Why I Killed the Mahatma by Elst Dr Koenraad

Author:Elst, Dr Koenraad
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rupa & Co
Published: 2017-12-20T05:00:00+00:00

DID GANDHI WIN INDIA’S INDEPENDENCE?

The remainder of Godse’s statement is mostly a rewording of the same argument, hammering especially at Gandhi’s irrationality and at the irresponsibility of his non-violence. The first point to follow, however, is an attempt to set the record straight on the respective merits of different groups of people in the Indian freedom struggle. The common notion that Gandhiji achieved independence by his non-violent campaigns is judged as follows:

‘71. (…) there was never a more stupendous fiction fostered by the cunning and believed by the credulous in this country for over a thousand years. Far from attaining freedom under his leadership, Gandhiji has left India torn and bleeding from a thousand wounds.’12

‘85. (…) I am therefore surprised when claims are made over and over again that the winning of freedom was due to Gandhiji. My own view is that constant pandering to the Muslim League was not the way to winning freedom. It only created a Frankenstein (…) permanently stationing a hostile, censorious, unfriendly and aggressive neighbour on what was once Indian territory. About the winning of Swaraj or freedom, I maintain that the Mahatma’s contribution was negligible. But I am prepared to give him a place as a sincere patriot.’13

Godse then describes the freedom struggle against Muslim rule and against the British encroachment under the Marathas and Sikhs, the ‘War of Independence’ of 1857 (that is what Savarkar called the Mutiny), and the violent acts of the revolutionary nationalists in the first decades of the twentieth century. According to Godse, this armed struggle had definitely contributed to India’s independence from Britain, as we shall see in the subsequent paragraphs.

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