New Delhi: Curious intellectuals huddled inside the heart of Lutyens’ Delhi at the India International Centre Thursday evening to find an answer to the oldest question of Indian politics: Was Nathuram Godse a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh when he assassinated M.K Gandhi?
Did they find the answer to it? Dhirendra K. Jha promised his book, Gandhi’s Assassin: The Making of Nathuram Godse and His Idea of India, does. It was released in January this year. He called it the ‘great sanitisation game’ done by the RSS to distance itself from the assassin. Balbir Punj of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) dismissed it as a “fishing expedition” that is too trusting of police documents. And Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar walked away saying the discussion left a lot to be desired.
The panel discussion included speakers like Pawan Khera, chairman of the All India Congress Committee’s media and publicity department, Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, journalist and biographer of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Balbir Punj. It was moderated by veteran journalist Hartosh Singh Bal. A group of incoming Legislative Assistants of Members of Parliament (LAMP) fellows brought down the average age of the largely liberal gathering. The roundtable setup allowed some people to escape the panellists’ gaze — cue the occasional raised eyebrow and head shake.
No question of Godse’s RSS link
Jha kicked off the discussion by outlining the way in which his book challenges the sanitisation of Gandhi’s assassination. The dominant narrative, framed by Godse’s court documents, is that he was no longer a member of the RSS at the time of the assassination.
Jha’s primary research led him from unearthing documents in Nagpur to finding an interrogation statement in the National Archives of India. The statement shows him as a protege of V.D. Savarkar and Kashinath Bhaskar Limaye — a statement that directly contradicts what Godse said during his trial. Mukhopadhyay spoke next, underlining the importance of a definite answer on whether Gandhi’s assassination was a coordinated conspiracy or not.
Punj, seated between Bal and Jha, then spoke as the only panellist with “the other view”. Calling the book a “fishing expedition” to prove Jha’s own conclusions, Punj declared that he disagreed with most of what Jha has written but conceded that the book was readable. He also admitted that he hadn’t finished reading the book completely. Jha, sitting next to him, suppressed a smile.
“Whether Godse was a member of the RSS or not is not a relevant issue,” said Punj. “Nothing was black and white in those days,” he added, highlighting the fluidity between the Congress and the Hindu Mahasabha and the free exchange of ideas and support across the ideological spectrum during colonial India. “The divisions came in after 1969 — and the Communists are responsible for it!” said Punj, and then pointed across the round table to Mani Shankar Aiyar, reminding the audience that the latter had once removed a plaque commemorating Savarkar.
Pawan Khera spoke after Punj, immediately bringing up the 2018 defamation case against Rahul Gandhi for alleging that the RSS was behind Gandhi’s assassination. The question of whether Godse was a member of the RSS or not, Khera said, is always relevant.
“You always invoke Nehruji when you want to certificate the RSS,” Khera said, addressing Punj, who brought up the close links between Gandhi, Nehru, and Hindu ideologues like Madan Mohan Malviya and Lala Lajpat Rai. “Dhirendra Jha is a major obstacle to this government, which is trying to whitewash its dark past,” he added.
In fact, the question is such a hot topic that the author, Jha, wrote a column in The Caravan earlier this month, challenging historian Vinay Sitapati’s assertion in a recent podcast episode that Godse had left the RSS by the time of the assassination. Writing that it was “rooted in hollow claims,” Jha goes on to say that Sitapati is allowing “a free pass to the Sangh’s false claims about Godse.”
Sitapati countered: “Mr. Jha and editors of The Caravan have falsely asserted that my “breezy disagreement with the fact that Godse remained a RSS member is rooted in hollow claims”. But nowhere in the podcast (the widely heard Seen and the Unseen with Amit Varma) did I assert that Godse had left the RSS member when he killed Gandhi. To the contrary, in my book (page 33 of Jugalbandi: The BJP Before Modi) I point to ambivalence on this question. I quote the historian Ram Guha and LK Advani who have said that Godse had left the RSS by the time he killed Gandhi, but I also provide a counter quote from Godse’s own brother who, I wrote “said that his brother had never formally quit the RSS”. What I do say, both in the book and in the podcast, is that the RSS was not institutionally involved in Gandhi’s death (which is a very different claim from whether Godse was a continuing member of the RSS). I also say that made-up charges that the RSS killed Gandhi has taken away focus from real critiques (such as their unacceptable treatment of Muslims).”
Also read: Long before Gandhi, Godse pulled out a knife to stab Mahasabha chief for allying with Nehru
Back and forth across the roundtable
Once all the panellists had finished speaking, Jha said that Godse was an ordinary, underconfident man who had been influenced by Savarkar to divert his energies from fighting the British to fighting ‘internal enemies’ — Muslims. His book, he said, is located in the records and primary sources before the assassination took place, thereby proving the ideological drive behind Godse’s actions.
Bal then posed a question to Punj on whether Savarkar’s Hindutva had indeed influenced nationalists to divert their energy from fighting the British to fighting internally. He used the opportunity to contradict some of Khera’s previous points, stating that the RSS is a registered organisation that files IT returns. He also highlighted his surprise that “people of Dhirendra Jha’s ilk” are trusting police documents — the interrogation statement that Jha based his argument around.
The digression was met with some confused looks, raised eyebrows, and some sniggers. One audience member in the room, who said he worked with Punj, steadfastly continued to record only Punj’s contributions to the panel discussion. Bal said he wished the current dispensation was as distrustful of police statements as Punj is. He then gave the floor to Khera, who went back to the question of the RSS’ registration and tax status.
Two members of the audience cut in here, accompanied by general mutterings of agreement to request the panellists to discuss the book and not make the conversation about Congress versus the RSS or the RSS versus Gandhi. But the audience was reminded that both Gandhi and the RSS are integral to the book and can’t be divorced from the discussion.
“The problem is that many of us who have problems with the book have not read it,” said Jha. Punj smiled in response.
Also read: When Gandhi murder investigator got on the same taxi Godse and others took
Audience questions
As the hour came to a close, Bal called for two quick questions.
The first one, posed by a retired former bureaucrat, who described himself as a “follower of Gandhi,” asked about who Godse’s co-conspirators could have been. Jha responded that the book is more about Godse’s life than about the assassination and added that conspiracies to murder were not investigated then the same way as it is today.
The second question from a retired history professor from Delhi University pointed out the inaccuracies in Punj’s remarks about the relationship between the Congress and the Hindu Mahasabha between the 1920s and 1940s. Mukhopadhyay pointed to the fact that Punj was focusing on synergy between the two and not the points of divergence.
“I leave the work of division to others,” said Punj.
This article has been updated with Vinay Sitapati’s rebuttal to The Caravan article cited here.
(Edited by Humra Laeeq)