Reviews - Books I Read - DRJG: November 2021

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Why I Killed the Mahatma:

Understanding Godse's Defence

by Koenraad Elst.

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As one finishes the book, there is an experience of a strange feeling, which takes a little time for recognition. It a feeling of loss of innocence of childhood, something experienced much earlier in life by, say, any child in U.S. as he or she realises the myth maintained around Santa Claus by the nation and community, parents and shops.

If one grew up in India, and especially so in schools maintained by the government, one would recognise that the myths around Gandhi have been maintained just as vigilantly as those around the Christ by church of Rome, and for the same reason, except congress doesn't call Gandhi God, only great soul, father of nation, and admits no faukts; correspondingly, not only Godse but very Hinduism is demonized in as many ways as possible except in categorical, explicit terms. Jawaharlal Nehru is similarly eulogised, and in public life and media, his descendents and most of the family thereof, or the "right" side anyway, have been treated as demigods, with assiduous efforts demonizing anyone else who'd replace the family's assumed status as rightful heir to throne of India, even if it isn't called a throne.

One may not agree with that last bit about the right to throne, and one may point out in debates on internet, that as for sacrifices, there are thousands of names since long ago, beginning with that of Prithviraj Chauhan, the king who defended India against Islamic barbarian invasion for the first time, apart from his soldiers and all other freedom fighters since then; but nevertheless, the amount of information in this book comes as the final removing of all falsehoods maintained by congress for reasons of its power to be maintained and promulgated for ever, and one feels like an adult, with innocence of childhood rent and a sadness that one was lied to by those one trusted wrongly, for no fault of one's own.

This is all the more so if one has been brought up secular, progressive, et al, by parents who followed and believed such values genuinely but didn't give speeches about it, who did not hate either Hindus or Hinduism on one hand, nor the supposedly secular political who did do hatemongering of Hindus and Hinduism, on one hand; and in a region, in a school where multiplicity of ethnicity was taken for granted, communal question was as limited as one small community - Sikhs, not any others - were usually seen with perplexity by the others, chiefly for the aggressive stance of threatening to complain to a particular teacher about any differences between children, completely unrelated to community differences!

One couldn't have been brought up more secular. Mention of traditional castes was limited to those proud of their roots and needing to express it publicly, or not ashamed of it in any way, which wasn't necessarily by upper castes either, and it was only taken as a matter of fact, nobody resented it; wealth was a secret of adults, unrelated to the sizes of homes that were government allocated townhouses of sizes suitable for ranks of the government worker or officials that they were allocated to, but friendships transcended sizes of homes, and there was no claiming of upper or low status of anyone. It was as factual as knowing that one in school had pale hair the colour of Britannia biscuits, but had neither a veneration thereby nor any negative status. Academic achievements alone mattered.

So, all the more, encountering explicit hatred from the supposedly secular, but in reality slaves of West or of the colonial empires of yore, is puzzling, hurting and worse, a rending of the illusions of childhood. As one sees posters abusing Hindu Gods, one wonders, do they even know theirs aren't safe, except India has no indigenous bad words to describe them?

As one grows up, one begins to realise that much of disdain, and worse, hatred, for Indian roots, for Hinduism, for Sanskrit, that one received from osmosis and brushes off - not explicitly taught in schools as such, but percolated down through seniors as peers, from what was said by current political top side or what was said by invading colonial rulers for a millennium and half, is false; Sanskrit, far from incomprehensible, is crystal clear to anyone who grows up speaking any language the roots of which are in ancient India. And more.

But this book gives, not only defence speech of Godse, but far more, making one realise once for all just how much congress and aligned have lied, and still do, doing politics of hatred, towards enslaving majority. The happy innocence is gone, and while one is glad to reclaim ones roots and goodness thereof, one doesn't appreciate having had a very flawed human held up as demigod, and much, much more.

It's not that different from watching JFK and realising that the film, not the official version, is true.

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One surprise when reading this is at the very beginning, when one sees the topic being discussed without the usual, unthinking deification of Gandhi, and accompanying, just as or even more usual, immediate condemnation of Godse, and the abuse that is thown at anyone with even a slightly different stance, say, that of not quite so defying of one or not quite so unthinkingly abusive of the other.

And very deep shock while beginning the next, is that anyone not quite entirely part of or even related to India, much less to the community, should know quite so much, about the small number of Chitpaawans, however illuminous their history - for, in general socially throughout India, and not only especially so since independence of India, but going back to the colonial rules by various non Indian invaders and their descendants, not just Chitpaawan Brahmins, but Brahmins in general, have been targeted by a blanket policy established by all such invaders, and explicitly so during the last colonial rule; and the various governments of India since independence, predominantly congress and those allied, have followed this policy, with little variation and few exceptions.

This is largely true, not usually in social setups, but at levels where politics intervenes - society on the whole is far more comprehending of realities, especially so in India, with a tiny exception of the part that's ruled by a communal political party, either fooled by Jinnah and the British or following their direction despite knowing falsehood thereof, for political convenience.

Even post 2014, when facts are being - not discovered, as much as uncovered, after close to seven decades to over a century of falsehoods imposed thereon - some things require still too much of a courage to even hint at, much less state, and the question of whether Godse had any justification is one such issue.

On the contrary, opposition since 2014 has taken to calling him a terrorist, with no thought given to facts, or to definition of the word. This is not isolated, but merely an extension of the general India scorning, and Hindu bashing, indulged in by the said political opposition since 2014. Its not new, but merely stepped up in cacophonous volume since new millennium, for a simple reason. And that reason is as ridiculous, but seemingly believed working, as this - when attacked by beasts of prey, when in need of protection from dinosaurs and raptors loose in the night, instead of being wary of dogs who might just revert to - or be hiding - wolves amongst them, abuse and slaughter innocent domesticated species instead; and cattle, so necessary for survival of human species, are sacrificed to this falsehood before lambs by these preachers of falsehoods!

And so, even before one sees the conclusion, and one has good reason to expect the usual, politically safe conclusion, it's still surprising that there is a different stance, that too in print, even though one really doesn't expect a major breakthrough, any more than one expects the church of Rome to admit to falsehoods it imposed for most of two millennia, along with the antisemitism that belonged to Rome before the church.

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It's an unpleasant shock when Elst delves into discussing roots of the Chitpaawan community, asserting casually that they were migrants from Scythia or Afghanistan, based purely on physical characteristics - height, skin colour, mentioning light eyes, "even blue"!

This is the usual racist stance, common in all thise of non Indian and chiefly European ancestry, but just as often from those of other, non Indian ancestry, to assume that India must by definition be a land of the opposite physical characteristics, and those with tall physique or light features - skin, eyes, hair- must be of ancestry other than Indian, however ancient the migration.

The whole theory, now disproved, of Aryan migration and two races in India separated by North vs South along Vindhya ranges, is seemingly based partly on this racist asumption; in reality, it is probably wholly based on Macaulay policy of tearing India into pieces by any and every frsud possible, and this one is as convenient, as flat earth throry or crestion throry are for church to support covertly in the bible belt and other idiot regions.

But it's clear to anyone who cares to think, isn't slave to either European looks or church, and knows anything at all about India, that any migrants to mainland India were not from Europe across Asia but from Mediterranean to Southern coastal regions of India - there are remnants of Roman colonies, ancient coins discovered, and obvious traces of such a migration of people of mixed roots racially, visible in physical features and more - looking at population of Tamil speaking regions, one sees on one hand Roman or Jewish noses, light eyes, and fair skins, and other extremes are clear continuation of looks from New York to Africa to Andaman to Australia, with cadances of language uncannily similar between aftica and Tamil.

Ancient Indian pores, legends and tradition, moreover, have clear mention of such geographical features as Himaalayan ranges rising out of the ocean, river Gangaa being brought down "from heaven", and vanishing of an ocean, but no traces whatsoever of any journey crossing Indus river into India; and this river that is so major a feature for those not from india that The land is named, by those outside India, after the river, has very little, just borderline, significance in Indian tradition, while other rivers are held higher, not only Gangaa and Yamunaa, but even Brahmaputra (literally "Son of Brahma", Brahma here noting Divine without form, not the later transformation thereof into a male God), the only river considered a male God while all other rivers of India are Goddesses.

And there's more, far more significant - the very name of India, for outsiders, is identified with river Indus; but in India, in the most ancient traditions, it's never been anywhere close to that. Moreover, the very name of Indus, in India, since ancient times, is really Sindhu, and has been so for millennia: it was transformed to Indus outside India, due to the usual habit of Europe.

But Sindhu, the original name and in continuous usage even now, literally means ocean.

Which amounts to those of India having witnessed, and known, transformation of an ocean into land as the Himaalayan ranges rising out of the ocean were seen, and also the flowing of this river instead of the ocean that had been there.

As for the blue, green, and other light colours of eyes, especially a light grey or clear gold, but of course hazel too, they're seen commonly enough; light hair is less common, but common enough that one may have known over half a dozen people with light hair - and purely Indian ancestry - in a lifetime; they exist not only in communities North or West but also deep South and East; while families in India often have siblings with seeming disparities across such divides considered ravisl, but without any reason visible in ancestry - for millennia the marriages have not only been arranged within communities, but records kept go back generations.

And, most telling, while light eyes and even light hair are seen commonly enough that not even children think it's strange, thry are never a criteria of beauty, as defined or understood in India; there's no discrimination either in favour thereof or against them.

Which amounts to this - all such theories of foreign roots of such physical characteristics are based, subconsciously or otherwise, in a racism that assumes certain characteristics to be property of Europe, and it's nonsense.

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Another shock is when Elst discusses the riots and massacres consequent to the killing of someone who supposedly was a preacher of peace, nonviolence, forgiveness, brotherhood et al, that was a bloodlust only partly of vengeance, exacted against a whole community, mostly poor and almost entirely, but for one or two males, innocent of even a whiff, much less conspiracy, of the killing.

Shock, not because the riots were a secret; that houses of Brahmins were burnt is known. But that so many were killed was certainly kept secret, and it becomes clear that it was chiefly political, leading yo downfall of politics in the state, thereafter degraded to physical force and corruption, after it was out of hands of a community that had always been mostly poor but held up its values of principles, knowledge, clean living in both inner and exterior sense, and politics rooted in values.

Today there's a mess in the state that came to light last year, that cannot be hidden after the gruesome murders of two - or, very possibly, well over two dozen - murders, of some young and other mostly very rich, which has exposed just how horribly the state of normal changed post the riots attacking Brahmins; even a few decades ago, a few decades after 1948, it was known how physical force ruling the state instead of thinking and values, had changed the interior of the state, especially Kolhapur region, and other places, with few exceptions other than Mumbai and Pune and few other towns, so that corruption and murders of weak were norm.

It's not that one ever thought holocaust victims and survivors, and the general community, has ever had it easy in any way, for over two millennia; but realising what really had happened to Brahmins in aftermath of a murder makes one wonder, how did the Jews manage to hold on with tenacity, for two millennia and then after holocaust?

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Surprisingly, Elst argues that the version about British dividing India isn't correct.

" ... Viceroys Lord Linlithgow and Lord Wavell had made it quite clear to the Muslim League that they would never countenance partitioning the Indian empire which their forebears had built up so skilfully. India was a coherent unit, historically but also in the actual practice of the modern economy which had developed under British rule (as symbolized by its well-rounded railway system); it would only be destructive to sever certain parts from that organic whole."

However, sources - in particular, one ex pak citizen, now citizen of Canada, desirous of being a citizen of India - state that Churchill drew up the partition plan the day Soviet tanks rolled into Berlin, because Jawaharlal Nehru wouldn't allow India to be used as a military base for West against U.S.S.R., and Jinnah was more than willing to do so; thus us substantiated by his post partition response to a junior colleague, about financing his new state, saying that the geostrategic position of the country would have the state financed by West. And West did use pak for the purpose, for decades, with blinkers about pak being in effect a terrorist factory used chiefly against India, but not exclusively so; U.S. has admitted to being fleeced and cheated by pak, majorly, to the tune of hundreds of billions of U.S. dollars, and also being continuously lied to. Nevertheless, playing into pak hands continues.

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Halfway or less than halfway through the book, as one reads through fourth chapter, about the inexplicable, unjustifiable and thoughtless support of khilafat - caliphate, by monarch of Turkey- movement by Gandhi, which led to a vicious cycle of massacres of Hindus by Muslims across India and ever more increasing concessions granted them by Gandhi, who invariably either sympathised or even praised the muslim perpetrators of atrocities, with all this inexorable moving towards partition, and Gandhi's role, his responsibility for the partition - one gets it, sort of; it's all mindboggling, overwhelming, how someone so contradictory was called a saint or a messenger of peace.

Perhaps such epithets are justified if one designates followers of abrahmic religions, but with exception of Jews, human, and the rest - including majority of India, Hindus, and all smaller minorities, such as Jews, Parsis and Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains - on par with slaves or cattle to be butchered at will, then such epithets are unquestionable. And perhaps that is the view adopted, perhaps then subconsciously but increasingly in all but name, by congress, by left, and by most outside India.

So while nobody could say, reading the details of Godse's speech explaining his motives, given by Elst - for, in the book published in name of Godse himself, they are heavily censored, leaving only a few sentences that would confirm congress version of him as a hater of muslims for no reason, a madman, crazed by hatred - that if Godse had put the move to vote with his explanation, people would have voted for it, nevertheless, it stands explained, already.

And that's before one begins to read the vital, later parts, of which most people have a clue - the carnage of partition, the war waged by paki forces disguised initially as tribals sent to attack Kashmir and fighting Indian army thst went to defend it after accession was signed - and gandhi insisting India pay 550 million to pak in midst of that war, despite certainty that it would and did go to buy weaponry, tanks, arms and ammunition, only to kill Indian soldiers!

Did, because Gandhi went on a hunger strike, and cabinet couldn't very well approve letting him starve himself to death - although, once when he did it before independence, both Jinnah and Ambedkar had written to the then British government of India, explicitly, to the effect that they ought not to give in, thst he should be allowed to die if he persisted in fasting to make the government and others fall in line with his decisions every time.

So this much has always been known - this was the final straw thst prompted Godse, who was already moved beyond endurance by the travails of the refugees pouring in from across borders on both sides, having suffered not only exodus and loss of homes, homeland and all property, but massacres, being burnt alive in homes by fire department in Lahore pouring gasoline on homes set on fire by muslims, kidnappings and rapes of women, and subsequent starvation as the millions who did survive managed to travel, often walked, to safety, across the border.

Here in chapter five, for the first time, one gets a clue to real numbers involved - Elst reduces Godse's "hundred and ten million" by tenth, to eleven million, still no small number, massacred; of which, by Elst's reckoning, no more than four hundred thousand were muslims. Which leaves number of Hindus massacred in Pakistan, at and before birth of Pakistan, beginning 1946 and escalating to a crescendo, at well over ten million.

How much is one human life worth, then? Is it more worth than a hundred, a thousand, a million, ten million, depending on whose life is being weighed in the balance? Did the massacre that Gandhi's failure of policies - and his perpetual giving in to others but fasting to force Hindus to his will, chiefly that of giving in to others - led to, massacres of well over ten millions, matter not at all? And did the untimely death of one man old man, who might have repeated the fasting blackmail to profit of others at expense of India, if he'd lived another two decades, did it justify the vengeance by his followers on innocent hundreds running to well over a thousand?

Congress might say yes, if they're ever truthful - for congress repeated it, when in 1984 another unrelated Gandhi by name, the then PM Indira Gandhi, was shot dead by a Sikh guard she'd insisted on keeping amonst many others, despite the expected risk. Er grandson in recent years related how she'd talked to him about what might happen, to ready him for the eventuality of her being possibly murders by some Sikh or another.

So it's believable that congress was more than ready, and subsequent organised massacres of Sikhs that were fraudulently labelled "riots", in Delhi and elsewhere, raging for over three days, were planned well ahead by congress. That members of the supposedly communal Hindu political parties in fact saved several Sikhs is known, despite Sikh terrorists - fuelled by paki provoking about having no separate nation - having killed hundreds of Hindu innocent victims across region from Punjab and Haryana to Delhi.

And that this was organised carnage is further proved by no such riots taking place when her son was murdered far more gruesomely, in Tamilnadu, by a Tamilian terrorist suicide bomber; what's more, unlike the usual crowd of local politicians that always until then crowded around so high a figure of national level visiting the state, that day he was the only person of any high level of political importance, blown up to pieces - so locals not in the know surmised that many, in fact, were in the know; the usually blaring radios throughout slums, non local residents reported later, were strangely silent. They realised later why - the slum dwellers, insiders of the local politics of hatred of non Tamil Indians, were aware and expecting the news, and listening to radios with a very low volume, inaudible to neighbours, unlike their usual earsplitting noise level just to torture non Tamil neighbours.

So if the riots of 1984 were a natural reaction of people, that such a carnage wasn't perpetrated on Tamilian across India seems strange, seeing as the popularity of the son was far higher if anything - he'd been elected with an unprecedented high majority in the election post October 31, 1984 - and certainly the trains were running if anyone or mobs were crazed enough to descend on Tamilnadu with vengeance in mind.

For if anything, the mother who was immensely respected after 1971 war defeating Pakistan and helping another nation, Bangladesh, separate, after the carnage perpetrated intentionally by paki military in east Bengal, was subsequently, after the emergency imposed in 1975 for purely political reasons, with suppression of media and incarceration of political opponents, had been very unpopular, coming back to power only due to the government by opposition being a bundle of different parties that included at least one man who valued a personal gain over the national interest, and helped Indira Gandhi topple the government within less than three years.

So any emotional reaction by people as such would have been far more natural in case of the very unexpected, very gruesome murder of the son, not the mother (whose assassination was expected even by herself). But nothing happened, after it was known that a Tamil terrorist, not a Sikh, had been the killer of the son.

Congress perpetrators were, however, ready to massacre Sikhs again, until the facts came in, and dispersed thereafter, as reported by a reputable and trustworthy reporter, who heard the conversation outside the Gandhi residence after news of death of Rajeev Gandhi came.

So coming back to the question, how much is one man's life worth, especially after his mistakes have not only led to massacres of over ten million, but thereafter he forces the nation to pay an enemy hundreds of millions, in midst of a war perpetrated by that enemy? Are those millions, those soldiers - and not just the Hindus valued little by congress, but nuns outside Srinagar who were raped and murdered by the attacking pakis, which incidentally delayed the raping attackers, saving Srinagar- were they all worth no consideration, so much so hundreds more had to be killed in stste of bombay, because Godse came from there, and innocents of his community must suffer because he killed one man, even though they neither knew of it, nor would have approved of it beforehand, being extremely cautious and mostly very poor, although learned, educated, cultured, clean community of people who cherish values beyond profit and power?

So, perhaps, the image of this man, as saint, messenger of peace, brotherhood and love, is just as much fraud perpetrated by sheer propaganda by congress, as that about the image of an executed king of Jews by his executioners, Rome, after church, supposedly his followers, United with the executioners, Rome.

Followers of both, after all, have perpetrated massacres in the names of their respective Gods, and fraudulently so.

One has to wonder, did Godse seal his fate by telling the truth, about Gandhi and congress, rather than survive at any cost, as many other politicians and most people did?

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While nobody could say, reading the details of Godse's speech quoted by Elst, explaining his motives in context of history of Gandhi and his words, his actions and the disastrous effect on India, that if Godse had put the move to vote with his explanation, people would have voted for his action, nevertheless, it stands explained, already.

Until one is more than halfway through the fifth chapter, and Godse talks about what if, in context of Gandhi's words to refugees from genocide acroas the border, telling them to go back and face death and not hate the muslims while being murdered - what if Gandhi had lived, as Hyderabad crisis raged, and genocides in Pakistan were being rejected in Hyderabad?

And, while still not clear that, given a choice one woukdnt tell Godse to refrain from his action - in all likelihood, one would; most people, especially most people of his own community, would, from a cautious refraining if nothing else - still, one is glad Sardar Patel had a clean slate so to speak, without Gandhi going on a fast to force government of India to act in favour off the perpetrators and advise Hindus of Hyderabad to die loving their murderers, not try to escape the state and death.

And that's only one state, less than two years later. Gandhi could have lived long, and possibly interfered with defence of India in 1965. What if he'd been alive, and gone on a fast to force India into neutral position in 1971, despite the genocide and rapes of millions in East Bengal? What if he'd advised surrender of Indian territory when Pakistan attacked India in 1971, as he did at partition when Pakistan claimed over a million square miles more in East, and he made India agree?

One is glad it wasn't a decision one had to make, seeing future and the possibilities; one is glad it isn't a judgement one has to make, and the Indian way, the Hindu way, is to leave judgement to Divine, while doing ones best.

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August 11, 2021 - November 25, 2021.

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" ... At the time of the hanging of Bhagat Singh for a bomb attack in 1931, and on other occasions, Gandhi had condemned them as ‘misguided patriots’. He had made a similar statement about the historic military leaders Rana Pratap, Shivaji and Guru Govind Singh."

" ... It is my firm belief that in dubbing Rama, Krishna and Arjuna as guilty of violence, the Mahatma betrayed a total ignorance of the springs of human action. In more recent history, it was the heroic fight put up by Chhatrapati Shivaji that first checked and eventually destroyed the Muslim tyranny in India. It was absolutely essentially for Shivaji to overpower and kill an aggressive Afzal Khan, failing which he would have lost his own life. In condemning history’s towering warriors like Shivaji, Rana Pratap and Guru Gobind Singh as misguided patriots, Gandhiji has merely exposed his self-conceit.

"He was, paradoxical as it may appear, a violent pacifist who brought untold calamities on the country in the name of truth and non-violence, while Rana Pratap, Shivaji and the Guru will remain enshrined in the hearts of their countrymen for ever for the freedom they brought to them." ... "

Koenraad Elst

"Gandhi had done very good in South Africa to uphold the rights and well-being of the Indian community there. But when he finally returned to India he developed a subjective mentality under which he alone was to be the final judge of what was right or wrong. If the country wanted his leadership, it had to accept his infallibility; if it did not, he would stand aloof from the Congress and carry on his own way."

