People who seek to frame the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh for the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, must be cautious while levelling baseless allegations. Even after nearly seven decades of the incident, there are many unanswered questions associated with the murder

Congressmen and Marxists, who blame the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh for the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, should be cautious while making the blunt charge. There are many unasked questions and unanswered queries associated with the 1948 murder of the Mahatma by Nathuram Godse, who was the then editor of Hindu Rashtra — a newspaper owned by the Hindu Mahasabha.

The killing continues to be mired in controversies nearly seven decades after the incident. People who were occupying power, both in Government and outside, at the time of the assassination, blamed the RSS for the gruesome incident. The latest in the controversy is the legal cobweb into which Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi has fallen after making an allegation. Rahul Gandhi has been hauled to the court of law by an aggrieved RSS activist. The Congress scion is speaking in different voices on different days.

Nathuram Godse, the assassin, might have been a member of the RSS, but he switched over his allegiance to the Hindu Mahasabha, an entirely different organisation. It should also be noted that KB Hedgewar, a prominent member of the Hindu Mahasabha, quit the organisation over ideological differences and launched the RSS in 1925. This itself proves that the RSS and the Hindu Mahasabha are two different entities. The truth is that while the Hindu Mahasabha struggled to survive and grow as an organisation, the RSS found instant acceptability among the people and left the Hindu Mahasabha gasping for air.

Godse left the RSS and joined the Hindu Mahasabha because of the decision of the Sangh to abstain from active politics. It was the intransigent stance of Mahatma Gandhi, that India should stand by its word and pay Pakistan Rs55 crore as per a deal reached out between the two countries at the time of partition, that prompted Godse to do away with the Father of the Nation.

In his final statement read out to the court which sentenced him to death for the killing, Godse had made it clear that his decision was a fall-out of Mahatma Gandhi’s decision to undertake a fast unto death to force the Indian Government to make the payment to Pakistan. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the then Deputy Prime Minister, had declared on January 12, 1948, that India would not make the payment till Pakistan kept away from Kashmir. 

Sardar Patel knew well that the amount to be paid by India to Pakistan would be pumped to create chaos, confusion and crisis in Kashmir. But following the threat of fast issued by Gandhi on January 12, 1948, and the commencement of his fast on January 13, 1948, the Government of India decided to dump its earlier decision and go ahead with making the cash payment to Pakistan. A communique regarding the payment of the amount to be made to Pakistan was issued by the Government on January 17, 1948.

“As soon as he read the news item on the teleprinter about Gandhi’s fast, Nathuram Godse must have thought that all other plans should be set aside. Care had to be taken to see that Gandhiji did not interfere with the democratic working of the Government. According to Godse, it was a matter of life and death for the nation”, wrote Gopal Godse in the introduction to Nathuram Godse’s book, Why I Assassinated Mahatma GandhiIJ It was written in the format of a statement by Nathuram Godse and submitted  to the trial court which sentenced him to death.

What happened after the killing of the Mahatma was that the RSS was banned and all its top leaders were arrested. It is an open secret that there was no love lost between the Sangh and Gandhi, with the latter going out of his way to appease the Muslims. This appeasement especially antagonised the survivors of partition.   

 Ramachandran, an eminent writer and thinker in Kerala, who undertook deep research into Gandhi’s assassination and Nathuram Godse’s character, has made some interesting observations. It is known to all that Nathuram Godse was a prominent member of the Hindu Mahasabha at the time of the killing. Why were the leaders of Hindu Mahasabha were not grilled or probed by the investigatorsIJ Why was not the role of the Sabha investigated by the policeIJ Why was Nirmal Chandra Chatterjee, the then president of the Sabha, was not questioned even once by the policeIJ” asks Ramachandran.

He also points out that Nirmal Chandra Chatterjee, a lawyer, was elevated as a judge of the Calcutta High Court within months of the Gandhi assassination. later, Chatterjee contested the first general election (1952) as a Hindu Mahasabha candidate from Hooghly and won with a good margin. He reached the lok Sabha as an independent candidate supported by the Communist Party of India in the 1963 by-election. Chatterjee, who contested the fourth general election in 1967 as an independent candidate again, and supported by the communists, won with big margin.

He contested the 1963 and 1967 elections from Burdwan. With his passing away, the seat fell vacant and the CPI(M) fielded his son Somnath Chatterjee from the same constituency. In course of time, Somnath Chatterjee rose to become the Speaker of the lok Sabha with the support of the Congress.

Ramachandran says he has some genuine doubts about the political leanings of Nathuram Godse. “leaders of the CPI(M) and the Congress should ask Somnath Chatterjee, who was this Nathuram Godse when they meet the octogenarian leader next time”, said Ramachandran.

While we will leave the doubt to be clarified by people who matter, two prominent persons in the country expressed their helplessness in answering the question. MGS Narayanan, former Chairman of Indian Council of Historical Research, is not at all amused by people who blame the RSS for Gandhi’s assassination. “I am at a loss of words and cannot explain why the Hindu Mahasabha was not probed and its leaders not questioned. It is also a mystery why Nirmal Chandra Chatterjee was made a High Court judge” Narayanan said.

V Kalyanam, (95), private secretary to Gandhi at the time of the assassination, could be the only person alive who had close interaction with the Mahatma. Kalyanam was hardly five metres away from Gandhi when Godse fired the three bullets. “I cannot say whether it was the RSS or some other organisation which was behind the assassination of Gandhi. But the RSS was not unhappy over the killing. It had always criticised Gandhi for his views”, Kalyanam says. To the question on why the Hindu Mahasabha, to which Godse belonged, was not at all probed, Kalyanam responds that it would remain unanswered.