprising thing is that the Communist Party of India is the first political party. Which has supported the Muslim League’s Lahore resolution of 23 March 1940 in which it talked about partition. And they were running a campaign of defamation against Mahatma Gandhi, that is a different matter. But my python Wajahat is a supporter of Hindu-Muslim brotherhood. And so much water has come out from the rivers of our subcontinent in the last hundred years, what are you thinking? Asghar Wajahat sahab, Rajkumar Santoshi is one of the people from cinema. He will do business with whatever material is saleable for his business. I have no expectations from him. But you are a committed writer and most importantly, looking at the real situation of communal polarization in this country today, don’t you think that when Nathuram Godse had no other contribution in his life except killing Mahatma Gandhi, why are you glorifying him? And if you are doing so, then your other efforts regarding the Hindu-Muslim problem will be like the proverb ‘do good and throw it in the river’.
Currently, a film directed by Rajkumar Santoshi is in a lot of controversy. I see this. Asghar Wajahat is the writer of that film. My acquaintance with Asghar Wajahat is only through the literature written by him and nowadays, due to digital technology, sometimes we cross paths through Facebook. But he has earlier written a play on Gandhi and Godse. And Rajkumar Santoshi has made a film on the same. Before this, a play in Marathi named (Mi Nathuram Boltoy) meaning “Mai Nathuram Bol Raha Hoon Ke” has been quite controversial. Like that, this film too has tried to glorify Nathuram knowingly or unknowingly. This is what the critics say. I myself have not read or seen the Marathi play. And neither Rajkumar Santoshi’s film, nor the play written by Asghar Wajahat.
Mahatma Gandhi was born in Porbandar, Gujarat. After being born in 1869, after completing his matriculation and returning from South Africa, he spent very little time in Gujarat in his 79 years of life except for a few short periods of time in Kocharab and later Sabarmati Ashram activities. He used to go in and out of jail due to India’s freedom struggle. So Gandhi ji was born in Gujarat due to his travels across the country and involvement in Champaran, Sevagram and other activities, but not even a quarter of his eighty years of life was spent living or working in Gujarat. That is why I do not find Gandhi ji’s use of the phrase Gujarat correct.
Kocharab, a village near Ahmedabad, is an important part of Ahmedabad today. On 15 May 1925, with twenty-five people (old friends from South Africa) out of which thirteen were Tamils, the Satyagraha Ashram of Kocharab was established. Soon a teacher named Dadabhai Dafda, who belonged to the Dhor caste (a caste that removes the skin of dead animals), and was living in the Satyagraha Ashram of Kocharab with his wife Daniben and a small daughter, started a dispute over him. Which was led by Kasturba. And Gandhiji told her that she can go out of the ashram. But this Dhor family will not go. Maganlal Gandhi and his wife Santokben started a hunger strike. That the Dhor family should be thrown out of the ashram. So Gandhiji himself started a hunger strike in response to that. So Maganlal and Santokben finally agreed. But the biggest problem arose when the wealthy people of Ahmedabad who were financially supporting the ashram announced that they would not provide any financial support to the ashram as long as the Dhor family was living there. When Maganlal told him that he did not have money to run the ashram further, Gandhiji said, “We will go to live in the Dhor colony.” So the next day Ambalal Sarabhai himself came in his car and gave three thousand rupees as aid. What do the people involved in the campaign to defame Gandhiji, in which he was accused of being a casteist, think of this example? Some so-called progressive people are also included in it. Who call him a casteist. They felt that in 1925 and twenty years before that in South Africa (1893-1915 – 22 years), the people living in both his ashrams Phoenix and Tolstoy were probably like mini Indias from all castes and sects and different regions of India. To what extent is it justified to punish him for the rest of his life for the act of his mother of bathing him again with the touch of a maid during his childhood?
I myself was born in the Maratha caste of Maharashtra. And when I was in the first or second grade, I felt as if a classmate of mine from the Mahar caste spit in my mouth while talking to me. And when I told this to my family, the elders of my family abused the members of that family so much that there is no count of it. Even today, I feel guilty remembering that incident.
But if any one of us, like me or Mohan, has committed the mistake of casteism in our childhood due to the tradition of high caste that has been going on for thousands of years, then is it right to label Gandhi or Suresh Khairnar as casteist for their entire life without understanding the background of this matter?
Similarly, in the film, Godse has committed murder after seeing the decision to give him Rs. 55 crores. (The word murder is used in the context of mythological characters like Ravan, Kansa who commit rape.) Which the people of the Sangh use against Mahatma Gandhi. But the first attempt to kill Mahatma Gandhi was made after the Poona Pact, by throwing a bomb on Gandhiji’s car when he was going to the Town Hall of Pune. (1934), the second attempt was made by removing the fishplate on the route of the passenger train from Pune to Mumbai. The third attempt was made by Nathuram with his companions at Pachgani, when he was meeting Gandhiji, by taking out a knife hidden in his clothes and trying to attack him. A wrestler Guruji caught him in time. So that attack was futile. The fourth attempt was made while he was staying in the ashram of Sevagram. He was arrested by Wardha police in time. At the time of all these attempts, there was no discussion of division. And not of any Rs. 55 crores. The fifth attempt was made by Madanlal Pahwa on 20 January 1948 at Birla House in Delhi during the prayer time which went in vain and the sixth attempt was made on 30 January 1948 during the evening prayer time which was successful. After which hundreds of examples of people of the Sangh performing Satyanarayan Puja and distributing sweets in Maharashtra are present after 30 January. And due to this, there have been attacks on the houses of some Brahmins in places like Sangli, Satara, Kolhapur and Pune in West Maharashtra. In which there were also houses of some Brahmins of Congress, which were attacked.
I fully support the right of a writer to express himself. After all, I was also against the censorship imposed after the declaration of emergency (25 June 1975). And I have been in jail for that reason. But if any person distorts the facts of history and tries to write or stage a play on that subject, then it is a violation of freedom of expression. And what will you call the act of tampering with history?
Dr Suresh Khairnar is Ex. President of Rashtra Sewa Dal