"From August 1946 onwards the private armies of the Muslim League began a massacre of the Hindus. The then Viceroy, Lord Wavell, though distressed at what was happening, would not use his powers under the Government of India Act of 1935 to prevent the rape, murder and arson. The Hindu blood began to flow from Bengal to Karachi ... "

Godse

Quoted from

Why I Killed Gandhi

by Nathuram Godse.

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Contents

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Foreword

Preface

1.The Murder of Mahatma Gandhi and Its Consequences

2.Nathuram Godse’s Background

3.Critique of Gandhi’s Policies

4.Gandhi’s Responsibility for the Partition

5.Godse’s Verdict on Gandhi

6.Other Hindu Voices on Gandhi Conclusion

Appendix

1:Sangh Parivar, the Last Gandhians Appendix

2:Gandhi in World War II

Appendix 3:Mahatma Gandhi’s Letters to Hitler

Appendix 4:Learning from Mahatma Gandhi’s Mistakes

Appendix 5:Questioning the Mahatma

Appendix 6:Gandhi and Mandela

Appendix 7:Gandhi the Englishman

Bibliography

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Review

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Foreword

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" ... Unfortunately, post-independence Indian historical writing came to be dominated by a monolithic political project of progressivism that eventually lost sight of verifiable basic truths. This genre of Indian history and the social sciences more generally reached a nadir, when even its own leftist protagonists ceased to believe in their own apparent goal of promoting social and economic justice. It descended into a crass, self-serving political activism and determination to censor dissenting views challenging their own institutional privileges and intellectual exclusivity. One of the ideological certainties embraced by this coterie of historians has been the imputation of mythical status to an alleged threat of Hindu extremism and its unforgivable complicity in assassinating Mahatma Gandhi."

"Dr Elst takes seriously Nathuram Godse’s extensive critique of India’s independence struggle, particularly Mahatma Gandhi’s role in it and its aftermath, but he points out factual errors and exaggerations."

"Godse’s lengthy speech to the court highlights the profoundly political nature of his murder of Gandhi. Nathuram Godse surveys the history of India’s independence struggle and the role of Mahatma Gandhi and judges it an unmitigated disaster in order to justify Gandhi’s assassination. But he murdered him not merely for what he regarded as Gandhi’s prior betrayal of India’s Hindus, but his likely interference in favour of the Nizam of Hyderabad whose followers were already violently repressing the Hindu majority he ruled over. In the context of discussing Godse’s political testament, many issues studiously ignored or wilfully misrepresented by the dominant genre of lssweftist Indian history writing are subject to withering scrutiny. ... . A refusal to understand its political rationale lends unsustainable credence to the idea that his assassin was motivated by religious fanaticism and little else besides. On the contrary, Nathuram Godse was a secular nationalist, sharing many of the convictions and prejudices of the dominant independence movement, led by the Congress party. He was steadfastly opposed to religious obscurantism and caste privilege, and sought social and political equality for all Indians in the mould advocated by his mentor, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (also called Veer Savarkar)."

"Godse’s condemnation for the murder of Mahatma Gandhi cannot detract from the extraordinary cogency of his critique of Gandhi’s political strategy throughout the independence struggle and a fundamentally misconceived policy of appeasing Muslims, regardless of long-term consequences. His latter policy merely incited their truculence, and far from eliciting cooperation on a common agenda and national purpose, intensified their separatist tendencies. His perverse support for the Khilafat Movement, opposed by Jinnah himself, was compounded by wilful errors at the Round Table Conference of 1930–32. He took upon himself the task of representing the Congress alone during the second session without adequate preparation, and eagerly espoused the Communal Award of separate electorates. And by conceding the creation of the province of Sindh in 1931 by severing it from the Bombay Presidency, as a result of Jinnah’s threats, guaranteed an eventual separatist outcome. ... He also censures the bad faith of Gandhi’s unjust critique of the reformist Arya Samaj and Swami Shraddhananda’s social activism and Gandhi’s shocking failure to condemn his murder by a Muslim."

" ... What Godse implacably opposed was India’s partition, which underlined the failure of Gandhi’s attempt to appease Muslims. Most of all, Godse was outraged by Gandhi’s continued solicitude towards them after Partition and despite the horrors being experienced by Hindus inside newly-independent Pakistan. In particular, he was appalled by Gandhi’s insistence on releasing Pakistan’s share of accumulated foreign exchange reserves, which Jawaharlal Nehru also counselled Mahatma Gandhi against, (while India was at war with it in Kashmir), because the funds would immediately aid their war effort.

"Revealingly, Godse appears to have grasped the imperative to negotiate wisely with the British in order to achieve the intact legacy of a united India. He was critical of the posturing of the Congress that ended in the disastrously misconceived Quit India Movement of 1942 that was quickly succeeded by Gandhi’s total capitulation. The latter could have meant the abandonment of all democratic pretensions and handing over the governance of independent India to the Muslim League to prevent Partition. Quite clearly, Gandhi’s assassin was not the raving Hindu lunatic popularly depicted in India, but a thoughtful and intelligent man who was prepared to commit murder. In some respects, Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar was an even fiercer critic of Gandhian appeasement of Muslims, sentiments echoed by no less political giants of India and the Congress like Sri Aurobindo Ghose and Annie Besant."

"The highly respected Sri Aurobindo Ghose, a former Congress leader himself, had urged support for Britain’s war effort and excoriated Subhas Bose for allying with the Japanese, but to no avail. In addition, Dr Elst carefully highlights Godse’s disapproval of the glaring inconsistencies in Gandhi’s pacifism, both intellectual and political, counter posing them to the lofty principle of absolute non-violence it supposedly represented. ... In a lengthy concluding section, he adds his own careful assessment of Gandhi’s successes as well as perversity in promoting hostile Islamic and Christian interests. ... "

"Dr Gautam Sen

"(Former Lecturer in the Politics of the World Economy, London School of Economics & Political Science)"

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August 11, 2021 - August 11, 2021.

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Preface

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" ... when Mr Goel heard of my Dutch book detailing Godse’s motives for murdering Gandhi, he himself offered to publish an English translation. He had been a Gandhian activist in his youth and an eyewitness to some of the events discussed in the speech. He always retained a soft corner for the Mahatma, even after narrowly escaping with his life, his wife and his first child during the Muslim League’s ‘Direct Action Day’ in Kolkata, the prelude to the great Partition massacres for which many Hindus and Sikhs hold Gandhi co-responsible."

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August 11, 2021 - August 11, 2021.

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1. The Murder of Mahatma Gandhi and Its Consequences

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"This way, Godse (born 1910) exacted ‘punishment’ for Gandhi’s alleged pro-Muslim policies. These were particularly his acceptance in June 1947 of the plan to partition India into a secular state, retaining the name India and a Muslim state called Pakistan; and more immediately his fast, earlier in January 1948, ... in support of Pakistan’s demand that India pay them ₹550 million as their share from the treasury of British India. Under protest, the Indian Government had given in to the latter demand because of Gandhi’s pressure, and in spite of the presence of Pakistani invasion troops on Indian territory in Kashmir. Surely this was the first time in history that a country deliberately financed its battlefield opponent, and not everyone was pleased with this display of Gandhian values."

"Even under torture, all the others had denied Savarkar’s complicity."

"According to the Godse family, Law Minister Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar contacted Nathuram’s lawyer to convey the message that if Nathuram would like his sentence commuted to life imprisonment, he would be able to arrange it. After all, it was easy enough to invoke Gandhiji’s non-violence to this effect, e.g.: ‘Killing this misguided activist could hardly be a fitting tribute to Gandhiji’s legacy of non-violence.’ But Nathuram’s reply was: ‘Please, see to it that mercy is not imposed on me. I want to show that through me, Gandhiji’s non-violence is being hanged.’ Taken aback by this reply, Ambedkar, who had never thought highly of Gandhiji’s eccentric ideas, actually praised Godse."

”Note that we are not including among the murder’s consequences any change in the party-line of the Congress. The power equation of the next few years, viz. Nehru’s breakthrough to unchallenged hegemony, had essentially been put into place by Gandhi himself. Before Independence, against the preference of the Congress Working Committee, the Mahatma had forced the highly esteemed Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel to withdraw his candidature for the Congress presidency, effectively imposing Nehru as party leader on an unwilling party, and therefore also as Prime Minister on the country. ... "

"In 1998, a Mumbai playwright, Pradeep Dalvi, tried to recreate some of the atmosphere in his play Me Nathuram Godse Boltoy (‘This Is Nathuram Godse Speaking’). After seven performances, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee managed to convince the Maharashtra state government, a Hindu nationalist coalition of Shiv Sena and BJP, to withdraw clearance for the play. This was somewhat unexpected, considering that Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray was on record as saying that future generations will venerate Godse rather than Gandhi. It was left to Mumbai’s liberals, led by filmmaker Shyam Benegal, to protest against this act of censorship."

"2.The policeman who made the arrest, Dasondha Singh, a Sikh, was murdered on 15 May 1995 in his village in Hoshiarpur, East Punjab. The retired policeman had been involved in a quarrel with people close to the state government (Congress), which may explain the speed with which the investigation was closed without result (Indian Express, 27 May 1997). Probably there is no connection with the Mahatma murder, though it remains true that among Sikhs, a community which was hit particularly hard by the Partition, Godse is more popular than Gandhi."

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August 11, 2021 - August 11, 2021.

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2. Nathuram Godse’s Background

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"One immediate consequence of the murder which is usually left unmentioned in the numerous hagiographies of the Mahatma is the wave of revenge which hit the Hindu Mahasabha, the RSS and most of all, the Chitpavan Brahmin caste. It seems that most hagiographers were embarrassed with the way the apostle of non-violence was mourned by his fans as well as by others who merely used the opportunity for, as in Red Fort Trial (p. 4) P.L. Inamdar puts it, ‘the manhunt of Maharashtrian Brahmins irrespective of their party allegiance by non-Brahmins in Poona and other districts.’ Offices and houses were burnt down, numerous people were molested and at least eight people were killed, according to an official tradition.

"However the article ‘Gandhi is killed by a Hindu’, published by The New York Times on 31 January 1948, puts the number of mortal victims in Bombay (now called Mumbai) alone, and on the first day alone, already at fifteen. Locals in Pune (where of course the Hindu Rastra office was set on fire, along with the offices of other pro-Hindu papers) told me they estimated the death toll in Pune alone at fifty. One of the rare studies of the event, by Maureen Patterson, concludes that the greatest violence took place not in the cities of Mumbai, Pune and Nagpur, centres of Hindu nationalism, but in ‘the extreme southwest of the Deccan plateau—the Desh—of the Marathi linguistic region’, including Satara, Belgaum and Kolhapur. Then, as now, press reporting on communal rioting was under strict control, and Maureen Patterson reports that even decades after the facts, she was not given access to relevant police files. So, we may not know the exact magnitude of this ‘Gandhian violence’ until all the records are opened, but the death toll may well run into several hundreds."

"The destruction was even larger in Kolhapur, where attacks on HMS and RSS offices, and on a film studio owned by a pro-HMS Maratha, were followed by a massive wave of terror against all Brahmins.8 Here it was the Maratha princely court itself which had for long given the lead in anti-Brahmin policies, such as job reservations for non-Brahmins and attracting anti-Brahmin teachers (both Christian missionaries and Veda-fundamentalistic Arya Samaj reformists) to run the schools. Maratha resentment was often expressed in a constructive manner, such as support to the actual uplift of low-born people to positions held mostly by Brahmins, e.g., the studies and career start of India’s first Law Minister, Dalit leader Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar, had been sponsored by the ruler Shahu Maharaj of Kolhapur and Sayajirao Gaekwad of Baroda, descendents of Maratha generals. Shahu Maharaj had actively collaborated with the British against the freedom movement, which was locally identified with Chitpavan Brahmins like B.G. Tilak. Note the combination of anti-Brahminism with aggressive Hinduism in the Marathas as heirs of Shivaji, a combination which many feel in recent decades has got embodied in the Shiv Sena.

"The biggest violence took place in the seven Patwardhan (Chitpavan) princely states such as Sangli, where the remarkably advanced factories owned by Chitpavans were largely destroyed. Here, Jains and Lingayats joined the Marathas in the attacks. The events hastened the integration of the Patwardhan states (viz. by March 1948) into the Bombay province, an integration opposed by the Brahmins fearing Maratha predominance in the integrated province.

"The best comparison in living memory for this massacre of Hindu nationalists and Brahmins is provided by the massacre of Sikhs by Congress secularists in Delhi and elsewhere after the murder of their leader Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguard in 1984. (The anti-Jewish pogrom of the Kristallnacht, 9–10 November 1938, comes to mind. It was triggered by the murder of a German diplomat in Paris by a Jewish youngster.) But unlike in the case of the anti-Sikh pogrom, where a few local Congress leaders were brought to trial after a long delay, and where references to the events keep on being made in studies of ‘communalism’, the Mahatma riots had no consequences for the perpetrators and were flushed down the memory hole, probably because the accused in the latter case did not have a high profile."

".Maureen L.P. Patterson: ‘The shifting fortunes of Chitpavan Brahmins: focus on 1948’, in D.W. Attwood et al., eds.: City, Countryside and Society in Maharashtra, pp. 43–47. In passing, we learn here (p. 45) that Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Congress leader until his death in 1920 and a Chitpavan Brahmin, had ‘pre-empted the Maratha king Shivaji as a major symbol in the cause of nationalist, anti-British activity’; which in turn becomes more understandable when we hear that in 1818, Shivaji’s successor in Kolhapur had been ‘siding with the British in the final struggle with the Peshwa.’

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August 11, 2021 - November 26, 2021.

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Koenraad Elst quotes from defence speech of Godse, with numbers presumably indicating paragraphs; since even his published speech so heavily censored, as published in India, as to allow the impression that congress propaganda about him being a mad man crazed due to his hatred of muslims, one can only trust that Elst is unlikely to have any reason to be inaccurate in his quotes; presumably only India isn't allowed truth about whatever agenda congress had in lying about, either about speech of Godse, or about muslims perpetrated massacres of Hindus, or Gandhi's followers massacring innocent Brahmins, apart from looting and burning their homes, across Maharashtra for weeks in 1948 as revenge for killing of Gandhi.

Elst quotes Godse.

"‘34. Some three years ago, Veer Savarkar’s health got seriously impaired and since then he was generally confined to bed. (…) Thus deprived of his virile leadership and magnetic influence, the activities and influence of the Hindu Mahasabha too got crippled and when Dr. Mookerji became its President, the Mahasabha was actually reduced to the position of a hand-maid to the Congress. It became quite incapable of counteracting the dangerous anti-Hindu activities of Gandhiite cabal on the one hand and the Muslim League on the other. (…) I determined to organise a youthful band of Hindu Sanghatanists and adopt a fighting programme both against the Congress and the League without consulting any of those prominent but old leaders of the Mahasabha.

" ... The ‘youthful band’ was the Hindu Raksha Dal (‘Hindu protection squad’) with a membership never exceeding 150. Godse was now his own man directing his own political activities, independent of the RSS and HMS. Whatever their ideological kinship, they cannot be held responsible for Godse’s act."

Elst quotes Godse.

"Of the events ‘which painfully opened my eyes about this time to the fact that Veer Savarkar and other old leaders of the Mahasabha could no longer be relied upon’ (para 35–44), Godse mentions the following examples. In 1946, Savarkar went out of his way to personally reprimand Godse when Apte and he had heckled Gandhiji during a prayer-meeting in a Hindu temple in Bhangi Colony (Delhi), where Gandhiji had read passages from the Quran in spite of protests by the Hindu worshippers, and where he had spoken in defence of Bengal Chief Minister Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, the man possibly politically (and probably also directly) responsible for anti-Hindu pogroms in Calcutta and Noakhali. Godse quotes Savarkar:

"‘41. (…) To my mind to recognise a State of Divided India was tantamount to being a party to the cursed vivisection of India. (…) Veer Savarkar went further and actually insisted that the tri-colour flag with the wheel should be recognised as a National Flag.

"‘42. (…) In addition to that, when Dr. Mookerji asked his permission through a trunk call to Veer Savarkar as to whether Dr. Mookerji should accept a portfolio in the Indian Union Ministry, Veer Savarkar emphatically replied that the new Government must be recognised as a National Government whatever may be the party leading it, and must be supported by all patriots (…).’

Elst comments.

"Savarkar, the veteran fighter for independence, was apparently too happy with the long-awaited sovereignty as embodied in the first native Union Government to think in terms of party politics. But Godse did not believe that a truly sovereign and representative government was compatible with the intrusive presence of Gandhiji:

Elst quotes Godse.

"‘43. (…) I myself could not be opposed to a common front of patriots, but while the Congress Government continued to be so sheepishly under the thumb of Gandhiji and while Gandhiji could thrust his anti-Hindu fads on that Congressite Government by resorting to such a cheap trick as threatening a fast, it was clear to me that any common front under such circumstances was bound to be another form of setting up Gandhiji’s dictatorship and consequently a betrayal of Hindudom.’"

"‘44. Every one of these steps taken by Veer Savarkar was so deeply resented by me that I myself along with Mr. Apte and some of the young Hindu Sanghatanist friends decided once and for all to chalk and work out our active programme quite independently of the Mahasabha or its old veteran leaders. We resolved not to confide any of our new plans to any of them including Savarkar.’

Elst comments.

"Here, Godse denies once more that Savarkar had played a role in the assassination. Approver Digamber Badge kept on making this very allegation, possibly because he or the investigating police officers expected some reward from Pandit Nehru in exchange for catching such a big fish. HMS leader and Godse’s lawyer L.B. Bhopatkar revealed several years later, in Manohar Malgonkar’s The Men Who Killed Gandhi (a volume published by the Savarkar Memorial Committee on 16 February 1989), that Dr Ambedkar, the Law Minister in Nehru’s Cabinet at that time, met him secretly to inform him that Nehru was personally interested in involving Savarkar, though there was no evidence to prove Savarkar’s complicity. His mere imprisonment was successful enough in eliminating him from politics. Manohar Malgonkar, in The Men Who Killed Gandhi (p. 29) writes ‘The strain of the trial, and the year spent in prison while it lasted, wrecked Savarkar’s health and finished him as a force in India’s politics.’"

"At any rate, the prosecutor could not produce the slightest evidence connecting Savarkar with the murder. In August 1974, Badge admitted to an interviewer that his testimony against Savarkar had been false.26 Ever since, journalists reluctant to give up the polemical advantage of connecting the main Hindutva ideologue with the murder, glibly introduce him as ‘a co-accused in the Mahatma murder trial.’ In Nehruvian ‘secularism’, superficiality of thought is compensated for by thoroughness in dishonesty."

" ... Thus, without any formal affiliation to Congress, Nathuram Godse took a leadership role in local initiatives to cure Hindu society of casteism and untouchability. As a youngster, he had earned the wrath of his parents by saving the life of a Mahar (untouchable) child, thus ‘polluting’ himself with its touch, and then walking into the family home without taking a bath first. As soon as he made his own living, he ignored the traditionalist objections and involved himself in organizing inter-caste meals and other symbolic offences to the untouchability taboo.

"In its attempts at kindling mass agitation, the HMS also used Gandhian methods. In 1938, Godse led a group of Hindu Mahasabha activists in a campaign of Gandhian-style unarmed resistance against the anti-Hindu discrimination in the Muslim-dominated princely state of Hyderabad. He was arrested and spent a year in prison.

"Ashis Nandy has pointed out the parallels between Gandhi’s and Godse’s personalities: they were both deeply religious, ascetic, given to sexual abstinence, and strongly attached to the Bhagavad Gita. We may add that both believed they had a supernatural sense: as a child already, Godse had acted as the oracle of the family goddess, while Gandhi always invoked his ‘inner voice’ to overrule rational considerations. ... Nandy, in At the Edge of Psychology (p. 82), observes:

"Both were committed and courageous nationalists; both felt that the problem of India was basically the problem of the Hindus because they constituted the majority of Indians; and both were allegiant to the idea of an undivided free India. Both felt austerity was a necessary part of political activity. Gandhi’s asceticism is well-known, but Godse too lived like a hermit. He slept on a wooden plank, using occasionally a blanket and even in the severest winter wore only a shirt. Contrary to the idea fostered by the popular Hollywood film on him, Nine Hours to Rama, Godse neither smoked nor drank. In fact, he took Gandhi’s rejection of sexuality even further: he never married and remained a strict celibate. Like Gandhi, Godse considered himself a sanatani or traditional Hindu and, in deference to his own wishes, he was cremated according to sanatani rites."

"Note that a number of authors have grossly misstated Godse’s difference of opinion with that of Gandhi’s. Richard Waterstone, in De Wijsheid van India (p. 151), claims Godse killed Gandhi because he was against Gandhi’s policy that tried to reconcile Hindus with Muslims. Joachim Betz writes: ‘The murderer, a Brahmin, explained after his arrest that he had killed Gandhi because he had conceded equal rights to the Muslim minority in India.’

"If Joachim Betz had written in his own name that this was Godse’s reason, it would have been a wrong interpretation, a mistake. But putting this explanation into Godse’s mouth is simply a lie. Perhaps not Betz’s own lie, but then at least a lie by one of his Indian sources. For determined opponents of the Partition like Godse, giving ‘equal rights’ to the Muslims in non-partitioned India would have been a very reasonable price for keeping India united. His objection was, on the contrary, that Gandhi rarely treated Hindus and Muslims as equals, giving preferential treatment to the Muslims instead.

"Another motive falsely attributed to Godse is that he opposed Gandhi’s campaign against untouchability, when in fact he took an active part in it. ... "

Elst quotes Godse.

"‘48. The background to the event of the 30th January, 1948, was wholly and exclusively political and I would like to explain it at some length. The fact that Gandhiji honoured the religious books of Hindus, Muslims, and others or that he used to recite during his prayers verses from the Gita, the Quran and the Bible never provoked any ill will in me towards him. To my mind it is not at all objectionable to study comparative religion. Indeed it is a merit.’

Elst comments.

"Here, Godse wisely leaves undiscussed the difference between a sober comparative study of religions and the mindless claim of a fundamental unity of all religions, as propagated in embryonic form by Gandhi and in full-fledged form by Gandhi’s disciples. ..."

Elst quotes Godse.

"‘49. The territory bounded by the North Western Frontier in the North and Cape Comorin in the South and the areas between Karachi and Assam, that is the whole of pre-partition India, has always been to me my motherland. In this vast area live people of various faiths and I hold that these creeds should have full and equal freedom for following their ideals and beliefs. In this area the Hindus are the most numerous. They have no place which they can call their own beyond or outside this country. Hindusthan is thus both motherland and the holy land for the Hindus from times immemorial. To the Hindus largely this country owes its fame and glory, its culture and art, knowledge, science and philosophy. Next to the Hindus, the Muslims are numerically predominant. They made systematic inroads into this country since the 10th century and gradually succeeded in establishing Muslim rule over the greater part of India.

"‘50. Before the advent of the British, both Hindus and Muslims as a result of centuries of experience had come to realise that the Muslims could not remain as masters in India; nor could they be driven away. Both had clearly understood that both had come to stay. Owing to the rise of the Mahrattas, the revolt of the Rajputs and the uprise of the Sikhs, the Muslim hold on the country had become very feeble and although some of them continued to aspire for supremacy in India, practical people could see clearly that such hopes were futile. On the other hand, the British had proved more powerful in battle and in intrigue than either the Hindus or Mussalmans, and by their adoption of improved methods of administration and the assurance of the security of the life and property without any discrimination both the Hindus and the Muslims accepted them as inevitable.

"‘50 (continued). Differences between the Hindus and the Muslims did exist even before the British came. Nevertheless it is a fact that the British made the most unscrupulous use of these differences and created more differences in order to maintain their power and authority. The Indian National Congress which was started with the object of winning power for the people in the governance of the country had from the beginning kept before it the ideal of complete nationalism which implies that all Indians should enjoy equal rights and complete equality on the basis of democracy. This ideal of removing the foreign rule and replacing it by the democratic power and authority of the people appealed to me most from the very start of my public career.’

Elst comments.

"It is remarkable that Godse, who profiles himself as a secular nationalist, puts a decisive part of the blame for the Pakistan movement on the British. He makes no attempt to link the contemporary phenomenon of Islamic separatism with the fundamental doctrines of Islam. More ideologically developed Hindu thinkers hold that the British role in the development of Muslim separatism was auxiliary at most, that separatism is an intrinsic feature of Islam (at least when it is the weaker party, unable to grab the whole territory), and that there was a continuity and unity of purpose between Pakistan and earlier Islamic states on Indian soil. Pakistani ideologues too claim that Pakistan came into existence the day Muhammad-bin-Qasim stepped into Sindh in AD 712, and that modern Pakistan is the successor-state of the Moghul Empire. By contrast, militant secularists agree with Godse that British rule was decisive in poisoning previously friendly Hindu-Muslim relations.

"The one difference between Godse and the so-called secularists in India is that Godse swore by genuinely secular and democratic principles, so that ‘all Indians should enjoy equal rights and complete equality on the basis of democracy’ and no special privileges on the basis of communal identity, such as weightage in parliamentary representation for the Muslims. Congressite and leftist secularists, by contrast, supported communal representation and weightage back then, and still support separate Personal Law systems for different communities defined by religion today. If words still have a meaning, Godse’s vision of independent India’s polity was more secular than that of the self-styled secularists."

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November 26, 2021 - November 26, 2021.

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3. Critique of Gandhi’s Policies

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Elst quotes Godse.

"‘51. In my writings and speeches, I have always advocated that the religious and communal consideration should be entirely eschewed in the public affairs of the country, at elections, inside and outside the legislatures and in the making and unmaking of Cabinets. I have throughout stood for a secular State with joint electorates and to my mind this is the only sensible thing to do. (…)’1

"It should be clear by now that the conflict between Gandhi and Godse was not one between secularism and communalism (i.e., a system of community-based rights, of allotting privileges to or imposing disabilities on citizens on the basis of their communal identity, especially their religious community membership), except if we identify Godse with secularism and Gandhi with communalism. Both were religious men, but Godse wanted a secular polity while Gandhi condoned political arrangements along communal lines. ...

‘51 (continued). Under the influence of the Congress, this ideal was steadily making headway amongst the Hindus. But the Muslims as a community first stood aloof and later on under the corroding influence of the Divide and Rule Policy of foreign masters were encouraged to cherish the ambition of dominating the Hindus. The first indication of this outlook was the demand for separate electorates instigated by the then Viceroy Lord Minto in 1906. The British Government accepted this demand under the excuse of minority protection. While the Congress party offered a verbal opposition, it progressively supported separatism by ultimately adopting the notorious formula of “neither accepting nor rejecting” in 1934.’"

Elst comments.

" ... In reality, in starting the communalization of the polity, Lord Minto had merely approved a proposal by Agha Khan, the wealthy leader of the Ismaili Shiite Muslims. Later on, the colonial rulers gave in to the demands of Muslim League leader Mohammed Ali Jinnah, who was by no means their stooge. The British merely tried to harness the pre-existing and strong-willed stallion of Muslim separatism to their project of perpetual control over India."

Elst quotes Godse.

"‘53. In spite of my advocacy of joint electorates, in principle I reconciled myself with the temporary introduction of separate electorates since the Muslims were keen on them. I however insisted that representation should be granted in strict proportion to the number of every community and no more. I have uniformly maintained this stand.’3

Elst comments.

"Though notorious as the Hindu fanatic par excellence, Godse was, in fact, willing to consider compromises if these were required by the goal of an independent and united India. Extremism and communal polarization, according to Godse, were introduced into Indian politics by the Muslim League, and nourished by the British and by the Congress:

Elst quotes Godse.

"‘54. Under the inspiration of our British masters on the one hand and the encouragement by the Congress under Gandhiji’s leadership on the other, the Muslim League went on increasing its demands on Communal basis. The Muslim community continuously backed the Muslim League; each successive election proved that the Muslim League was able to bank on the fanaticism and ignorance of the Muslim masses and the League was thus encouraged in its policy of separatism on an ever increasing scale year after year.’"

Elst comments.

" ... First of all, there were not that many elections results of which could be compared. Secondly, the crucial elections of 1937, which had to give substance to the project of democratic provincial self-government under the new Government of India Act (1935), saw a humiliating defeat of the Muslim League at the hands of the Muslim electorate: only 9 per cent of the Muslim voters favoured the League, and it secured less than half of the reserved (Muslim) seats in its UP heartland, a third in Bengal, and a negligible portion in the other provinces, including Muslim-majority Sindh.5 It is only in the elections held at the turn of 1946 that the Muslim vote swung dramatically towards the Muslim League, which cornered 86.6 per cent, i.e., a resounding mandate for the creation of Pakistan.6

"On the other hand, no credible political force effectively opposing Jinnah emerged from the 91 per cent of the Muslim electorate who had refused to support the League in 1937. While the HMS was sidelined as a political force by the Congress, no comparable anti-League operation was initiated by any section of the Muslim elite. Muslim-led multi-religious parties (e.g., Sikandar Hayat Khan’s Unionists in Punjab, Fazlul Haq’s Krishak Praja Party in Bengal) did not at all oppose the privileges which the Muslim League had demanded and achieved for the Muslims. ... "

"But the most important point to note about this part of Godse’s statement is that Godse, the proverbial Hindu ‘communalist’, is accusing Gandhiji of nothing but introducing the ‘communal’ element into politics. This was to remain a constant in Hindutva political parlance, accusing the self-styled secularists in India of being ‘communal’ all while the self-styled secularists made the very same allegation against the Hindutva activists.

"Historically, the characterization of the Hindutva forces as ‘communal’ is as absurd as calling the anti-Communists ‘Communists’, for ‘communalism’ is quite literally the enemy which the HMS was created to combat. The Hindutva spokesmen called their British and Muslim League enemies ‘communal’ and advocated unadulterated ‘non-communal’ democracy, while these enemies themselves called their own favoured policies ‘communal’: communal representation, communal weightage, Communal Award. Today, with shrill sloganeering pushing proper terminology out of common usage, the term ‘communal’ is inimically applied to people who never apply the term to themselves; but in those days, the HMS was entirely in agreement with its opponents’ self-perception when it called them ‘communal’."

Elst quotes Godse.

"‘‘56. Since the year 1920, that is to say after the demise of Lokmanya Tilak, Gandhiji’s influence in the Congress first increased and then became supreme. His activities for public awakening were phenomenal in their intensity and were reinforced by the slogan of truth and non-violence which he ostentatiously paraded before the country. No sensible or enlightened person could object to these slogans; in fact there is nothing new or original in them. They are implicit in every constitutional public movement. To imagine that the bulk of mankind is or can ever become capable of scrupulous adherence to these lofty principles in its normal life from day to day is a mere dream. In fact honour, duty and love of one’s own kith and kin and country might often compel us to disregard non-violence. I could never conceive that an armed resistance to the aggressor is unjust. I will consider it a religious and moral duty to resist and if possible to overpower such an enemy by the use of force. (…)’7

‘59. [Upon returning to India from South Africa,] Gandhiji began his work by starting an Ashram in Ahmedabad on the banks of the Sabarmati River, and made truth and non-violence his slogans. He had often acted contrary to his professed principles and if it was for appeasing the Muslims, he hardly had any scruple in doing so. truth and non-violence are excellent as an ideal and admirable as guides in action. They are, however, to be practised in actual day-to-day life and not in the air. I am showing later on that Gandhiji himself was guilty of glaring breaches of his much-vaunted ideals.’8

Elst comments.

"These are three different criticisms. The first is that absolute non-violence is a lofty ideal fit for saints but unfit for the average human being—still an endorsement of non-violence as a moral principle. The second is that non-violence is sometimes morally wrong, viz. when considerations of self-defence and honour force us to face a determined enemy in battle, i.e., when they force the violent option upon us as the only remaining way to ensure survival and justice. The third is that Gandhi himself broke his own principle of non-violence on a number of occasions, e.g., when he took non-combatant service in the British war effort against the Boers and the Zulus, or when he recruited Indian young men for the British army in World War I in the vain hope of earning gratitude and political concessions.

"A fourth criticism runs through this statement, in the sarcastic conclusions of different episodes, but is not explicitated—the paradox that non-violence applied in a blind and injudicious manner leads to violence in extra large amounts.9 In the India of the 1930s and 40s, the HMS position was essentially that of Cicero when he said: ‘Si vis pacem, para bellum’, ‘If you want peace, be prepared for war.’ In a climate of frequent and increasing Muslim aggression, Savarkar and his followers thought that the organization of Hindu self-defence units would be the best guarantee of communal peace; or what American foreign-policy makers in the Cold War used to call ‘peace through strength’.

"On the international scene, this principle was being illustrated by the Munich Agreement: concluding a peace treaty with Hitler was not wrong per se, but it could only have worked if France and Britain had backed up their signatures with an increased military force capable of keeping Hitler to his word. Instead, the democratic powers, in their aversion to the militaristic hubris of the dictators, had been cutting down on defence spending. This way, an antimilitaristic policy created a strategic vacuum which made Hitler’s Blitzkrieg possible. The lesson for India was obvious—weakness invites aggression and leads to more violence than strength and armed preparedness would have done."

Elst quotes Gandhi's quotations on Hindu cowards and Muslim bullies, saying it needs to be read in full, and it's illuminating. Strange that Gandhi should have expected Hindus to "digest" the atrocities, murders of about fifteen hundred, and more, by muslims in Kerala forcing Hindus' conversions, expressing his trust that Hindus wouldn't retaliate anywhere in India, even though news had of course travelled despite British clampdown on the media.

"Here, for once, Gandhi seems to link up with a whole tradition of mature thinkers who have taken a proportionalist view of the acceptability of violence: in cases where force can reasonably be expected to make the difference (not when the situation is hopeless), it is lawful to use force to ward off aggression. In its own view of itself, the RSS (and likewise other Hindu organizations from Godse’s Hindu Raksha Dal to the Shiv Sena) has precisely taken up the challenge formulated here by Gandhi: ‘Need the Hindu blame the Mussalman for his own cowardice?’ Gandhi calls on Hindus not to be cowards in the face of Muslim bullies. In response, the RSS claims it builds martial qualities and equips its workers with the strength to face bullies. So, in a way, there is nothing un-Gandhian about RSS martial arts practice."

" ... recently the RSS has collected and published a series of testimonies of RSS sacrifice and bravery, of how they saved Hindus in Pakistan and escorted them to the safety of remainder-India.

"Even in a stern and hostile letter to RSS leader M.S. Golwalkar, Home Minister Vallabhbhai Patel had acknowledged: ‘In the areas where there was the need for help and organisation, the young men of the RSS protected women and children and strove much for their sake.’ This is a rather mild way of describing the pathetic dependence of the unprepared Congress people in the Pakistani territories on whatever help the RSS and local ad hoc Hindu militias could offer to cover their escape to the border. In the face of Islamic terror, the Gandhian method was abandoned forthwith by its nominal adherents, who entrusted their lives to the more usual methods of fight and flight."

Elst quotes Godse.

"‘56 (continued). Shri Ramchandra killed Ravan in a tumultuous fight and relieved Sita. Shri Krishna killed Kansa to end his wickedness. In the Mahabharat, Arjun had to fight and slay quite a number of his friends and relations including the revered Bhishma, because the latter was on the side of the aggressor. It is my firm belief that in dubbing Rama, Krishna and Arjuna as guilty of violence, the Mahatma betrayed a total ignorance of the springs of human action. In more recent history, it was the heroic fight put up by Chhatrapati Shivaji that first checked and eventually destroyed the Muslim tyranny in India. It was absolutely essentially for Shivaji to overpower and kill an aggressive Afzal Khan, failing which he would have lost his own life. In condemning history’s towering warriors like Shivaji, Rana Pratap and Guru Gobind Singh as misguided patriots, Gandhiji has merely exposed his self-conceit."

"‘57. Each of the heroes in his time resisted aggression on our country, protected the people against the atrocities and outrages by alien fanatics and won back the motherland from the invader. On the other hand, during more than thirty years of the undisputed leadership of the Mahatma, there were more desecrations of temples, more forcible and fraudulent conversions, more outrages on women and finally the loss of one third of the country. It is therefore astounding that his followers cannot see what is clear even to the blind, viz. that the Mahatma was a mere pygmy before Shivaji, Rana Pratap and Guru Govind. His condemnation of these illustrious heroes was to say the least, most presumptuous.

"‘58. The clique which has got into power with the patronage of British imperialism by a cowardly surrender to the Partition of India at the point of Muslim violence is now trying to exploit Gandhiji’s death in hundred hectic ways for its own selfish aims. But history will give to them their proper place in the niche of fame. Gandhiji was, paradoxical as it may appear, a violent pacifist who brought untold calamities on the country in the name of truth and non-violence, while Rana Pratap, Shivaji and the Guru will remain enshrined in the hearts of their countrymen for ever for the freedom they brought to them."

Raama, in fact, seemingly, or so accuse non Hindus and non Indians, remembered for killing someone who kidnapped his wife, or so those attacking Hindus claim, is in reality remembered and revered for the protection, security, and resulting comfort that his people experienced when he was king, a fact inherent in his name, and the very laudatory epithet "Raama Raajya", a state and kingdom where such security, and comfort of knowledge of protection by the king, was known to his people.

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August 12, 2021 - November 26, 2021.

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"‘66. (…) The Muslims did not obstruct the war [World War II] efforts and the Congress sometimes remained neutral and sometimes opposed. On the other hand, the Hindu Sabha realised that this was an opportunity for our young men to have a military training, which is absolutely essential for our nation, and from which we were rather kept far away intentionally by the British. But due to this war, the doors of Army, Navy and Airforce were opened to us, and Mahasabha urged our countrymen to militarise Hindus. The result was that nearly 1/2 millions of Hindus learnt the art of war and mastered the mechanised aspect of modern warfare. The Congress Governments are enjoying the fruits of the Mahasabha’s foresight because the troops they are using in Kashmir and had employed in Hyderabad would not have been there ready-made but for the effort of men with such outlook. (…)’17

"Reference is to the military operations preventing the secession of Hyderabad and the conquest of most of Kashmir by Pakistani irregulars in 1948. India could succeed in these operations because it had a modern army, as the HMS had always wanted (along with most parties in most countries), in spite of the Mahatma’s musings about an India without an army. There is nothing outlandish or extremist about the argument that absolute non-violence is unrealistic and, when it leads to the defencelessness of the innocent, even immoral.

"In the case of Gandhi, this defect was compounded by his deliberate or implicit deviations from his own policy, e.g. when he campaigned for Indian recruitment into the British Army during World War I, or when he failed to exert pressure on Indian industrialists during World War II to refrain from selling to the British war machine. One of Gandhi’s foremost financial sponsors apparently made a fortune out of the war effort; a leading Gandhian in Calcutta supplied imported tinned beef to the Allied forces in Assam. Gandhi was sometimes illogical and inconsistent even in the exercise of the principle which he propagated most.

"Consider the positions of Savarkar and Gandhi regarding participation in World War II. While some HMS leaders, like N.C. Chatterjee, passionately supported the Allied cause for ideological reasons, viz. as a struggle of democracy against totalitarianism, Savarkar judged the situation purely in terms of India’s interests, without much heartfelt preference for one camp or the other. The same is true of Gandhi, who rejected the image of the war as a struggle between good and evil.

"Gandhi ‘wanted to make it clear that a victory for the Axis would have been far worse’ because it had espoused violence as a principle, while the Allies ‘at least paid lip-service to peace and freedom, and truth and non-violence’; but he also pointed out that ‘their action belied their profession’, so that their victory was one of ‘superior arms and superior man-power’ rather than ‘a victory of truth over falsehood.’18 To President Roosevelt’s claim that the Allies were fighting for freedom and the Axis for enslavement of the nations, Gandhi, in his speech at Bardoli on 8 January 1942, which was printed in Harijanbandhu the same day and later in Collected Works (vol. 79, p. 205), commented: ‘But to me both the parties seem to be tarred with the same brush.’

"Against those who glorify the Allies’ war against the Axis as a holy and necessary war, Gandhi maintained his quintessentially pacifistic position that war itself was a crime: ‘War criminals are not confined to the Axis powers alone. Roosevelt and Churchill are no less war criminals than Hitler and Mussolini.’

" ... Savarkar chose to ‘militarize the Hindus’, to seize the opportunity of giving military experience to Hindu young men. Having suffered years of torture in a British penal colony, Savarkar probably did not share Gandhi’s sentimental anguish at the thought of London being bombed by the Luftwaffe, and as we shall see, Godse made no secret of his admiration for Subhas Chandra Bose, the Congress leftist who fought on the Japanese side. ... "

" ... At this point, Gandhi subordinated his political concern for India to his moral concern for non-violence. Savarkar did the opposite—in general he believed in an ‘economy of violence’, in which a measured use of violence may sometimes avert a much bigger or more protracted conflagration; and in the particular world situation of 1939–45 he saw that a non-violent scenario was simply not on offer, so he decided to make the best of the war for India.

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"While we are on the subject of World War II, we may insert a little intermezzo here about Gandhi’s most remarkable interventions in that crisis. Regarding the persecution of the Jews in Germany, Gandhi showed his extremely pacifistic face, the face of militant meekness, of ‘when slapped, turn the other cheek’. Hindutva publications regularly criticize this aspect of Gandhism, e.g., ‘the fatuosity, naïveté and callousness of the Mahatma’s advice to the Jews in Germany in 1938, that they should offer mass civil disobedience to the Nazis (…) even after the dimensions of that horror were revealed, he continued to insist that if the Jews had followed his advice, they would have won a moral victory, even though they would have died the same.’21

"Telling people to score a moral victory at the price of their lives, is not the advice which many would receive gladly. Gandhi ‘discredited his own position’ by saying in 1946 that ‘the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher’s knife (…) It would have aroused them and the people of Germany (…) As it is they succumbed anyway in their millions.’22 It is true that refraining from Gandhian posturing had not saved the Jews, but surely other ways of saving them could have been explored. In this connection, we may recall that as a Muslim sympathizer, Gandhi steadfastly opposed the Zionist project in Palestine, which, to many Jews, was the logical road to salvation."

"A few prominent Jews had written to Gandhi to refute his assumption of a similarity between the position of Indians in South Africa (where non-violent action for civil rights scored its greatest success) and that of Jews in Germany. Unsurprisingly, they could not bring Gandhi to admit that his position had been less than 100 per cent correct.24"

" ... Gandhi would not have been Gandhi if he had not believed in a non-violent way out of the European security crisis of the late 1930s. He would not have been true to his belief in ‘change of heart’ if he had not written his much-ridiculed letter to Adolf Hitler admonishing him to explore non-violent ways of achieving Germany’s legitimate aims.25

"Without recourse to extremist Gandhian gimmicks, we should make at least the mental exercise of exploring the possibilities for maintaining peace which diplomats had in the 1930s. If a hawk like Richard Nixon could make peace with a practised mass-murderer like Mao Zedong, why not Churchill with Hitler before the latter turned mass-murderer? Among other little-discussed possibilities, we should face the likelihood that the mass killing of the Jews could have been avoided by a negotiated safe-conduit if Britain and Germany had remained on speaking terms. The now-common argument that the Allies had to fight and win the war in order to save the Jews (on the entirely false assumption that saving the Jews had been one of their war aims) is simply not valid, for the war was fought and won, yet far too many of the Jews were not saved."

At this point Elst goes spiralling into whether war, and holocaust, couldn't have been avoided, by Britain holding talks!

Did he not read William Shirer's Rise And Fall of The Third Reich? Or talk to his grandparents?

Did he go so far enamoured by Gandhi as to forget realities of Hitler having planned everything out, way before German armies crossed into Poland with a fraud perpetrated - some prisoners dressed up in polish uniforms and shot dead, yo publivise the falsehood of Poland having attacked Germany!

Avoiding WWII was as realistic for Britain as avoiding British takeover, or for that matter, Islamic invaders, was for India.

Elst further explores, nay, almost asserts that but for U.S. entry into WWI, most of the tragedies would have been avoided, including Russian revolution; he forgets a person called cousin Willie by the self labelled Royal Mob, who was intent on revengeagainst most cousins, from George in England - for not ceding precedence at family occasions - to Alix, who married her cousin Nicholas instead, after having spurned Willie.

And he forgets, U.S. did stay out, until Lusitania and Pearl Harbour respectively.

"Gandhi’s advice to individual Jews, telling them to walk meekly into the slaughterhouse, is a different story. It was the same advice he gave to Hindus trapped in what was to become Pakistan, as we shall see.27 If Gandhians want to keep on writing about their hero, a useful project would be to thoroughly analyze their hero’s preoccupation with death, especially, as Godse would have remarked, with other people’s death. The carelessness with which he counselled self-sacrifice deserves a deeper diagnosis."

Here the analysis given by Godse and quoted by Elst is doubly refreshing in its honesty - or reply, rather; for one, congress, and those allied, governments have never allowed a real look, much less discussion, about gandhi, about congress policies, about muslims, choosing instead go impose a deification of congress and of Gandhi that was no different from deification by church of Rome, of a king of Jews executed by Rome, and sanctity allocated to Europeans inherent in the diatribe against Jews preached every Sunday by church being quite parallel with the copycat fraud, perpetrated by congress and allied governments of independent India, in the status accorded the two powerful minorities while heaping all sorts of excoriating unreasonable and increasing humiliations on the majority of India.

"‘61. When Gandhiji finally returned to India at the end of 1914, he brought with him a very high reputation for courageous leadership of Indians in South Africa. (…) He was honoured and obeyed by Hindus, Muslims and Parsis alike and was universally acclaimed as the leader of all Indians in South Africa. His simplicity of life, his unselfish devotion to the cause which he had made his own, his self-sacrifice and earnestness in fighting against the racial arrogance of the Afrikaners had raised the prestige of Indians. In India, he had endeared himself to all.

"‘62. When he returned here to serve his countrymen in their struggle for freedom, he had legitimately hoped that as in Africa he would command the unchallenged confidence and respect of all communities. But in this hope he soon found himself disappointed. (…) In South Africa, Indians had claimed nothing but elementary rights of citizenship which were denied to them. (…) Hindus, Muslims and Parsis therefore stood united like one man against the common enemy. (…) The Indian problem at home was quite different. We were fighting for home rule, self-Government and even for independence. We were intent on overthrowing an Imperial Power, which was determined to continue its sway over us by all possible means, including the policy of ‘Divide and Rule’ which had intensified the cleavage between Hindus and Muslims. (…)’28

"The stakes in South Africa were much lower than in India, where Indians intended to rule the country, not merely to obtain some civil rights. The Indian minority in South Africa also stood together against a ruling white group larger than their own, and a black majority which, though by no means oppressing the Indians, was foreign to them and socially (if not politically) in an altogether different position. In India, no such conditions of clinging together against overwhelmingly stronger outsiders prevailed, so that the Indians had room for internal polarization along communal lines.

"Also, in India, the Muslim leadership had a historic memory of empire, and felt entitled to its restoration. Muslim numbers in India were also larger than ever before, both in relative and in absolute terms, so there was no reason why Islam should fail to regain its lost position of dominance. The only dispute within the Muslim elite was whether they should aim for a gradual reconquest of the whole of India, or to settle for a partition and be secure in the control of a large part of the country. No Muslim leader is known to have explicitly accepted the prospect of a purely democratic polity in a united India without any special privileges for the Muslims."

" ... Before the determined British and Muslim League intrigues, wholly motivated by their respective self-interests, Gandhi as the new Congress leader proved to be a poor tactician, stumbling from compromise to defeat.

"Gandhi’s trail of fruitless concessions to Muslim demands started with the Khilafat Movement, the movement in support of the preservation of the Ottoman Caliphate and its restoration to sovereignty over the sacred places of Islam. This movement, opposed by Muslim modernists like Jinnah, was led by the brothers Muhammed and Shaukat Ali, to whom Gandhi offered the Congress as a platform and organizational instrument:

"‘65. Our British rulers were able, out of Indian resources, continuously to make concessions to Muslims and to keep the various communities divided. By 1919, Gandhiji had become desperate in his endeavours to get the Muslims to trust him and went from one absurd promise to another. He promised ‘a blank cheque’ to the Muslims. He backed the Khilafat Movement in this country and was able to enlist the full support of the National Congress in that policy. (…) the Ali Brothers became de facto Muslim leaders; Gandhiji welcomed this as the coming promise of leadership of the Muslims. He made most of the Ali Brothers, raised them to the skies by flattery and unending concessions; but what he wanted never happened.’

"Indeed, the Khilafat Movement was a tragi-comical failure. Its demands lost their object when Turkish republicans under Mustafa Kemal Ataturk deposed the Caliph and abolished the very institution of the Caliphate (1923–24), in spite of the prestige which it used to confer on Turkey in the eyes of the Muslim world. But even before that, the agitation had been derailed when Gandhi’s inner voice expressed its disapproval of the violent turn which the movement was taking. After the murder of some policemen in Chauri Chaura (UP) on 5 February 1922, Gandhi called off the agitation, to the surprise and dismay of his Muslim allies. Muslim anger at Gandhi’s typically Hindu pusillanimity led to the biggest wave of Hindu-Muslim riots since the establishment of British paramountcy in India:

"‘65 (continued). The Muslims ran the Khilafat Committee as a distinct political religious organisation and throughout maintained it as a separate entity from the Congress; and very soon the Moplah Rebellion showed that the Muslims had not the slightest idea of national unity on which Gandhiji had set his heart and had staked so much. There followed, as usual in such cases, a huge slaughter of the Hindus, numerous forcible conversions, rape and arson. The British Government, entirely unmoved by the rebellion, suppressed it in a few months and left to Gandhiji the joy of his Hindu-Muslim unity. The Khilafat agitation had failed and let down Gandhiji. British Imperialism emerged stronger, the Muslims became more fanatical and the consequences were visited on the Hindus. (…)’30

"There is no indication that Gandhi or other Congress leaders ever cared to study the Islamic concept of Khilafat, i.e., the theocratic empire ideally encompassing all Muslims and ultimately the whole world. Gandhi used to haughtily dismiss any questions about the intrinsically problematic aspects of Islam, an attitude which is, by no means, idiosyncratically Gandhian. As a friend of the Hindus, I hope I may be permitted the following observation of their mentality.

"As a dim remnant of their ancient glory, when Indian science and civilization were most advanced and admired by neighbouring nations, many Hindus still cherish a superiority attitude, often buried underneath their more recent and more visible inferiority complex vis-à-vis the West. Among the harmless instances, I may cite the NRI ladies who dismiss Western sweets as tasteless stuff compared to Indian ones. Much more harmful is the haughty assumption by Hindu ideologues and polemicists that they know everything about everything.

"This unspoken assumption explains why Gandhi, his follower Vinoba Bhave and numerous others pretentiously claimed to know Islam better than the Muslims themselves, e.g., to insist that Islam, too, teaches non-violence; or why The Times of India could confidently assert that the Taliban’s destruction of the Buddha statues in Bamiyan, an act of outspoken Islamic iconoclasm, was ‘un-Islamic’; or why the RSS mouthpiece Organiser sometimes carries articles arguing that ‘true’ Islam actually prohibits cow-slaughter. The anti-scriptural attitude among anglicized urban Hindus reinforces this tendency; they think that studying the boring old letter of the Book is unnecessary once you have seized its ‘spirit’, an imputed ‘spirit’ which turns out to be really only a projection of current ideological fashions.

Elst is right about most of it (other than it being unclear why NRI preference of Indian sweets is unnatural or related to other matters), except the cow slaughter - that it is forbidden in koran is confirmed by more than one honest and scholar muslim publicly.

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"Had Gandhi bothered to study Islamic doctrine, he would have known that the concept of Khilafat is intrinsically anti-nationalist. That may or may not be a good thing (e.g., under the Ottoman Caliphate, Turkish-Kurdish relations were much better than under the secular republic founded by Atatürk), but it was undeniably at cross-purposes with the freedom movement, which sought to unite Indian Hindus with Indian Muslims against colonialism, rather than uniting Indian Muslims with foreign Muslims against all infidels. It was a perfectly logical outcome that the Indian Muslim masses, consisting of native converts suddenly sensitized by their foreign-descended elites to the pan-Islamic cause, ended up attacking Hindus: the Khilafat is intrinsically an Islamic bulwark against the infidels.

"Rabindranath Tagore commented thus on the post-Khilafat Hindu-Muslim riots: ‘A very important factor which is making it almost impossible for Hindu-Muslim unity to become an accomplished fact is that the Muslims cannot confine their patriotism to any one country. I had frankly asked whether, in the event of any Mohammedan power invading India, they would stand side by side with their Hindu neighbours to defend their common land. I was not satisfied with the reply I got from them. (…) even such a man as Mr. Mohammed Ali has declared that under no circumstances is it permissible for any Mohammedan, whatever be his country, to stand against any Mohammedan.’31"

This is theoretical, and in practice true only when a non muslim entity is involved. We're all familiar with Iran-Iraq war of several years, with Saudi Arabia warring against Iran, and worst, western paki military butchering and rapes by millions in East Bengal; in some ways a stronger example is the tanks rolled out against Palestinians in Mecca by paki military at behest of Saudi Arabia, although before and after that, all muslim nations and groups everywhere are ready to go on a rampage against non muslims with excuse of Palestinians rights cited.

"After the debacle, Gandhi and the other Congress leaders refused to do any serious introspection about their intellectual failure regarding the Caliphate doctrine. They simply continued peddling cheap assertions about Islam as the religion of brotherhood, as if nothing had happened. Remark that Godse, while not repeating such assertions in his statement, doesn’t analyze or refute them either. He describes barbaric behaviour by Muslims but neglects to trace it to its source. He felt resentment against Muslims for the sufferings they had inflicted on Hindus, but he was not articulately critical of Islamic doctrine. Setting the trend for later Hindu nationalist spokesmen (e.g., each of the RSS leaders from M.S. Golwalkar to K.S. Sudarshan), he lashed out at Muslims but refrained from indicting Islam as having inculcated in believers a hatred of infidels that motivated them to acts like the post-Khilafat pogroms."

"‘65 (continued). Mr. Jinnah who had staged a comeback was having the best of both worlds. Whatever concessions the Government and the Congress made, Mr. Jinnah accepted and asked for more. Separation of Sindh from Bombay [Presidency] and the creation of the N.W. Frontier [Province] were followed by the Round Table Conference in which the minority question loomed large. Mr. Jinnah stood out against the federation until Gandhiji himself requested Mr. McDonald, the Labour Premier, to give the Communal Award. Further seeds were thereby sown for the disintegration of this country. (…) The Congress continued to support the Communal Award under the very hypocritical words of “neither supporting nor opposing”, which really meant its tacit acceptance. During the War, Mr. Jinnah (…) promised to support the war as soon as the Muslim rights were conceded; in April 1940, within six months of the War, Mr. Jinnah came out with the demand for Pakistan on the basis of his two-nation theory. (…)’32"

"But the Jinnah who ‘came back’ was a different man from the constitutionalist sidelined by Gandhi’s option for mass politics; different also from the modernist Muslim leader and genuine ‘nationalist Muslim’ who had been pushed in the background by the pan-Islamist religious fervour of the Khilafatists. And the key agent in this transformation of Jinnah into the leading enemy of the nation had been none other than Gandhi himself.

"Gandhi’s seizing control of the Congress is described as follows by a historian: ‘The Calcutta Congress gave Gandhi his first major victory, for though his non-cooperation program was strongly opposed by Bengal’s leading politicians, C.R. Das and B.C. Pal who joined forces with Jinnah and Annie Besant against him, the Mahatma, with the Ali brothers and Motilal Nehru in his corner, emerged with a clear majority mandate to lead the march against the government. Khilafat trainloads of delegates, hired by Bombay’s merchant prince Mian Mohamed Chotani, one of Gandhi’s leading supporters, had been shipped cross-country to pack the Congress pandal and vote for their hero’s resolution, transforming Congress into a populist political party. It marked a revolutionary shift in Congress’s base of support to a lower-class mass, funded by wealthy Hindu Marwari and Muslim merchant-industrialists.’

"The humiliation which Gandhi inflicted on them knocked Pal out of politics for good and made an utterly disgusted Jinnah retire into his law practice for several years. When Jinnah came back, he had learned his lesson and started capitalizing on the religious sentiments which had over-grown Indian politics, thanks to Gandhi and the Ali Brothers. This way, Jinnah the separatist was largely Gandhi’s creation."

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"‘65 (continued). The services began to be distributed on communal basis and the Muslims obtained high jobs from our British Masters not on merit, but by remaining aloof from the struggle for freedom and because of their being the followers of Islam. Government patronage to Muslims in the name of minority protection penetrated throughout the body-politic of the Indian State and the Mahatma’s meaningless slogans were no match against this wholesale corruption of the Muslim mind. But Gandhiji did not relent. He still lived in the hope of being the common leader both of the Hindus and Muslims and the more he was defeated, the more he indulged in encouraging the Muslims by extravagant methods. The position continued to deteriorate and by 1925, it became patent to all that the Government had won all along the line; but like the proverbial gambler, Gandhiji increased his stake. He agreed to the separation of Sindh [from the Bombay Presidency] and to the creation of a separate province in the N.W. Frontier. He also went on conceding one undemocratic demand after another to the Muslim League in the vain hope of enlisting its support in the national struggle. (…)’34

"The creation of Sindh and the NWFP as separate provinces meant that the small Hindu minorities there were left at the mercy of the Muslims. This had been a Muslim demand, and while Gandhi agreed to it, no one can tell what the Hindus got in return for it. Gandhi never claimed to represent the Hindus as such anyway: while the Muslims could press demands as Muslims, both through the Muslim League and through the intra-Congress Muslim lobby, the Hindus were only heard as nationalists. The only expressly Hindu lobby group, the HMS, was treated with indifference or hostility by the Congress leadership, much in contrast with the deferential treatment which the Muslim lobby and the Muslim League received.

"The grand finale of this trail of concessions was Partition amid bloodshed. However, when World War II broke out in September 1939, this outcome was still not inevitable, with the Congress having far more democratic legitimacy than the Muslim League, and holding important trump cards, including a number of provincial governments. But the Congress and Gandhi played their cards very poorly, abdicating their government positions (in protest against the Viceroy’s involving India in the war effort without consulting native leaders) and antagonizing the British needlessly, so that the Muslim League could fill the vacuum. The jump from a merely weak position to a total abdication of the struggle against Muslim separatism was made in the Quit India Movement of August 1942.

"This was an agitation intended to force the British to leave India at once. While politically justified in a very general sense, it was the height of folly under the circumstances. Having the British quit India was a completely unrealistic demand considering that Britain was at war, had an unprecedentedly large army at the ready, considered India its vital base for action against Japan, and would treat any sabotage of its war effort as subversion. Possibly a well-organized guerrilla army could have succeeded in this operation, at least after a protracted struggle, but Gandhiji’s unprepared and unarmed amateurs stood no chance at all. Wholly improvized and bereft of strategy, the Quit India Movement earned the Congress nothing except the deep mistrust and hostility of the British, who cooperated all the more eagerly with the Muslim League:

"‘66. The British Government liked the Pakistan idea as it kept the Hindus and Muslims estranged during the war and thereby avoided embarrassing the Government. (…) The Congress in 1942 started the ‘Quit India’ Movement in the name of Freedom; violent outrages were perpetrated by Congressmen in every Province. In the Province of North Bihar, there was hardly a railway station which was not burnt or destroyed by the Congress non-co-operators; but in spite of all the opposition of the Congress, the Germans were beaten in April, 1945 and the Japanese in August, 1945. (…) The “Quit India” campaign of 1942 had completely failed. The Britishers had triumphed and the Congress leaders decided to come to terms with them.

"‘Indeed in the subsequent years the Congress policy can be quite correctly described as “Peace at any Price” and “Congress in Office at all costs”. The Congress compromised with the British who placed it in office and in return, the Congress surrendered to the violence of Mr. Jinnah, carved out one-third of India to him, an explicitly racial and theological State, and destroyed two million human beings in the process. Pandit Nehru now professes again and again that the Congress stands for a secular State and violently denounces those who remind him that only last year he agreed to a communal and theological State; his vociferous adherence to a “Secular State” is nothing but a case of “my lady protests too much”.’

" ... Quit India Movement had rapidly slipped out of Gandhi’s control, and that his ‘non-violent’ agitation did turn violent on a good many occasions. Gandhi himself had given orders for acts of sabotage, i.e., violence against buildings and machinery, but not against people. But since buildings are also manned and guarded, violence against people was the inevitable result. After his imprisonment, Gandhi did penance for his undeniable role in the wave of violence—a rare occasion when he realized that he could not control the violent consequences of his own movement.

"There can be no doubt that the Quit India Movement, which was predicated on the mistaken perspective of imminent British defeat against Japan, was a total failure in terms of Congress objectives. British power was not dislocated, the Congress leadership was reduced to passive by-standing in prison, the war effort continued with the active involvement (both economic and military) of Indian society, and the political field was left to the Muslim League, which strengthened its position and coolly prepared for the enforcement of its Partition demand. The Communist Party of India (CPI) had also been legalized and had prospered as never before under British patronage, political as well as financial. It joined wholeheartedly the Muslim League demand for Pakistan, and provided the ideological blitz which the Muslim League was incapable of mounting on its own. Leading Muslim-born Communists left the Congress to join the Muslim League in the hope of capturing it from within so that Pakistan could be used as a base near the Soviet Union, as Communists in China had done by their Long March under Mao. How the Muslim rulers of Pakistan defeated the Communist game and how Nehru rescued the Muslim Communists from that country is an interesting but different story."

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" ... During Germany’s successful Blitz offensive, Gandhi wrote in a letter to Lord Linlithgow, 26 May 1940 (reproduced in Collected Works, vol. 72, p. 100): ‘But assuming that things are as black as they appear to be for the Allied cause, is it not time to sue for peace for the sake of humanity? I do not believe Herr Hitler to be as bad as he is portrayed. He might even have been a friendly power as he may still be. It is due to suffering humanity that this mad slaughter should stop.’"

Wonder if nobody told him what Hitler had advised Neville Chamberlain after they met at Berghof, Chamberlain being forced to walk up the steps to where Hitler waited - just shoot him in the head, Hitler had bluntly told Chamberlain when he mentioned Gandhi in context of India.

Or was Gandhi so smug he thought he was impervious to such a view of the world and Chamberlain was no different from Hitler? He did have an attitude of being superior, that's certain - from the line he took in attempting to meet a great persona of the time, repeatedly writing to him to the effect that he, Gandhi, was aware he, Gandhi, had been denied a meeting, but wished it anyway, and was going to attempt arriving. In the instance, the desired meeting did not happen.

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November 26, 2021 - November 27, 2021.

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4. Gandhi’s Responsibility for the Partition

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"‘70 (a). Khilafat. (…) The Indian Muslims’ devotion to the Khilafat was strong and earnest and they believed that it was Britain that had brought about the downfall of the Sultan and the Khilafat. They therefore started a campaign for the revival of the Khilafat. In the moment of opportunism, the Mahatma misconceived the idea that by helping the Khilafat Movement he would become the leader of the Muslims in India as he already was of the Hindus and that with the Hindu-Muslim unity thus achieved, the British would soon have to concede Swaraj. (…) Gandhiji miscalculated and by leading the Indian National Congress to identify itself with the Khilafat Movement, he quite gratuitously introduced a theological element which has proved a tragic and expensive calamity. (…) When failure came, the Muslims became desperate with disappointment and their anger was visited on the Hindus. Innumerable riots in various parts of India followed, the chief victims being the Hindus everywhere. The Hindu-Muslim unity of the Mahatma became a mirage.’2"

"When Gandhi unilaterally called off the Non-Cooperation Movement because it had turned violent (February 1922), he threw his volunteers into desperation. Many had left their jobs or studies in order to participate in the historic movement aimed at forcing the British to concede home-rule to India. The Muslims especially felt betrayed by Gandhi and took out their anger on the Hindus in general. However, it is not only the failure of the movement which led to communal rioting. One of the greatest outbursts of communal violence was actually part of the movement itself when it was still going strong.

"In August 1921, exactly a year after the start of Non-Cooperation, time for which Gandhi had promised results, the Moplah Muslim community of Kerala installed its own version of home-rule, viz. Khilafat rule. A Khilafat kingdom was declared under one Ali Musaliar. It took the British several months to suppress this rebellion, and meanwhile pogroms were conducted against the local Hindus, involving murder, rape and forcible conversion to Islam. Godse comments: ‘70 (b). Moplah Rebellion. Malabar, Punjab, Bengal and N.W. Frontier Province were the scene of repeated outrages on the Hindus.

"The Moplah rebellion, as it was called, was the most prolonged and concentrated attack on the Hindu religion, Hindu honour, Hindu life and Hindu property (…). The Mahatma, who had brought about all this calamity on India by his communal policy, kept mum. He never uttered a single word of reproach against the aggressors nor did he allow the Congress to take any active steps whereby repetition of such outrages could be prevented. On the other hand, he went to the length of denying the numerous cases of forcible conversions in Malabar and actually published in his paper, “Young India” that there was only one case of forcible conversion. His own Muslim friends informed him that he was wrong and that the forcible conversions were numerous in Malabar. He never corrected his misstatements, but went to the absurd length of starting a relief fund for the Moplahs instead of their victims; but the promised land of Hindu-Muslim unity was not yet in sight.’3"

" ... In his book Aryan Invasion Theory and Indian Nationalism, Shrikant G. Talageri insists that ‘Halfway through, the Khilafat agitation was converted into a jihad against Hindus. (…) If the Khilafat agitation was ghastly and horrifying, the secularist response to it was a hundred times more ghastly and horrifying. (…) The Congress suppressed all reports about the atrocities perpetrated by the Moplahs against the Hindus, and Congress leaders condemned the British authorities for taking measures to quell the rioters.’ Further, he insists that ‘the Mahatma went out of his way to refer to the Moplah murderers as “my brave Moplahs”, and expressed admiration for their religious fervour. After 1947, Moplah rioters were classified as freedom fighters and made eligible for pensions paid by the Government of Independent India. And every year, to this very day, the Khilafat Movement is commemorated by a massive procession in Bombay, in which many Leftists and secularists participate along with Muslims.’"

................................................................................................

"‘70 (c). Afghan Amir Intrigue. When the Khilafat Movement failed, the Ali Brothers decided to do something which might keep alive the Khilafat sentiments. Their slogan was that whoever was the enemy of the Khilafat was also the enemy of Islam, and as the British were chiefly responsible for the defeat and the dethronement of the Sultan of Turkey, every faithful Muslim was in solemn duty bound to be a bitter enemy of Britain. With that object, they secretly intrigued to invite the Amir of Afghanistan to invade India and promised every support. There is a long history behind this intrigue; the Ali Brothers never denied their share in the conspiracy. The Mahatma pursued his tactics of getting Hindu-Muslim unity by supporting the Ali Brothers through thick and through thin. (…)

"‘70 (c) (continued). Even with regard to the invasion of India by the Amir, the Mahatma directly and indirectly supported the Ali Brothers. This is proved beyond the shadow of doubt. The late Mr. [Srinivasa] Shastri, Mr. C.Y. Chintamani the editor of The Leader of Allahabad and even the Mahatma’s life-long friend, the late Rev. C.F. Andrews, told him quite clearly that his speeches and writings amounted to a definite support to the Ali Brothers in their invitation to the Amir of Afghanistan to invade India. The following quotations from the Mahatma’s writing in those days should make it clear that he had forgotten his own country in his one consuming desire to please the Muslims and had become a party to the invasion of his motherland by a foreign ruler. The Mahatma supported the invasion in the following words:

"I cannot understand why the Ali Brothers are going to be arrested as the rumours go, and why I am to remain free. They have done nothing which I would not do. If they had sent a message to the Amir, I also would send one to inform the Amir that if he came, no Indian so long as I can help it, would help the Government to drive him back.

"The vigilance of the British broke the conspiracy; nothing came out of the Ali Brothers’ grotesque scheme of the invasion of India and Hindu-Muslim unity remained as far away as before.’4

................................................................................................

"There are other aspects to the Afghan connection of the Khilafatist fever which deserve consideration. Thus, a demythologizing light is thrown upon the motives of the ‘nationalist Muslim’ leader Maulana Abul Kalam Azad by the conclusion he drew from the doctrine that the British, in destroying the Caliphate, had become the enemies of Islam. To Azad, like to many Ulema, this meant that British India was a Dar-al-Harb, ‘land of strife’, i.e., a land controlled by infidel enemies of Islam, where Muslims had the duty either to wage jihad and overthrow the infidel regime or to emigrate to an Islamic state. Since British power was still too strong, Muslims had to emulate the decision of the Prophet to flee Pagan Mecca to Muslim-dominated Medina in AD 622, and therefore, the influential Maulana called on the Indian Muslims to migrate to Afghanistan.

"Thousands heeded his call, sold everything or simply left it behind, but found Afghan society to be inhospitable, incomprehending and hostile. Stricken by poverty, famine and religious anguish, they had to return to India in desperation. Some of them died on the way to and from Afghanistan. The man who had brought this misfortune on them with his obscurantist scheme was to become the leading Congress Muslim, Education Minister in Nehru’s Cabinet and one of the most powerful men in India after Independence."

................................................................................................

"‘70 (d.) (i). Attack on Arya Samaj. Gandhiji ostentatiously displayed his love for Muslims by a most unworthy and unprovoked attack on the Arya Samaj in 1924. He publicly denounced the Samaj for its supposed sins of omission and commission; it was an utterly unwarranted, reckless and discreditable attack, but whatever would please the Mohammedans was the heart’s desire of Gandhiji. The Arya Samaj made a powerful but polite retort and for some time Gandhiji was silenced, but the growing political influence of Gandhiji weakened the Arya Samaj. (…)

"‘70 (d.) (ii). Gandhiji’s attack did not improve his popularity with the Muslims but it provoked a Muslim youth to murder Swami Shraddhanandaji within a few months. The charge against the Samaj that it was a reactionary body was manifestly false. Everybody knew that far from being a reactionary body, the Samaj had been the vanguard of social reforms among the Hindus. The Samaj had for a hundred years stood for the abolition of untouchability long before the birth of Gandhiji. The Samaj had popularised widow remarriage. The Samaj had denounced the caste system and preached the oneness of not merely the Hindus, but of all those who were prepared to follow its tenets. Gandhiji was completely silenced for some time, but his leadership made the people forget his baseless attack on the Arya Samaj and even weakened the Samaj to a large extent. (…)"

................................................................................................

" ... J.T.F. Jordens in Swami Shraddhananda insists that there was also no causal relation between Gandhi’s attack and the murder, which was apparently triggered by the Swami’s acquittal in a court case for alleged abduction brought by a Muslim whose wife and children had run away from his home and sought conversion from the Swami. Nor was the Arya Samaj ‘a hundred years’ old in 1926; it was founded in 1875, six years after Gandhi’s birth. Nonetheless, the allegation that Gandhi was less than even-handed in his criticism of Hindu preachers of conversion and Muslim preachers of murder of converts was supported by many. One of these was Ambedkar, who held it against Gandhi that he had not even condemned the murder of Swami Shraddhananda and other Arya Samaj leaders.

"One of Ambedkar’s many criticisms of Gandhiji was this: ‘He has never called the Muslims to account even when they have been guilty of gross crimes against Hindus.’ He cites, among other examples (like the Moplah rebellion), the series of murders of people who had criticized Mohammed and the Quran: Swami Shraddhananda, ‘who was shot by Abdul Rashid on 23 December 1926 when he was lying in his sick bed’; Lala Nanak Chand, a prominent Arya Samajist; Rajpal, the editor of the book Rangeela Rasool (‘The playboy prophet’, gossip on Prophet Mohammed’s sex life, in reaction to a similar Muslim publication on Sita), ‘stabbed by Ilamdin on 6 April 1929 while sitting in his shop’; Nathuramal Sharma, ‘murdered by Abdul Qayum in September 1934 (…) in the Court of the Judicial Commissioner of Sind where he was seated while awaiting the hearing of his appeal against his conviction under Section 195, Indian Penal Code, for the publication of a pamphlet on the history of Islam.’9 That is ‘only a short list, and could easily be expanded.’

"Dr Ambedkar points out that, while the murderers were tried by British judges, the Muslim leadership gave its full moral support to the murderers: ‘The leading Muslims, however, never condemned these criminals. On the contrary, they were hailed as religious martyrs (…) Mr Barkat Ali, a barrister of Lahore, who argued the appeal of Abdul Qayum (…) went to the length of saying that Qayum was not guilty of murder of Nathuramal because his act was justifiable by the law of the Koran. This attitude of the Muslims is quite understandable. What is not understandable is the attitude of Mr Gandhi.’10"

10.Mohammed himself had several poets who had criticized and satirized him, stabbed to death by assassins. On chasing the Jews from Khaybar, he first singled out some well-known critics for punishment. On entering Mecca, which surrendered on condition that no one who refrained from armed resistance would be troubled, he rounded up a number of well-known critics for execution. This authoritative example set by Mohammed himself explains the Salman Rushdie affair and related assassinations and murder attempts, as shown in S.R. Goel, ed., Freedom of Expression: Secular Theocracy Versus Liberal Democracy. (KE)

" ... Ambedkar was of the view that Gandhi had been very punctilious in the matter of condemning all acts of violence. However, Gandhi had never protested against such murders. The Muslims never condemned these outrages, neither did Gandhi ever ask the leading Muslims to condemn them. He kept silent over them. Such an attitude only showed that Gandhi was anxious to preserve Hindu-Muslim unity and did not mind sacrificing a few Hindu lives for that.

"Note also how Gandhi clean forgot his earlier closeness to Swami Shraddhananda. It was Shraddhananda to whom he had sent his two sons to be looked after and educated at Gurukula Kangri near Haridwar, when he was in South Africa. It was Shraddhananda whom he had met at the Gurukul soon after his return to India. And it was Shraddhananda (not Tagore, as is often claimed) who was the first to decorate him with the honorific of ‘Mahatma’, which he wore throughout his life. The least he should have done was to renounce the title bestowed on him by the Swami when he felt so estranged with the latter as to embrace his murderer as brother."

................................................................................................

"Among subsequent concessions to the Muslim League, one that was to contribute materially to the creation of Pakistan was the partition of the Bombay Presidency, essentially along communal lines: in 1931, the Muslim-majority region of Sindh (though including some Hindu-majority districts) was separated and made into a new province. This new province became one of the constituent provinces of Pakistan:

"‘70 (e). Separation of Sindh. By 1928, Mr. Jinnah’s stock had risen very high and the Mahatma had already conceded many unfair and improper demands of Mr. Jinnah at the expense of Indian democracy and the Indian nation and the Hindus. The Mahatma even supported the separation of Sindh from the Bombay Presidency and threw the Hindus of Sind to the communal wolves. Numerous riots took place in Sindh-Karachi, Sukkur, Shikarpur and other places in which the Hindus were the only sufferers and the Hindu-Muslim unity receded further from the horizon.’11"

"‘70 (f). League’s Good Bye to Congress. With each defeat, Gandhiji became even more keen on his method of achieving Hindu-Muslim unity. Like the gambler who had lost heavily, he became more desperate increasing his stakes each time and indulged in the most irrational concessions if only they could placate Mr. Jinnah and enlist his support under the Mahatma’s leadership in the fight for freedom. But the aloofness of the Muslims from the Congress increased with the advance of years and the Muslim League refused to have anything to do with the Congress after 1928. (…)’12"

"‘70 (g). Round-Table Conference and Communal Award. (…) at the Karachi Congress of 1931 it was decided to send Gandhiji alone as the Congress Representative to the Second Session of the Round Table Conference. Anybody who reads the proceedings of that Session will realise that Gandhiji was the biggest factor in bringing about the total failure of the Conference. Not one of the decisions of the Round Table Conference was in support of democracy or nationalism and the Mahatma went to the length of inviting Mr. Ramsay MacDonald to give what was called the Communal Award, thereby strengthening the disintegrating forces of communalism, which had already corroded the body politic for 24 years past. (…)

"‘Gandhiji himself put an axe on the communal unity on which he had staked so much for the previous fifteen years. (…) Those elected on the communal franchise would be naturally communal-minded and would have no interest in bridging the gulf between communalism and nationalism. The formation of a parliamentary party on political and economic grounds thus became impossible. (…) Almost everywhere Hindus became victims of communal orgies at the hands of the Muslims. People became perfectly cynical about any possibility of unity between Hindus and Muslims, but the Mahatma kept on repeating his barren formula all the time.’13"

"Even authors more sympathetic to Gandhi have admitted that Gandhi and the Congress played their cards awfully bad at this critical juncture, first by not knowing whether to participate, then by showing up (in the sole person of Gandhi) without any proper negotiation strategy, even failing to valorize the Congress’s status as the only multi-communal and pan-Indian organization. In the Struggle For Freedom, R.C. Majumdar states that the followers of Christ only understood the language of strength or force, hence Gandhi’s Christian meekness and humility fell flat on them. His conduct in the Conference was another example of his inability to carry on negotiations with trained politicians."

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"‘70 (h). Acceptance of Office and Resigning in Huff. (…) [The Congress] decided to accept office in July, 1937; in doing so it committed a serious blunder in excluding the members of the Muslim League from effective participation in the Cabinet. They only admitted into the Cabinet such Muslims as were Congressmen. This was the right policy for a country with citizen franchise and without communal representation, but having accepted communal electorate and communal franchise and other paraphernalia of separatism, it became untenable to keep out the members of the Muslim League who represented the bulk of the Muslims in every province where they were in a minority. The Nationalist Muslims who became Ministers were not representatives of the Muslims in the sense in which the Muslim League members were, (…) the rejection of Muslim League members as Ministers gave Mr. Jinnah a tactical advantage which he utilised to the full and in 1939, when the Congress resigned Office in a huff, it completely played in the hands of the Muslim League and British Imperialism.’14"

"At the Lucknow session of the Congress in April 1936, Jawaharlal Nehru had stated in his presidential address: ‘Every war waged by imperialist powers will be an imperialist war whatever the excuses put forward; therefore we must keep out of it.’15 When war broke out in September 1939, the party-line which crystallized after some debate was that the Congress supported Britain’s war aims if these amounted to the defence of democracy everywhere, but would not cooperate with the British war effort unless the choice about India’s participation was left to Indians. In protest against Viceroy Lord Linlithgow’s unilateral decision to commit India to the war effort, the Congress resigned its provincial governments."

"‘70 (j). Cripps’ Partition Proposal Accepted. The Congress did not know its own mind as to whether it should support the war, oppose or remain neutral. All these attitudes were expressed in turn one after the other; (…) The war was carried on without let or hindrance till 1942. The Government could get all the men, all the money, and all the material which their war efforts needed. Every Government loan was fully subscribed.

"‘In 1942, came the Cripps Mission (…) with a clear hint of partition of India in the background. Naturally the Mission failed, but the Congress even while opposing the Mission’s proposals yielded to the principle of partition (…) At a meeting of the All India Congress Committee held in April 1942 at Allahabad, the principle of partition was repudiated by an overwhelming majority (…) but Maulana Azad, the so-called nationalist Muslim, was then the President of the Congress. He gave a ruling a few months later that the Allahabad Resolution had no effect on the earlier resolution of the Working Committee which conceded the principle of Pakistan however remotely. The Congress was entirely at the end of its wits. (…)’16

"Shortly after the failure of the Cripps Mission, Gandhi effectively conceded Partition even in front of his own support base. Writing in his own paper, he mused, ‘If the vast majority of Muslims regard themselves as a separate nation having nothing in common with the Hindus and others, no power on earth can compel them to think otherwise. And if they want to partition India on that basis, they must have the partition, unless Hindus want to fight against such a division.’17 In his defeatist mood, it simply did not occur to him that he might use his tried and tested pressure tactics on the Muslim League, viz. the fast unto death.

"In fact, Gandhi had already accepted the perspective underlying the Partition demand as soon as the Muslim League had officially adopted it, in the spring of 1940. In the 6 April 1940 issue of Harijan, he averred that he knew of no non-violent method that would compel the obedience of eight crore Muslims to the will of the rest of India, no matter how powerful a majority the rest may represent. He further added that the Muslims should have the right of self-determination that the rest of India possessed because the nation was a joint family, and any member could claim a division. Saying that ‘the Muslims’ have a right of ‘self-determination’ amounts to accepting that they as a collectivity constitute the kind of entity which may be the subject of self-determination, i.e., a nation. This statement gives the impression that in spite of his stated objections to Jinnah’s Two-Nation Theory, Gandhi had already interiorized it."

"Perhaps, however, there was one beneficial, though unintended, side effect to the Quit India Movement—it wiped an abject compromise proposal off the table. Gandhi and many in the Congress leadership were still reluctant to accept the idea of dividing the country along communal lines, and increasingly irrational emergency solutions calculated to appease the Muslim League were floated. The ultimate appeasement offer was to keep India united by handing power entirely to the Muslim League. Maulana Azad made this proposal, and Gandhi approved it on 6 August 1942, confirming it again in a letter dated 8 August, ‘the Congress will have no objection to the British Government transferring all the powers it today exercises to the Muslim League on behalf of the whole of India.’19

"But Gandhi did not await any reply and started the Quit India Movement for immediate independence on 8 August. This made the British quite deaf to any ‘proposals’ by Gandhi and the Congress, including the far-fetched idea of handing India over to the Muslim League."

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Perhaps, however, there was one beneficial, though unintended, side effect to the Quit India Movement—it wiped an abject compromise proposal off the table. Gandhi and many in the Congress leadership were still reluctant to accept the idea of dividing the country along communal lines, and increasingly irrational emergency solutions calculated to appease the Muslim League were floated. The ultimate appeasement offer was to keep India united by handing power entirely to the Muslim League. Maulana Azad made this proposal, and Gandhi approved it on 6 August 1942, confirming it again in a letter dated 8 August, ‘the Congress will have no objection to the British Government transferring all the powers it today exercises to the Muslim League on behalf of the whole of India.’19

19.Quoted in R.C. Majumdar: Struggle for Freedom, pp. 695–696. This would have realized Maulana Azad’s objective of turning the whole of India into a Muslim-dominated state: he cleverly used the Muslim League’s demands in order to pressurize Gandhi into ever larger concessions to Muslim interests.

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"‘70 (l). Hindi versus Hindustani. Absurdly pro-Muslim policy of Gandhiji is nowhere more blatantly illustrated than in his perverse attitude on the question of the National Language of India. By all the tests of a scientific language, Hindi has the most prior claim to be accepted as the National Language of this country. In the beginning of his career in India, Gandhiji gave a great impetus to Hindi, but as he found that the Muslims did not like it, he became a turncoat and blossomed forth as the champion of what is called Hindustani. (…) It is a bastard tongue and a crossbreed between Hindi and Urdu and not even the Mahatma’s sophistry could make it popular; but in his desire to please the Muslims, he insisted that Hindustani alone should be the national language of India. (…) ‘All his experiments were at the expense of the Hindus. His was a one-way traffic in his search of Hindu-Muslim unity. The charm and the purity of the Hindi language was to be prostituted to please the Muslims, but even Congressmen, apart from the rest of India, refused to digest this nostrum. For practical purpose, Hindustani is only Urdu under a different name, but Gandhiji could not have the courage to advocate the adoption of Urdu as against Hindi, hence the subterfuge to smuggle Urdu under the garb of Hindustani. Urdu is not banned by any nationalist Hindu, but to smuggle it under the garb of Hindustani is a fraud and a crime.’20"

"‘70 (m). Vande Mataram Not to Be Sung. The infatuation of Gandhiji for the Muslims and his incorrigible craving for Muslim leadership without any regard for right and wrong, for truth or justice, and in utter contempt for the sentiments of the Hindus as a whole was the high watermark of the Mahatmic benevolence. It is notorious that some Muslims disliked the celebrated song of Vande Mataram and the Mahatma forthwith stopped its singing or recital wherever he could. (…) The right way to proceed would have been to enlighten the ignorant and remove the prejudice, but that is a policy which during the thirty years of unbounded popularity and leadership Gandhiji could not muster courage to try. (…)’21

"We now know what followed. In the Constituent Assembly, Nehru successfully lobbied to have Vande Mataram replaced with Rabindranath Tagore’s song Jana Gana Mana.

"Likewise, Gandhi set the trend of avoiding references to Shivaji, the seventeenth century Hindu freedom fighter against the Moghul empire.

"‘70 (n). Shiva Bhavani Banned. Gandhiji banned the public recital or perusal of Shiva Bhavani, a beautiful collection of 52 verses by a Hindu poet in which he had extolled the great power of Shivaji and the protection which he brought to the Hindu community and the Hindu religion. The refrain of that collection says: “If there were no Shivaji, the entire country would have been converted to Islam.” (…)’22

"Even the Congress’s own design of a national flag had to give way to the merest expectation of Muslim objections:

"‘70 (y). Removal of Tricolour Flag. The tricolour flag with the Charkha on it was adopted by the Congress as the National Flag out of deference to Gandhiji. (…) When the Mahatma was touring Noakhali and Tippera in 1946 after the beastly outrages on the Hindus, the flag was flying on his temporary hut. But when a Muslim came there and objected (…), Gandhiji quickly directed its removal. All the reverential sentiments of millions of Congressmen towards that flag were affronted in a minute, because that would please an isolated Muslim fanatic (…).’23"

"Another story could be told about the choice of the Congress tricolour flag as national flag in preference to the saffron flag. the Congress had first opted for the saffron flag, which had been waved by earlier freedom fighters including Shivaji, but it quickly backtracked, fearing that Muslims would object. So before they could even express any objection, they were given a new flag of which they could call one third their own, viz. the green strip, as broad as the saffron strip symbolizing Hinduism.24"

"24.The story the Congress flag committee (of which Jawaharlal Nehru and Maulana Azad were members) is told by K.R. Malkani in his The Politics of Ayodhya and Hindu-Muslim Relations. The tricolour flag was initially rejected as communal, with the Sikhs being dissatisfied that they were not represented on it with a colour of their own, while solid saffron with a blue Charkha (spinning wheel, later replaced with the chakra, the wheel representing the pan-Indian reign of the chakravarti or ‘wheel-turner’) was welcomed as non-communal.

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"‘70 (x). Gandhiji on Cow-Slaughter. Gandhiji used to display a most vehement desire for the protection of the cow. But in fact he did no effort in that direction. (…) An extract from his speech in this connection is reproduced below:

"“Today Rajendra Babu informed me that he had received some fifty-thousand telegrams urging prohibition of cow-slaughter by law. (…) why are so many letters and telegrams sent to me? They have not served any purpose. No law prohibiting cow-slaughter in India can be enacted. How can I impose my will upon a person who does not wish voluntarily to abandon cow-slaughter? India does not belong exclusively to the Hindus. Muslims, Parsees, Christians, all live here. The claim of the Hindus that India has become the land of the Hindus is totally incorrect. This land belongs to all who live here. (…)”’25

"Though Godse does not comment any further on the cow-slaughter issue, an outsider may remark that Gandhi’s position on India being the country of non-Hindus as well does not logically imply that the Indian government has no right to prohibit cow-slaughter. Most sacred objects are sacred to only a part of the population of any country; yet, most governments do prohibit the profanation of all places of worship, graveyards, flags, etc.

"Moreover, democratic governments take decisions by majority, not by consensus. If a majority of greenery-minded people enacts a prohibition on cutting down forests, then the minority of eco-skeptics will have to abide by it and respect the trees which it would rather chop down. Similarly, if a cow-revering majority wants to enact a prohibition on cow-slaughter, there is nothing undemocratic about expecting the minority to renounce beef. A problem would arise if any minority was under a religious obligation to eat beef, but that is not the case.

"Gandhi created a seemingly insoluble moral problem (‘How can I impose my will?’), but real-life politics deals with this kind of decision-making every day; ‘imposing the majority’s will’ is the very stuff democratic politics is made of. Gandhi, of all people, was hardly in the position to treat ‘imposing his will’ as a moral problem: his own role in Indian politics largely consisted in ‘imposing his will’, often not on minorities, but on democratic majorities, overruling the will of the people with that of his own ‘inner voice’."

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"The Muslim League mounted pressure for Partition by means of street violence, so as to impress upon everyone the impossibility of governing India against the will of the Muslims, and also to polarize the situation and provoke Hindu retaliation against random Muslims so as to influence wavering and recalcitrant Muslims about the absolute necessity of a separate Muslim state. The greatest instance of this premeditated communal violence was the Direct Action Day (16 August 1946) in Calcutta, commonly known by its characterization in a Statesman headline: ‘the Great Calcutta Killing’, with 6,000 mortal victims."

"‘70 (o). Suhrawardy Patronised. (…) On the 16th of August 1946 (…) there broke out in Calcutta an open massacre of the Hindus which continued for three days unchecked. (…) At the time, it was considered that the Government which could permit such outrages on its citizens must be thrown out (…). Gandhiji, however, went to Calcutta and contracted a strange friendship with the author of these massacres; in fact he intervened on behalf of Suhrawardy and the Muslim League [and] publicly described Suhrawardy as a martyr.’"

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"‘70 (p). Attitude towards Hindu and Muslim Princes. Gandhiji’s followers successfully humiliated the Jaipur, Bhavnagar and Rajkot states. They enthusiastically supported even a rebellion in Kashmir State against the Hindu prince. This attitude strangely contrasts with what Gandhiji did about the affairs in Muslim States. (…) In a recent casual Hindu-Muslim clash in Gwalior, because the Mussalmans suffered some casualties, Gandhiji came down upon the Maharaja with a vitriolic attack wholly undeserved.’27

"70 (v). Ill Advice to Kashmir Maharaja. About Kashmir, Gandhiji again and again declared that Sheikh Abdullah should be entrusted the charge of the state and that the Maharaja of Kashmir should retire to Benares for no other reason than that the Muslims formed the bulk of the Kashmir population. This also stands out in contrast with his attitude on Hyderabad where although the bulk of the population is Hindu, Gandhiji never called upon the Nizam to retire to Mecca.’28"

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"‘70 (q). Gandhiji on Fast to Capacity. In 1943, while Gandhiji was on fast to capacity (…) Mr. C. Rajagopalachari smuggled himself into Gandhiji’s room and hatched a plot of conceding Pakistan, which Gandhiji allowed him to negotiate with Jinnah. Gandhiji later on discussed this matter with Mr. Jinnah in the latter part of 1944 and offered Mr. Jinnah virtually what is now called Pakistan. (…)

"‘70 (r). Desai-Liaqat Agreement. In 1945 came the notorious Desai-Liaqat Agreement. (…) Under that agreement, the late Bhulabhai Desai, the then leader of the Congress Party in the Central Legislative Assembly at Delhi, entered into an agreement with Mr. Liaqat Ali Khan, the League leader in the Assembly, jointly to demand a Conference from the British Government for the solution of the stalemate in Indian politics (…) Mr. Desai offered equal representation to the Muslims with Congress at the said Conference (…) The proposal had, it was then revealed, the blessings of the Mahatma and was in fact made with his previous knowledge and consent. With the full agreement of the Congress Party, 25% of the people of India were treated as if they were 50% and the 75% were brought down to the level of 50%.’29

" ... As we have seen, even a division of 100 per cent Muslim and 0 per cent Hindus in the projected first Cabinet of free and undivided India had been considered by Gandhi and Azad. ... "

"Next, the Cabinet Mission Plan conceded the Muslim demands in a different way: provincial autonomy would be very large (excluding only Defence, Foreign Affairs and Communications) and include the right to form groups, so that Muslim-majority provinces could form a de facto Pakistan within India.30 The League accepted the plan; the Congress first rejected, but later accepted it. Godse comments:

"‘70 (s). Cabinet Mission Plan. Early in the year 1946, the so-called Cabinet Mission arrived in India. (…) while firmly championing unity, the Mission introduced Pakistan through the back-door. (…) The Congress Party was so utterly exhausted by the failure of ‘Quit India’ that after some smoke-screen about its unflinching nationalism, it virtually submitted to Pakistan by accepting the Mission’s proposals.’31

"Incidentally, the Cabinet Mission Plan illustrates the British desire to keep India united. The plan was defensible as a way of preventing the full secession of the Muslim-majority provinces from the rest of the subcontinent. To a large extent, the provinces would be self-governing, but not to the extent of allowing Muslim majorities there to ride roughshod over the minorities. And very importantly from the British angle, India’s economic networks would remain intact, e.g., the jute industry of which a part was located in Muslim-majority East Bengal and a part in Hindu-majority West Bengal. In the event, it was Jawaharlal Nehru who caused the failure of this last-ditch attempt at keeping India substantially united. Apart from his personal ambitions, his socialist convictions made him prefer a strongly centralized state. By declaring that the plan was only tentative and that everything remained possible, including an eventual choice for a state structure with far less provincial autonomy, he made Jinnah turn away from the whole negotiating process in disgust. From that point onwards, Jinnah’s every move, even when in seeming co-operation with the Congress, was aimed at realizing the Partition.

"In September 1946, a provisional government led by Jawaharlal Nehru was installed at the Centre. The League refused to join it because the Congress refused to concede to it a monopoly of Muslim posts in the Cabinet. But a few months later, the League decided to join the government in order to wreck it from within. The League used its position to thwart government work and drive the Congress leadership to desperation, increasing the pressure on it to concede Partition. In June 1947, the Congress and Gandhi formally accepted the Partition plan:

"‘70 (t). Congress Surrenders to Jinnah. By the following year, the Congress Party abjectly surrendered to Mr. Jinnah at the point of bayonet and accepted Pakistan. (…) The thread running throughout this narrative is the increasing infatuation which Gandhiji developed for the Muslims. He uttered not one word of sympathy or comfort for millions of displaced Hindus; he had only one eye for humanity and that was the Muslim humanity. (…) I was shocked by all these manifestations of Gandhian saintliness.

"‘70 (u). Ambiguous Statement about Pakistan. In one of his articles, Gandhiji while nominally ostensibly opposed to Pakistan, openly declared that if the Muslims wanted Pakistan at any cost, there was nothing to prevent them from achieving it.’32

"Here, reference is apparently to one of the statements from the April 1940 issue of the Harijan, already quoted, most notably that the Muslims must have the right of self-determination that the rest of India had, that India was a joint family and any member might claim a division. After Gandhi conceded the principle, nothing could stop its implementation:

"‘70 (w). Mountbatten Vivisects India. (…) All the time from the 2 September 1946, the so-called national government (…) was in office, but the Muslim League members who were 50% of the Congress did everything in their power to make the working of a Coalition Government impossible. (…) the more they became disloyal and treasonable to the Government of which they formed a part, the greater was Gandhiji’s infatuation for them. Lord Wavell had to resign as he could not bring about a settlement. He had some conscience which prevented him from supporting the partition of India. He had openly declared it to be unnecessary and undesirable.’33

"‘But his retirement was followed by the appointment of Lord Mountbatten. (…) Rivers of blood flowed under his very nose. (…) This is what Gandhiji had achieved after thirty years of undisputed dictatorship (…) Hindu-Muslim unity bubble was finally burst and a theocratic and communal state dissociated from everything that smacked of united India was established with the consent of Nehru and his crowd, and they have called it “Freedom won by them at sacrifice”—whose sacrifice?’34

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Surprisingly, Elst argues that the version about British dividing India isn't correct.

However, sources - in particular, one ex pak citizen, now citizen of Canada, desirous of being a citizen of India - state that Churchill drew up the partition plan the day Soviet tanks rolled into Berlin, because Jawaharlal Nehru wouldn't allow India to be used as a military base for West against U.S.S.R., and Jinnah was more than willing to do so; this is substantiated by his post partition response to a junior colleague, about financing his new state, saying that the geostrategic position of the country would have the state financed by West. And West did use pak for the purpose, for decades, with blinkers about pak being in effect a terrorist factory used chiefly against India, but not exclusively so; U.S. has admitted to being fleeced and cheated by pak, majorly, to the tune of hundreds of billions of U.S. dollars, and also being continuously lied to. Nevertheless, playing into pak hands continues.

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November 27, 2021 - November 27, 2021.

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5. Godse’s Verdict on Gandhi

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Chapter five, titled Godse’s Verdict on Gandhi, is actually much more, with opinions and reactions of various people, Indian and others, to his policies, habits, and more, given by Elst - there's a great deal worth giving extracts or quoting, except the limit set by publishers is exhausted. So the review must forego quotes from Alain Danielou, R. C. Mazumdar, and of course, Elst.

This next paragraph is practically the only one allowed to remain uncensored in the version of Godse's book, published not only posthumously but several decades later,containing his defence speech - and perhaps the only time he spoke his heart out, according to most of his intimate circle, who always described him as introvert - allowed in India to be read.

"68. ... One hundred and ten millions of people have become torn from their homes, of which not less than four millions are Muslims, and when I found that even after such terrible results, Gandhiji continued to pursue the same policy of appeasement, my blood boiled, and I could not tolerate him any longer.

"Godse was particularly piqued" at Gandhi's "practice of what amounts to Leader Principle, to use the term popularized by the contemporaneous vogue of Fascism ... "

Elst goes on to quote Godse on various points, as he comes to partition and independence. Godse plainly states that crediting independence to Gandhi alone, or congress under Gandhi, was a "fiction fostered by cunning" and there were other freedom fighters whose courage had contributed a great deal more, not only those who were in congress, but from those who fought back against muslim invaders and colonial rulers, to those who fought British in 1857 in the first war of independence as Veer Savarkar termed it, to those who fought British early in twentieth century, by any and every means possible.

"‘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 gives credit to Subhash Chandra Bose and describes Gandhi's opposition, and behaviour when Subhash Chandra Bose was elected president of the congress despite opposition by Gandhi, including in the district that Gandhi's candidate came from, by overwhelming majority - and one would be quite justified to say it's not short of a tantrum thrown by a toddler when denied a demand.

‘85 (continued). In my opinion, S.C. Bose is the supreme hero and martyr of modern India (…) advocating all honourable means, including the use of force when necessary, for the liberation of India. Gandhiji and his crowd of self-seekers tried to destroy him.’14

Elst goes on to describe the other three trials at Red Fort, of INA soldiers, whose popularity had deterred from their trial being concluded by British, due to popularity of Subhash Chandra Bose, and comments -

" ... The Naval Mutiny of 1946 was a symptom that Bose’s defiance and willingness to take up arms against the British had penetrated the armed forces. The then Prime Minister Clement Attlee was later to declare that this ominous development was decisive in Britain’s decision to decolonize India."

Elst quotes Godse in his giving credit, for British leaving India, to Indian revolutionaries from 1857 to 1932, "up to death of Chandra Shekhar Azaad", armed revolt by Subhash Chandra Bose, and pointing out that all of this was opposed by Gandhi. Godse points out that, despite opposition by Gandhi, Karachi congress session passed a resolution admiring Bhagat Singh's throwing bomb in assembly hall.

This fact, about congress passing a resolution - that too despite strong opposition by Gandhi - during Karachi session approving Bhagat Singh's action, incidentally, isn't advertised by congress post independence, intent on wiping out memories of all other freedom fighters except Gandhi and Nehru.

But what's known is that congress took over the slogan "Inquilaab Zindaabaad" popular after Bhagat Singh's act, to diffuse any possible desertion of congress by youth, in favour of Bhagat Singh's party, and a revolution that congress wasn't going to be brought to power heading.

"‘86. The real cause of the British leaving this country is threefold and it does not include the Gandhian method. The aforesaid triple forces are:

"‘86 (i). The movements of the Indian Revolutionaries right from 1857 to 1932, i.e., up to the death of Chandra Shekhar Azad at Allahabad; then next, the movement of revolutionary character, not that of Gandhian type, in the countrywide rebellion of 1942; and an armed revolt put up by Subhas Chandra Bose, the result of which was a spread of the revolutionary mentality in the Military Forces of India; are the real factors that have shattered the very foundations of the British rule in India. And all these effective efforts to freedom were opposed by Gandhiji. (…)’17

Elst quotes sources to say that Gandhi disapproved of Bose due to the latter having, reportedly, secretly met the German consul in Bombay, and that "There was no personal dislike on either side". He mentions that Subhash Chandra Bose's Azaad Hind Radio was first to designate Gandhi as Father of the Nation, which is well known - unlike the question of whether gandhi disliked bose personally.

One may safely conclude, from various evidences, that Gandhi disliked, and did his utmost including going on fast unto death, to push anyone, whose popularity eclipsed his own, and threatened his own political power, under the rug or into oblivion, to the extent of speaking little short of abusively or being not thoughtful in speaking of them, anyway. This included not only Bhagat Singh but personae far greater, either before Gandhi or more, even those considered Gods by India.

As to disapproving of Bose for meeting the German consul in Bombay, if this was during the war, the consul being still in place is a factor to condider; and one has to remember that few in even U.S. or U.K. were firm in their disapproval of even Hitler, much less of the regime; so much so, even Gandhi wrote personal letters to Hitler, merely about peace, and not at all against racism or antisemitism.

Subhash Chandra Bose, on the contrary, was unique in courage enough to have told the man off, face to face, of his own disapproval of the latter's racism, practiced by the then German regime! And this was when he was a fugitive from British empire, depending on Germany to not hand him over. People were being regularly shot dead in Germany then, for much less.

Elst goes on to quote Godse about Karachi session of congress in March 1931 approving Bhagat Singh, and say flatly that anyone who gives sole credit to Gandhi is "not only being ungrateful" to all other freedom fighters "but writing false history".

One has to wonder, did Godse seal his fate by telling the truth, about Gandhi and congress, rather than survive at any cost, as many other politicians and most people did? He might have survived the killing, if he hadn't prevailed over Ambedkar by stating flatly that he wanted to expose fraud of Gandhi's nonviolence, and so didn't wish to escape the noose; but he coukdnt have forced the government to execute him, either, except by this telling of truth, and their fear of his doing it on and on!

"In Godse's view, congress had reaped where other revolutionaries had sown."

Elst goes on to claim that British had put down the revolutionaries successfully, and that " ... Sri Aurobindo had renounced it for both moral and strategic reasons."

As to the first, no, consider Subhash Chandra Bose not only escaping but fighting his way back on a March from Singapore into India, planting flag of independent India ("Azaad Hind ") at Imphal; as to the latter, Elst doesn't know what he's talking about - unless he's prevarication deliberately.

Elst quotes Godse giving credit to moderates who fought along strictly constitutional lines, mentioning names from Lokamanya Tilak to Vithalbhai Patel, and saying that Gandhi ridiculed them as job hunters.

"Godse alleges that in his differences with the moderates and their strictly constitutional methods, Gandhi was led by his contempt for democracy and parliamentary politics."

It does begin sound not very different from another, equally famous, leader of the times, doesn't it, known for his making use of parliament - Reichstag, to be specific - to get himself elected president for life? They did share a sign, determining their basic characteristics, and did react to what each considered humiliation, personal in case of Gandhi, to go on to defeat the power in each case, causing deaths of millions along the way. Earlier in the chapter Elst does mention that Gandhi " ... had much more in common with Hitler ...", although it's unclear how much he knew about that.

Elst quotes Godse giving due credit to congress members who carried on through assemblies and other legal means, and quotes him saying that Gandhi " ... had no love for parliamentary bodies. He called them prostitutes and always urged their boycott. ... "

"Even then it is reasonably certain that if the act had not been boycotted under Gandhiji's leadership, India would have long since reached the status of a Dominion which we are now supposed to be enjoying after losing one-third of Indian territory."

Elst here begins to fudge and prevaricate, which works if one isn't reading the work thoroughly and knows nothing of the history involved, whether of India or regarding Europe and WWII.

After explaining Godse's assertion, seemingly in agreement, he then goes on to saying that in 1935 partition wasn't on the horizon, and therefore, etc.; but he's been leading up to here with historical portrayal of how Gandhi erred disastrously in any which way one looks, when he committed congress and national movement for independence of India, to join khilafat movement, which is against national interest if any nation, especially so of india; and moreover, how, when the khilafat movement failed, separatism was already rooted in muslims in India; and how, those Muslims who didn't ask for a separate piece of India, it was only because they looked for a return of the muslim rule of all of India. Elst has then proved it by saying Gandhi had agreed to a muslim rule of India under Jinnah, proposed by his own chosen muslim leader in congress, maulana Azad, who, unlike the progressive and non religious Jinnah, was retrograde.

Similarly, until now seemingly exposing unfair treatment of Bose and others by Gandhi, as mentioned by Godse, now Elst is even seeking to justify treatment of Bose by Gandhi, in ousting the overwhelmingly popular president of congress, for which purpose Elst gives out hearsay, about the report Gandhi heard, of a secret meeting Bose had with the German consul in Bombay.

But now, he turns around and says that Winston Churchill bankrupted his nation by not agreeing to peace proposal from Hitler, who, latter, he says, had no interest in the British empire, and merely wished to consolidate his power over continent of Europe.

This is as asinine as can be, and one can only wonder if Elst is attempting to get into good graces of rabid right wing of U.S. who lack not only rectitude, morals and ethics, but brains and capabilities for knowledge as well. For the view is almost verbatim borrowed from one such right winter's book attempting to prove that Hitler was a man of peace and Churchill a warmonger.

Such a view ignores, not only the documents and testimonies come to light since 1944, but also the fact that this peace proposal had come after Hitler's forces had occupied most of the continent, with plans to blitzkrieg East into Russia already in plsce; that Hitler naturally didn't wish for a war on two fronts, something Germany had faced in WWI until Lenin - hidden in a sealed diplomatic train of Germany and thus spirited deep into Russian soil - had turned the tide of war in East. Hitler had no such recourse, and so looked for secession of hostilities on one side before turning his back and attacking the other.

But all this, is valid only if, one agrees with the Hitler world view, that Europe in particular, from Pyrenees to Urals, was to be ground for growing food for Germany and her reproduction ensuring Germans populate the whole place, enslaving all others who were to work for Germans while starving to death - and Germany did it to much of the populations of the occupied territories too, from France to Russia after attacking East in 1941.

Moreover, after his series of "no design on any more" declarations, broken promptly, who - except an idiot - would trust his declaration of no design against British empire, especially since Hitler not only demanded all of French empire after occupying France, but broke his military's strength in demanding they get to oil fields after Leningrad? He clearly had designs on Asia, after occupying Russia and burning alive close to two million people in villages East of Poland, in Russia and Ukraine and Byelorussia or Belarus.

Does Elst seriously agree with the rabid right wing U.S. view that Hitler was a man of peace and trustworthy in his declared "no intentions", while the war was all fault if Churchill? Or is he attempting some brownie points from those sources, by quoting arguments on that side? Its asinine, either which way.

Elst goes on to point out that British losing India had reasons more international and less Indian, which is correct; so is his - quoting Paul Johnson - mention of hiw gandhi could only survive under British and under none of the then totalitarian systems; and he's fair in mentioning that British rule wasn't always fair, that many had indeed been shot dead unfairly, and so on.

Elst quotes Godse about Gandhi's total failure before Jinnah. Godse states that in Gandhi's politics, there was no scope for consistency of ideas or reasons, and truth was what only Gandhi could define. Elst goes on to give, in two paragraphs, a really good and succint description of godse, Savarkar, and why hidus didn't accept Gandhi as a saint; and it's true, even if one hasn't thought about in explicit words at surface level before; Elst gives here an opinion, of his own or of the person he quotes, that explains, a description of Gandhi given elsewhere by someone as more of Russian Christian than indian, although Elst doesn't mention this latter source.

Elst quotes Godse quoting Gandhi advising Hindus to not be unhappy or angry at muslims if Hindus, even oneself, were being murdered by muslims, because death is inevitable!

This is a quote from Gandhi's pronouncement on April 6th, 1947! Presumably this was addressed to Hindus being massacred, raped and more, by muslims in regions to be designated for separation ftom motherland India, and one begins to understand why refugees who were in cinema halls applauded when documentaries before films showed Godse on trial- unlike the expected demand for his execution, surprising the government into stopping the documentaries and speeding up the judgement, conviction and execution!

"‘93. (…) extracts given below from Gandhiji’s post-prayer speeches: ‘93 (a). (…) Hindus should never be angry against the Muslims even if the latter might make up their minds to undo even their existence. If they put all of us to the sword, we should court death bravely (…) We are destined to be born and die, then why need we feel gloomy over it? (…) (6th April 1947)

It gets worse. There's another quote by Godse, of Gandhi opining on September 23, 1947, that people shouldn't leave their homes, and be murdered happily where they live! Gandhi's quoted by Godse to the effect that "even if they are killed, it's a good and proper end". Being murdered is a good and proper end?

"‘93 (b). The few gentlemen from Rawalpindi who called upon me (…) asked me, what about those who still remain in Pakistan. I asked them why they all came here (to Delhi). Why they did not die there? I still hold on to the belief that one should stick to the place where we happen to live even if we are cruelly treated and even killed. Let us die if the people kill us, but we should die bravely with the name of God on our tongue. Even if our men are killed, why should we feel angry with anybody, you should realise that even if they are killed they have had a good and proper end. (…) (23rd September 1947)

And Gandhi, as quoted by Godse, says to the effect that muslims are "our brothers, so one shouldn't be unhappy if murdered by them, nor stop loving them", which is on an unspecified date.

"‘93 (c). (…) If those killed have died bravely they have not lost anything but earned something. (…) They should not be afraid of death. After all, the killers will be none other than our Muslim brothers. Will our brothers cease to be our brothers after change of their religion? (…)’ (no date given for this last quote)27

"The instances can be multiplied, e.g., when meeting Hindu refugees from West Punjab, Gandhiji told them to return to their homes, even if this meant certain death: ‘If all the Punjabis were to die to the last man without killing, the Punjab will become immortal. Offer yourselves as nonviolent, willing sacrifices.’28

This is so asinine and inhuman an advice to a community that suffered so much, it can only be believed Gandhi spoke like this to Hindus because - well, it's in line with his general pronouncements, and his sayings, writing et al were all documented, now even collected and published in its entirety, by a government institution. So if it weren't true, they wouldn't have censored Godse's own book, published long after his death, that consists only of his defence speech, forcing readers looking for truth to read others quoting Godse. They'd have just made hay by powerful publishing exposes of Godse not quoting Gandhi correctly, after allowing an uncensored publication of his book.

Moreover, the reactions to genocide and enforced exodus, perpetrated and forced in early 1990 against Kashmir non muslims, has the pattern repeated - muslims blame the then governor for helping the victims to safety instead of being butchered more than hundreds - over a thousand - and government of India clamped down on media, so one only got it by osmosis, and word of mouth! Media, moreover, then was almost completely sold out to this falsehood against India, Hindus and more, so Kashmir Hindus, refugees incthrir own homeland for decades now, have only lately spoken.

Elst quotes Gandhi advising refugees to return to Pakistan to be murdered! "The lightness with which Gandhi calls on people to give up their lives is simply stunning! At the same time, it's shockingly un-Hindu." he says. Again, Elst gives an accurate description of Gandhi's non violence that had "drifted" from a political strategy in South Africa to meaningless in 1947 advocating victims to surrender life and leave the field to aggressor.

Elst quotes Godse in his description of a murder victim, Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi, in Kanpur, murdered by a muslim mob, as an ideal example of non violence!!!

Elst quotes Gandhi's favourite example, that of a tiger getting tired of killing vows! But Elst goes on to say, quite rightly, that a tiger wakes up and kills all over again; that tigers haven't been known yo turn vegetarian after all the time of killing and eating other animals.

"On the issue of non violence, not Godse but Gandhi was the fanatic." Indeed!

Elst quotes Godse and supplements it with facts, about the inconsistency in Gandhi's nonviolence policy as it was applied to WWI and WWII, telling how Gandhi said India shouldn't participate; but his industrialist friends got rich on trading, so did congress, and accounting during WWII made British debt to India finance Nehru's socialist economy for decades. This, "despite Bengal "famine" of 1943"!

Elst quotes Godse.

‘97. He first gave out the principle that no help should be given by India to the war between England and Germany. (…) But the wealthy companions and followers of Gandhiji added enormously to their wealth by undertaking contracts from the Government for the supply for the materials of war. (…) Not only that, but Gandhiji had given his consent to taking up the contract for supplying blankets to the Army from the Congress Khadi Bhandar.’30

Elst comments.

"In spite of the disastrous Bengal famine of 1943, India generally fared well under the war circumstances. Indeed, after the United States, India was probably the country that gained most from World War II in economic terms. The war effort generated many jobs, and at the end of it all, Britain had incurred an astronomical debt vis-à-vis its premier colony; for years to come, its payment was to finance Nehru’s socialist development policies. It is quite true that Indian industrialists, including prominent Gandhians, did excellent business with the British war machine.

It was only after Gandhi's consent thst Jawaharlal Nehru sent forces for defence of Kashmir after attack by Pakistan, Elst quotes Godse saying. Elst quotes Godse saying Gandhi should have made a suggestion for sending satyagrahis instead of the armed troops and tried the experiment instead, if he had a firm belief in his doctrine of non-violence! But he was fasting for a few muslims in Delhi, instead of fasting in front of raiders in Kashmir, Godse is quoted by Elst saying.

Elst quotes Godse.

"‘101. The problem of Kashmir followed very closely that of Pakistan. (…) Pt. Nehru consulted Gandhiji about sending military help to Kashmir and it was only on the consent of Gandhiji that Pt. Nehru sent troops for the protection and defence of Kashmir. (…)’

"‘103. Had Gandhiji [had] a firm belief in the doctrine of non-violence, he should have made a suggestion for sending Satyagrahis instead of the armed troops and tried the experiment. (…) It was a golden opportunity for Gandhiji to show the power of his Satyagraha (…)

"‘104. But Gandhiji did nothing of the sort. (…) Gandhiji was reading the dreadful news of the Kashmir war, while at the same time fasting to death only because a few Muslims could not live safely in Delhi. But he was not bold enough to go on fast in front of the raiders of Kashmir, nor had he the courage to practise Satyagraha against them. All his fasts were to coerce Hindus.’32

Godse goes on, Elst says, to speak of Hyderabad, where Hindus were being terrorised by the ruler; had Gandhi lived, he'd have interfered against Hindu victims and in favour of the terrorising muslims, Godse is quoted to the effect as saying, by Elst.

"‘133. (…) It is not at all necessary to refer to the atrocious misdeeds perpetrated by the Nizam’s Ministers and the Razakars. Laik Ali, the Prime Minister of Hyderabad, had an interview with Gandhiji during the last week of January 1948. It was evident from the manner in which Gandhiji looked at these Hyderabad affairs that Gandhiji would soon start his experiments of non-violence in the State of Hyderabad and treat Kasim Razvi as his adopted son just as Suhrawardy. It was not at all difficult to see that it was impossible for the Government in spite of all the powers to take any strong measures against a Muslim State like Hyderabad so long as Gandhiji was there (…) for Gandhiji would have gone on fast unto death and Government’s hands would have been forced to save the life of Gandhiji.’

"‘135. (…) I felt that Indian politics in the absence of Gandhiji would surely be practical, able to retaliate, and would be powerful with armed forces. No doubt my own future would be totally ruined, but the nation would be saved from the inroads of Pakistan. (…)’ ‘138. The problem of the State of Hyderabad which had been unnecessarily delayed and postponed has been rightly solved by our Government by the use of armed force after the demise of Gandhiji.’33

What did happen in Hyderabad was horrible enough, and it's a horror to imagine effect of Gandhi overriding Sardar Patel in the crisis - or in getting the over five hundred small states to merge! But Godse doesn't leave it to imagination, portraying Gandhi as going to Hyderabad and fasting, as he did in Bengal, adopting Muslim perpetrators as his brothers and forcing government of India to save his life, letting that of thousands of Hindus to perish.

Elst discusses what Gandhi would have done if he'd been alive at the time of Hyderabad crisis, comparing it with Kashmir, and giving a good, correct analysis of the cases.

In quoting his final point, Elst compares Godse - saying he, Godse, revered Gandhi, but lived India more - to Brutus. It's uncannily correct comparison, however different the two killed men.

"‘136. There now remains hardly anything for me to say. If devotion to one’s country amounts to a sin, I admit I have committed that sin. If it is meritorious, I humbly claim the merit thereof. I fully and confidently believe that if there be any other court of justice beyond the one founded by mortals, my act will not be taken as unjust.’ ‘139. I am prepared to concede that Gandhiji did undergo sufferings for the sake of the nation. He did bring about an awakening in the minds of the people. He also did nothing for personal gain, but it pains me to say that he was not honest enough to acknowledge the defeat and failure of the principle of non-violence on all sides. (…) But whatever that may be, I shall bow in respect of the service done by Gandhiji to the country (…) and before I fired the shots I actually (…) bowed to him in reverence. But I do maintain that even this servant of the country had no right to vivisect the country (…) There was no legal machinery by which such an offender could be brought to book and it was therefore that I resorted to the firing of shots at Gandhiji as that was the only thing for me to do.’34

Elst comments.

"The argument is similar to the one given by Caesar’s killer, Brutus, in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: I killed him ‘not because I loved Caesar less, but because I loved Rome more.’ The former Gandhian activist Nathuram Godse thought that Gandhi had become an obstacle to the well-being of the nation to which both of them were devoted. In that case, the interests of the nation had to be put before the lives of its servants.

Elst gives final, farewell words of Godse. And it's a seal on one fact - this man was neither mad, nor crazed, nor illiterate, nor a fanatic, or any of the accusations levelled against him; congress has maligned him fraudulently, just as Gandhi did to Bhagat Singh, and both Gandhi (before independence) and Jawaharlal Nehru ( especially after WWII) did to Subhash Chandra Bose.

Elst quotes Godse.

"‘147. May the country properly known as Hindusthan be again united and be one and may the people be taught to discard the defeatist mentality leading them to submit to the aggressors. This is my last wish and prayer to the Almighty.’

"‘149. It is a fact that in the presence of a crowd numbering 300 to 400 people I did fire shots at Gandhiji in open daylight. I did not make any attempt to run away; in fact, I never entertained any idea of running away. I did not try to shoot myself, it was never my intention to do so, for it was my ardent desire to give vent to my thoughts in an open Court.

"‘150. My confidence about the moral side of my action has not been shaken even by the criticism levelled against it on all sides. I have no doubt honest writers of history will weigh my act and find the true value thereof on some day in future.

"‘Akhand Bharat Amar Rahe!

"‘Vande Mataram!’36

No wonder people in courtroom in tears! Not even the refugees, much less anyone from his own side of politics, or - especially - anyone of his community, would even then have agreed with his action, much less sanctioned it; but noon could doubt thst this was a sane, erudite man, however introvert, and had only acted in interest of his nation, of truth.

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November 28, 2021 - November 28, 2021.

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6. Other Hindu Voices on Gandhi

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First three paragraphs of the chapter are worthy of being quoted verbatim. Since copying any more isn't permitted, one must quote from memory, however temporary.

"Because of the frequent description of Nathuram Godse as "Hindu extremist", people who are less than careful with logic assume that his analysis of Gandhi's politics must also be an extremist view, shared only by other extremists and perhaps a few more harmless eccentrics. On many points, however, Godse merely articulated the majority view among freedom fighters, among Hindus at large and even among mankind in general."

Usually one has as little a chance to know that as a German would have had during thirties of oneself being not alone in not hating Jews.

"Yet, none of the millions of people who agreed with Godse on some of or all of the points of his critique deduced from their sobre and demythologised analysis that murder was the solution. ... "

Quite! Exactly. Just as one may sympathise with French and Russian revolution, without approving of the guillotine, or the murders of Romanov family and relatives.

" ... There is no necessary relation between criticism and murder. It is an old rhetorical trick of despots to associate criticism of their regime with disorder and crime. ... "

True, but unclear in the context; it's not that Godse criticised Gandhi and was falsely accused of murder; he deliberately shot Gandhi after a reverential bow, and stood his ground although he could have left, as he himself said in conclusion. He made his critical speech in court, as Bhagat Singh did, after the throwing of bomb in the assembly.

" ... Given the despotic nature of "secularism" imposed on India by a self-alienated elite group ... criticism of Gandhi's policy of "muslim appeasement" is routinely criminalise by vocal "secularists", typically with reference to Godse's crime."

Yes, and the fraudulent nature of that self-stuck label of secular on the appeasers is the next worst part, apart from their anti Indian, Hindu hater stance. In fact, it's pretty hard to imagine a true secular person who's neither a Hindu nor someone so indoctrinated as to be incapable of knowledge.

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Elst gives an excellent section devoted to Sri Aurobindo and his opinions about Gandhi and his pronouncements; but at the end, he compares Gandhi with Swamy Vivekananda, a huge mistake, although what Elst says there is true of Gandhi.

Elst opines that it's actually what's termed "Hindu parties" who, despite theoretically seemingly different stances, followers of Gandhian non violence, in practice - and he backs it with factual evidence, quoting examples of khalistani terrorists in Punjab and naxals, and other such groups, in times and places as diverse as, from khalistanis in Punjab during nineteen eighties to West Bengal and Kerala in recent times, all of which are evidences of RED and BJP workers bring physically attacked, even murdered, but without any retaliation from the latter; he quotes, moreover, the fact that instead, they saved many a Sikh lives in 1984 when congress organisations were killing them under a pretence of riots. All of this is generally well known, except not quite summed up in the words Elst uses, by anyone in India - perhaps it's advantage of distance that gets him to see and label it clearly.

Elst discusses Ambedkar, who was, if anything, more scathing of Gandhi than Godse; he quotes Maulana Azad Sobhani who said that muslims must see to it that Hindus never get to establish their rule, that muslims must take over and rule India and rest of the world.

Elst mentions Ambedkar's seconding of Annie Besant' s pronouncement about muslims, where she clearly states that it's a menace due to Gandhi's miscalculations and mismanagement. Elst quotes her to the effect that "... The inner hatred of muslim feeling of hatred against "unbelievers" has sprung up, naked and unashamed .... In thinking of independent India, the menace of muslim rule has to be considered."

"The point that she makes is not that Islamic conquest is inevitable; on the contrary, she attributes revival of such dreams to the contingent impact of Gandhi's maladroit khilafat campaign."

Ambedkar totally rejected, Elst states, the Nehruvian "secular" (and Godse's, Elst reminds) attribution of muslim estrangement to Brit ish policy of "divide and rule". Ambedkar accepted need of partition long before even the riots of mid thirties to forties, Elst reminds - Ambedkar reminds that neither Savarkar nor Gandhi had a solution for the problem that muslims were unwilling to live in peace as a minority in a democratic India, elst quotes him as saying. Ambedkar envisaged partition as a complete territorial separation of Hindus and muslims, implying an exchange of population; he had worked it out in detail, Elst says.

"Its is quite likely that implementation of his plan ... would have saved hundreds of thousands of lives.

"By contrast, Gandhi's and Nehru's refusal of this exchange, effectively sacrificing Hindus of Pakistan to dogma of Hindu- Muslim unity, made them responsible for deaths of hundreds of thousands of people."

Elst mentions and discusses article by Ram Gopal at length, which begins by quoting Rafi Ahmed Kidwai to the effect that Nehru has done last rites of not only Gandhi but gandhism as well, which Kidwai said after the funeral of Gandhi, and many people agreed with since, due to Nehru's nonreligious outlook and heavy industrialisation. But Ram Gopal goes on to deconstruct thus and lay the responsibility at Gandhi's door, citing the graph of çhange in Gandhi from 1919 to 1947. "An objective analysis of political events from 1919 to 1947 reveals that Gandhi himself had discarded Gandhism during his lifetime."

Elst quotes Ram Gopal who argues, convincingly, that Gandhi despite his later gimmicks - dressing, spinning, invoking religion - remained at heart the barrister from London who dressed English style in South Africa, and this is reflected in his friendliness to British as much as in his imposing his choice of Nehru over the democratic choice of Sardar Patel by CWC.

Elst goes on next to Balraj Madhok and Sita Ram Goel, late PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and RSS stalwarts of yore, such as Deendayal Upadhyay, Nanaji Deshmukh, and Dattopant Thengadi. He mentions Arun About he and Ram Swarup.

Elst next discusses Arya Samaj, Brahmo Samaj and Gandhi's weakening of Hindu society while strengthening conversionist religions in India, due to his statement that all religions are equal, which missionaries and muslims ignored, but was taken by sections of Hindu society seriously, disabling their ability to look at matters factually.

"Gandhi's promotion of religious obscurantism, indirectly in his debates with missionaries but very openly in khilafat episode, has played an auxiliary role in creating one of the strangest phenomena in the Indian opinion climate, the protection of non-Hindu religions against light of reason in the name of secularism."

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November 28, 2021 - November 29, 2021.

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Conclusion

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Well written, mostly, not only summing up about Gandhi but attitudes of ignorant Westerners - welcome at Gandhi Peace Foundation, apparently - about Hinduism (smug, flattering Islam, discussing if West can improve Hinduism or must destroy it) and Gandhians (unwilling to see facts and correct, Hindu haters, .... ).

He mentions Nehru's and his followers', three of the PMs, failures: vis-a-vis China, beginning 1954; vis-a-vis Pakistan in 1948, 1965, and 1971, giving in despite victory by military each time; and vis-a-vis Bangladesh in 1996, failure to secure a quid pro quo each time, Gandhian style.

Elst, while commenting on others pontificating, does not escape that himself in his final few lines in the chapter.

" ... The unthinking ones, those who go on mindlessly pontificating about ‘teaching Muslims a lesson’ and all that, should gather their wits at last and ponder the adverse effects of Godse’s act, viz. the enormous harm done to the Hindutva movement itself and to larger Hindu interests. Finally, they should spare a thought for the value of every human life, of Muslims as well as Hindus, even that of a fallible human being like the Mahatma."

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November 29, 2021 - November 29, 2021.

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Appendix 1: Sangh Parivar, the Last Gandhians

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"Our view is that within the present political spectrum, BJP is by far the most Gandhian party." Elst praises RSS for its "actual social service, which is far larger and more deserving of a Nobel Prize than mother Teresa's heavily foreign-financed operations." He praises the corruption free character of BJP and RSS family of organisations. He mentions Nehru's and his followers', three of the PMs, failures: vis-a-vis China, beginning 1954; vis-a-vis Pakistan in 1948, 1965, and 1971, giving in despite victory by military each time; and vis-a-vis Bangladesh in 1996, failure to secure a quid pro quo each time, Gandhian style.

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November 29, 2021 - November 29, 2021.

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Appendix 2: Gandhi in World War II

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Appendix 2 has Elst looking at Gandhi's role in WWII, sticking to nonviolence and approving French treaty with Hitler for one. Elst questions if Poland wouldn't have been better off with similar acceptance of German offers and conceding German demands, and again, one must suspect he's never read William Shirer's Rise And Fall of The Third Reich - unless he's merely testing if the readrr is ignorant thereof, or sleeping through this one, merely taking notes for an examination!

Elst discusses the question, "as a thought experiment", of whether peace with Hitler was preferable, quoting varios British authors - unfamiliar enough to a non professional that it's impossible to say if they're asinine, Nazi or charlatans without honesty or brains, simply trying to make a career via any garbage that can be published under the heading of "new" - and one U.S. author that qualifies for most of the above.

And over and over, it's the same wonder - did they not read William Shirer's Rise And Fall of The Third Reich? Or did they think Neville Chamberlain wasnt sincere enough, or british who celebrated his peace treaty were pretending? Whatever made them think Hitler had any intentions of stopping short of enslaving the world, beginning with Europe, and starving everyone else to death while working for Germany, while Germans reproduced and populated the earth, as per his plan? His promises unyil then only worked until he was ready for the next blitzkrieg, whatever makes any European or British thinker of today imagine that he'd change and stop short of hurting British empire? Because he carried out his promise to not attack anything after, what? Rhineland? Austria? Czechoslovakia? Poland? Scandinavia? Western Europe? ... Russia?

Elst goes on to make several asinine arguments, about British declaring war being the cause of holocaust, and British doing it anyway despite knowing it would happen. Again, did he not read William Shirer's Rise And Fall of The Third Reich? Or did he think Hitler's plans, disclosed to his generals several months before his panzers rolled into Poland, were going to change into showering roses over Europe if only Britain had kowtowed? Which Britain had, at Munich, browbeating Czechoslovakia into surrender and hoping idiotically that this was peace for lifetime, as Neville Chamberlain declared on arrival back home, cheered by parliament and public alike!

Elst discusses holocaust cause question with some length, giving thought to possibilities, always assuming that it was only the war that caused the holocaust. But laws that were in place before 1939 had prohibited Jews from education, employment and business, buying food, walking on streets or in parks, sitting on benches in parks, using public transport or owning private vehicles, or buying soaps and more. The so termed, by nazis, final solution, was merely one more step towards killings - and Britain did put in place saving Jewish children, which wasn't as simple as it sounds, mostly due to blackmail by nazis involved at every step. Adult Jews were of course not allowed to leave, often after having paid over and over!

Goodness, why do they credit the guy with humanity? Elst had parent who survived blitzkrieg, after Hitler's deliberate and unnecessary destruction of Rotterdam and more, didn't he? Did the survivors refrain from telling children about it, deliberately? It's as asinine as the self labelled secular gang of India who pretend what Elst has been throughout the book saying could never happen after khilafat movement, whether it succeeded or otherwise. Where did Hitler get his inspiration, has Elst not read that bit?

Elst describes communist regime atrocities and genocides, claiming there was a difference, that communists did it during peace. So did KKK in U.S., but so did Hitler too. Prior to 1939 it wasn't as if law and order were all fine, and if there wasn't en masse migration out of Germany, it's not that different from Pompeii buried under volcano, except that one did not have human attackers. Leaving home and homeland isn't simple, even if there's a safe place to go to; ask refugees of partition in India. Jews were not allowed in most places, thanks to false propaganda by church for over seventeen centuries.

Elst states that Nazi guilt for war was much less than communist guilt for October revolution.

No it wasn't, Koenraad Elst, read William Shirer's Rise And Fall of The Third, do! And then find the source that'd tell you who sent Lenin deep into Russia sealed in a diplomatic train just so as to cause all the mayhem, and eliminate the second front, destroying Russia and the Romanov cousins - first cousins, considering Alix! And her sister Beatrice, as well, apart from husband and children of Alix.

Elst speaks of Poland oppressing Germans. He's extrapolating from post WWII scenario, when hatred and revenge against Germans occupying Poland for years was natural, but leading up to war was a combination of false propaganda by Germany along with the history of centuries of German landlords lording it over Polish peasants kept landless and poor, and when nazis came, they were hoping their lands would be taken back by Germany, and so helped with false propaganda.

One is getting tired of correction of such obvious mistakes. Elst is deliberately indulging in false arguments here to give credit to Gandhi's blaming allied powers equally. He might as well join the head of socialist party in blaming victims of gangrape for getting murdered. That's equally ridiculous and false.

OK, it becomes clear why Elst has been indulging in this horrible fraud - to give credit to Gandhi for being Christian enough to credit Hitler with humanity despite everything! Elst does not see that there's a difference, and that Gandhi isn't known to have gone through red light districts of Bombay freeing white slavery victims, who might indeed be innocent victims, but wrote to the biggest known villain, and here's ambition, attempting to bag credit for turning a beast into a pet, but at a safe distance, writing a letter! Or two.

Why not go on a fast until death right before the residence of Hitler, in Berlin or at Berghof? And risk being shot in the head, thrown into an obscure pit, denied all knowledge of?

Nobody could have done better (or worse, considering it involved sacrifice of, not only an independent small nation that they had no right to hand over, but also, the vital key to Europe - Czechoslovakia!) than Neville Chamberlain, if making peace with Hitler was the criterion be which anyone is to be considered saintly or Christian or christlike; and unlike Gandhi, Neville Chamberlain was very fatherly, his whole heart and soul involved in the peace treaty attempted (And obtained, so they thought - until Poland was attacked). Gandhi writing a letter or two merely shows ego, ambition, and total ignorance of what was actually involved.

Ignorance by itself isn't a crime, but combined with ego and ambition, it can be lethal. Natural caution of a born Hindu of trader community saved him from actually travelling to accost and confront Hitler personally and risk life - just as it did when, post partition, he proposed travelling to west Pakistan, but changed plans as soon as Jinnah informed India thst he coukdnt guarantee safety of Gandhi's life if Gandhi travelled to Pakistan. So he went East instead to Bengal.

Mountbatten couple were cautioned too, but did travel to NWFP, and Lady Mountbatten saved the day by simply taking initiative and going ahead as soon stepping off and hugging the hostile delegation.

And the supreme courage remains thst of Subhash Chandra Bose who bearded the demon in his den, not only meeting him, but telling him off face to face, that his regime racism was inappropriate behaviour for humanity.

Elst compares the treatment of Nazi Germany with treatment of communism, and claims communism was "contained", and it imploded. One, the totalitarian powers weren't equally checked - U.S. befriended China, over the need for a military base in the neighbourhood, namely, Formosa or Taiwan, making tremendous concessions - just check the ubiquitous "made in China"labels that replaced all alternatives, in any departmental store in U.S.; two, Tibet - and Tibetan population - was sacrificed without a word, pretty much as Austria, Czechoslovakia and most key parts of Europe were to Hitler, until Poland; three, not only it was only USSR that was "imploded", not communism, nor totalitarian and racist regimes (look realistically at China, not with eyes blinkered to sacrifice of Asians), and this took several decades, and millions of lives not mentioned, beginning with most of tibetans; and finally, this "imploding" USSR was done at the strongest possible point, with encouraging one nation to be a battle ground for inhuman terrorist regime and another, the military base West used against USSR that's falsely called a nation but is really a tourniquated shoulder of India, into a terrorist factory.

This hasn't been cost free, and the cost is not entirely, but mostly, suffered by India and USSR, and too, most of central and South Asia, including Tibet and Afghanistan; but neither Europe nor U.S. have escaped.

If Pakistan weren't encouraged into thinking they had broken USSR into pieces with a little help from U.S.- just check internet to see what they think - there might not have been a genocide and an enforced exodus of Hindus and other minorities from Kashmir; and possibly no terrorist attacks against U.S. or in Europe. As it is, turning Pakistan into a terrorist factory, and finally handing over billions of U.S. dollars worth weaponry to them via terrorist regime now allowed to rule Afghanistan and terrorise its population, wasn't a cheap solution to totalitarian regimes in Europe - it was just making other people pay heavy price in human terms for freeing East Europe, at most; and as of now, it isn't just Afghanistan women, but old French women in their own churches too, that are paying with their lives.

All this, two decades after U.S. was attacked on its mainland, and three decades after USSR was "imploded". China, meanwhile, isn't democratic, and is threatening not only the region including Australia but U.S., too, and with military demonstrations, not hunger strikes!

No, this wasn't better. And wouldn't have worked to free Europe from under Nazi boots. Even as it is France paid heavily after surrender during the years of occupation by nazis, and East Europe including Russia paid heavily in human lives.

A peace treaty accepted by allies in 1940 would have had world enslaved to Germany in less than a decade, cleansed of all but Germans in less than two more decades at most, and populated by Hitler's favourite blond giants from pole to pole, with no Gandhis or Nehrus or any other people, including no Nobel prize winners and no Nobel prizes; nazis didn't care for learning, much less for thinkers -or anything higher.

As if exploring every possibility of being more asinine, Elst says "containment of Germany by a non-fascist government (like Leon Blum's in France) was too Gandhian;" does he forget Hitler destroyed Rotterdam on the way to Paris in his blitzkrieg, and wasn't going to stop short of destroying Paris, but for his advisers - and nazis would have done it on the way out, were it not for the french people joining allued forces in fighting from dvery possible corner, nook and alley? Leon Blum government did not "contain" him; Churchill and British people, and Russian people on the other flank, did.

Elst turns now, and says a Gandhian defence with spinning and non violence wouldn't have contained Hitler, and France fell due to cut down defence budgets. That was because communist cells everywhere, not governments, were following party line, and until June 1941, party orders from Moscow were to oppose war, until the war turned East - then it was about turn in party propaganda too, around the world. As for Savarkar doing better, yes; Churchill did. So did Roosevelt and even Stalin.

But East Europe fell to Soviet bloc, not simply because it was totalitarian; it had much more to do with the western front not coming soon enough, and D-Day being delayed on and on; partly it was because there was no point allied forces being fodder to guns trained all along the "western wall", the coasts of Europe that faced U.K. in any direction; and partly, too, because Churchill wanted a front opened in Southeast, so as to block Germany from getting into Asia - even as Hitler's frenzy ordering his forces to not retreat, but yo stay put in Leningrad, and get down fast to oilfields, had them exhausted and butchered until they surrendered. Stalin did not want allied forces in his backyard and Roosevelt had to mind each, so all in all, Russia got the advantage and it was their tanks that rolled into Berlin, but then, they'd lost twenty million military and civil population to brutal German war that did not stop short of Chingis Khan-like burning of whole villages alive, killing two million in Russia, Ukraine and Byelorussia or Belarus in this ghastly manner.

"So, Hitler felt confident when he attacked the democracies ... " Elst blames defence expenditure cuts by France and proposals in Britain to scrap air force.

Again, Elst doesn't know what hes talking about. This wasn't a war begun on material level, much less won there.

That Hitler built up his forces is correct, but it wasn't more defence budgets that was the preventive measure, not by itself; it was the willpower showed by U.K. and USSR, not merely a leader but people as a whole, the grit and determination and fortitude that worked when it was push come to shove.

Peace had been given every chance, until it became clear that Munich treaty was as much a sham as all other promises by Hitler until then, and Czechoslovakia was as much a futile sacrifice to hope of peace as were Rheinland, Austria, and more.

Elst records the congress vacillation about joining war effort, diversitues of opinions within party and opting to bet on Japan victory after Singapore.

"By contrast, the Hindu Maha Sabha position was crystal-clear - supporting the British war effort and gaining war experience and a foothold inside the British-Indian army. ... In these circumstances, however, it was not the Hindutva movement but a leftist congress faction which opted for collaboration with the axis."

After Bhagat Singh was executed, his popularity in youth of India had eclipsed congress, and Nehru pleaded with Gandhi to take Bhagat Singh's slogan "Inquilaab Zindaabaad " and actually make it their own, despite Gandhi having written previously against Bhagat Singh and disdained his slogan and his politics alike; Gandhi had actually admitted to have done Salt March to wipe out the huge impression created by Bhagat Singh.

So it's a safe bet that a similar fear of even more rising of popularity of Subhash Chandra Bose (who had already been so popular even before George escaped that he been elected president of congress despite opposition from Gandhi), after fall of Singapore, when he was known to be in Singapore and about to arrive with his Indian National Army - Azaad Hind Fauj - Gandhi had to step up, get ahead, and be on top of the rising wave!

Hence, instead of Home Rule and friendly deals, now the Quit India movement against the British - and, not pro INS, but pro Japan leaning! Not pro Subhash Chandra Bose who was an Indian, but pro "fellow Asians"!

Japan, after all, did win against Russia, earlier around the turn of the century, and lead to tremendous surge of hope in India, with this proof that a tiny nation of short stature Asians could win over a giant European nation of hefty people. Now, it was at the doorstep, Singapore.

Burma was not only contiguous part of British empire or of British India, it was culturally part of India and always had been, as much if Asia was in ancient era and up to more recent times - Vietnam even was two kingdoms with Hindu names, Tibet and Burma are Buddhist after a king from India who turned a monk and has always been since a god in Indian pantheon, and Burma was, has been, always called Brahmadesh.

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November 29, 2021 - November 30, 2021.

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Appendix 3:

Mahatma Gandhi’s Letters to Hitler

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This section opens, not with the letters as one expects, but with a eulogical tribute by Elst who has, after writing along Godse's condemnation of Gandhi's politics, is now arriving at the opposite bank and falling prostate for all the wrong reasons.

Elst confesses at the outset to arguing here that Gandhi was right in offering friendship to Hitler and writing him personal letters - uninvited, of course - to try to convert him to nonviolence, from his - elst's point of view as a brought up christian.

He forgets his own statements before, agreeing with the position that one must be strong enough to defend oneself in the first place if nonviolence has any meaning whatsoever, something Gandhi said about Hindus attacked and murdered, raped et al by Muslims, where he concluded that he preferred bullies to cowards.

So it seems laughable for Elst to hold up Gandhi as a Christian or himself as a judge competent enough to do so, when neither was likely to survive against Hitler, unless protected by allied forces. Rotterdam didn't.

And Elst quotes Hitler advising Lord Halifax, who'd been Lord Irwin, viceroy of India, and signed a treaty with Gandhi (who could have held back and used it as a bargaining chip to get Bhagat Singh and his comrades off, but didn't, and hence was seen as comforting with enemy against freedom fighters, by much of India, and had Karachi session of congress shown black flags) - when meeting him on a diplomatic mission, to shoot Gandhi in the head, and if that wasn't enough, two hundred more, and so on, until India's spirit broke.

Not that British had not done it before and since 1857, but this showed what Hitler would do, and could, of course.

So Gandhi writing him advising him to try nonviolence is not ridiculous only to those who have no concept of reality. It wasn't that different from Gandhi telling refugees to return to Pakistan and die while loving the killers, except it was merely ridiculous, egotistic, politically ambitious, and the other - advising refugees to return to die loving killers- was not just horrible, it was horrid.

Perhaps he has been judged wrongly. Perhaps he was as incapable of sympathy, brotherly love or human compassion as Hitler, his other half, and did everything for his own getting to the top and staying on top, invoking the name of his nation but in reality merely using it to get there, and eventually causing millions massacred, as Hitler did to not just others but Germans as well.

Elst claims that if Gandhi's first letter dated July 1939 had worked - it was stopped, presumably by the British government of India - it would have stopped the war, and thereby all the other atrocities perpetrated.

"In peacetime, German population would not have tolerated the amount of repression which disfigured their society 1941-45,"

Delusional, or deliberately blinkered?

Even as late as 1986, after Reagan had visited Bitburg, Germans visiting U.S. were heard justifying the SS and the extermination camps workers - to the effect that "otherwise if one was not in SS one was sent to Russia, it was very cold, and if one had to kill some Jews, so what, they were only some Jews".

Kristallnacht, and pogrom liquidating Hitler's own SA , were both before war. German population wasn't gung-ho about beginning WWII, but certainly were happy every time Germany gained new territory, and Germans had new lands to settle, which many did, with occupied territories population used as slaves in industries and agriculture as well as domestic service, which German houses did; they werent unhappy about hiw many "others" were killed, enslaved or whatever, much less robbed; germans only became unhappy when personally disturbed, such as when bombed by RAF, or later, when no longer stealing wealth and food from other nations but facing shortages instead.

Even the top nazis are supposed to have remarked, in admiration, about how British were promised "blood, toil and tears" and not rising against the government, while Germans were promised every security, every luxury and no shortages, and were grumbling as soon as those were proven false promises, as early as 1940. Russian and British populations, and French for that matter, had what it took to fight back the horrors perpetrated - a grim determination, fortitude, and even humour. When Germany rained propaganda leaflets on London during the blitz, they were used in public facilities.

Reportedly Berlin was bombed deliberately at a different time when Molotov visited and was being dined during talks leading to treaty, and was told there was no fear and no danger, British wouldn't dare, even as they were cowering under the raid; so Molotov, bored with the obvious lies, finally spoke - "So why are we hiding and whose bombs are these that are falling?"

Repeatedly, Elst keeps on making the mistake of believing Nazi propaganda or at least taking them at their word; he now states that it was their paranoia about Jews as a fifth column that brought on the sufferings imposed on them. Will they never learn, despite Hitler explaining he lied repeatedly until he was believed? This fifth column business was as much propaganda as anything else, such as the horrible cartoons about ugly Jews supplying purity of blond maidens.

Reality? Fifth columns were from his own upper echelons, for money, not ideology. And about the German maidens, they were told not to be silly and modest, but serve German males, especially soldiers and SS, and not worry about marriage; childbirth and more were taken care of, and mother's of children of right racial profile were honoured, married or not; other women were, of course, used - and their babies exterminated.

At some point Elst and others have to face it - this evil was reality. Hitler had let go of his humanity. So had nazis, and this letting go was enforced by making them to things humans don't, such as mass extermination, witnessing it, knowing it's happening nearby, and much, much more.

Elst justifies pacifism and condemns war on the basis that terrible things happen in war and one cannot predict or control them.

What great achievement compensated Tibetans for their genocide - in what's seen as peace, by West? Or dies West accept that they ignired it, because it was another race, not Europe?

It's always cheap to advise others to submit to genocide, the way Gandhi did to refugees from Pakistan. It's cheap too, to give arms to crazy jihadists to attack an enemy you've made by simply being overly trusting of fascists you defeated. Once the genie is out of the bottle and cutting off throats of women in streets in Afghanistan or in church in France, who compensates those lives?

Repeatedly Elst hammers in his thesis, that allies waged war, and chose to; does he consider Hitler occupying most of Europe not war, blitzkrieg not war, or think Hitler would have calmed down before enslaving everyone else to Germany? He was ready to spring across Atlantic from Dakar to Mexico, not very difficult - hus submarines were plying Atlantic, enforcing blackout on coastal cities.

Allies letting him get away with Rheinland encouraged him, getting Austria encouraged him further, and he got Czechoslovakia for a tantrum - the propaganda about "German population" was as fraudulent as the Muslim propaganda about ownership of various regions. Migrate, reproduce, bring in more of your ilk, repeat, kill off locals, is, and for centuries has been, the method used by Germans in East - Prussia once was not German, and had another language, niw wioed out - and muslims everywhere since the inception of the creed.

Elst brings up the fraudulent drama by Hitler about rights of Germans in Poland, about his demands for territory from Poland, to say Gandhi was right about all this being solva6by nonviolent means. That is, if any of it were genuine, not excuse for war, which in case of German browbeating of Poland was not so. But then, Gandhi did say he prefers bullies to cowards, why not realise his writing to the biggest chest and bully was just that, preference?

Elst goes on some more, discussing Hitler's desire for more "living room" and plans to settle "despised" populations East, Slavs, in Siberia; would he agree to vacate Europe and continent across Atlantic for Chinese? One third of population of the world does need living room so that they stop committing the sin that Vatican won't allow rape victims in U.S. to commit! Europe and her descendents across Atlantic, meanwhile, could try Africa, and living in harmony with the natives - the shoe having been on the other foot for far too long. If "slavs" weren't to be respected even about their homes by Germans then or Dutch now, why should China respect Europe any more than it does Tibet?

Here's Elst taking Hitler's lies at face value -

"The question of the corridor was less manageable, as it did involve territory and hence unmistakable face-losing concessions by one of the parties. The apprehension which troubled the Poles and their well-wishers was that the demand of a corridor was merely the reasonable-sounding opening move for a total conquest of Poland. It is difficult to estimate Nazi Germany’s exact plans for conquest, which was then already and has since remained the object of mythomanic war propaganda. Among the uninformed public, it is still widely believed that the Nazis aimed at ‘conquering the world’, no less; but this is nonsense. Hitler was ready to respect the British Empire, and his alleged plan for an invasion of America was shown to be a British forgery planted in order to gain American support. In repeated peace offers to France and Britain in autumn 1939 and throughout 1940, Hitler proposed to withdraw from all historically non-German territories (which would still leave him in control of Austria, Sudetenland, West Prussia and some smaller border regions of Poland and, from May–June 1940 on, also Luxemburg, Belgium’s East Cantons and French Elzas-Lotharingen) and maintain a territorial status-quo thenceforth.

"It is possible that he meant it when he agreed to limit his territorial ambitions to historically German regions, at least where the competition consisted of allied or somehow respected nations such as the Italians or the French. However, in the case of the despised Slavic countries, Poland and Ukraine, the fear of German conquest was more thoroughly justified.

"In early 1918, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with the fledgling Soviet Union gave Germany control of Poland and western Ukraine. As a soldier, Hitler had applauded this gain of ‘living space’, which was to be settled with German farmers after moving the Slavs to Siberia. It was also this brief gain which made the subsequent defeat in World War I and the implied loss of territory so unbearable for Hitler and many Germans of his generation. There is no doubt that the Nazi leaders had an eye on these fertile territories for a future expansion of Germany. It was less certain that they wanted to conduct this annexation at once: would they abide by an agreement on a mere corridor if one were concluded, respecting Poland’s sovereignty over the rest of its territory?"

William Shirer's Rise And Fall of The Third is backed by documents, largely German, not vague stuff that could be British forgeries.

Repeatedly, Elst puts the onus of WWII on allies, which is incorrect, wrong, and false. Repeatedly he states that all avenues to peace shield have been tried. They were, from Rheinland to Austria to Czechoslovakia. Repeatedly, he behaves as if Hitler, nazis, and Germans had no responsibility, as if they were a force of nature or an animal, while stating that Gandhi's position of hoping they were human, asserting that they weren't as bad as allies said, was right. It wasnt. If Germany had stopped short of attacking Poland, and held on to promises made at Munich a tad longer, allies might never have made even preparations for war. As it is, Hitler's plans for conquest of Europe and world were ready long before he began showing his colours, swallowing one piece of Europe at a time, and communicated to his generals months before the date he'd fixed for attack on Poland, which was almost exactly kept.

Allies did do more than their best, they did their worst, to placate him, for peace. He wouldn't go for it, no matter what. It wasn't the upper crust, but the public that was convinced in UK that they had to fight back for survival. Fortunately they had Churchill, unlike the French military and soldiers and general public whose leaders failed them.

Elst questions why other wars are bad if WWII was good. WWII was forced on world by axis, chiefly by Germany, and the part that was good was fighting back evil as allies did. Elst questions over and over why this or that war isn't good. He perhaps didn't know about Bhagat Singh telling off the judge in the assembly bomb case, when the judge said that the motive didn't interest him. Cut out the motive, and the judge is guilty of murder of every convict he sentenced to death, Bhagat Singh informed him. In the written letter, it's paraphrased just as effectively. Hitler and allied leaders cannot be compared on par, and this would be so at every point onwards after Austria had been swallowed by Hitler.

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November 30, 2021 - December 01, 2021.

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Appendix 4:

Learning from Mahatma Gandhi’s Mistakes

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Elst quotes Gandhi in saying that oppression is only possible when victim collaborates. This nonsense is very useful to, for example, those who would and do, prefer to deny rapes happen - they'd prefer if the victim cooperated and lied later, and usually state that it was so. This encourages rapists.Another example is the church shielding paedophile clergy, while pressuring the victims and their relatives yo not complain, not talk, and pressuring the media and the law enforcing agencies to keep off. This perpetuates misbehaviour of clergy.

Gandhi's friendliness to what he calls bullies, in reality murderers and mass murderers, while his scorn for victims, isn't very different from men who deny that rapes happen. If anything, allies who fought Hitler had a stand that wasn't so cheap.

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December 01, 2021 - December 01, 2021.

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Appendix 5: Questioning the Mahatma

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It's not that different from watching JFK and realising that the film, not the official version, is true.

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Elst sums up mistakes of Gandhi, and false deification of him post 1948; he mentions the shocking details, usually pushed under the rug by congress and aligned governments of India, but known even during lifetime of Gandhi, due to his publishing every personal and intimate detail of his own life, publicly.

"Likewise, his supposed saintliness is incompatible with his well-documented mistreatment of his sons (to whom he refused a proper education) and especially of his faithful wife, whom he repeatedly subjected to public humiliation. Here too, Gandhi’s sexual antics receive some attention. The whole idea of an old man seeking to strengthen his brahmacharya (chastity) by sleeping with naked young women is bad enough. Perhaps we had to wait for a lady author to give these victims a proper hearing. Radha Rajan documents the fear with which these women received Gandhi’s call to keep him company, as well as their attempts to avoid or escape this special treatment and the misgivings of their families. She praises the self-control of Gandhi’s confidants who, though horrified, kept the lid on this information out of concern for its likely demoralizing effect on the Congress movement. The Mahatma himself wasn’t equally discreet, he revealed the names of the women he had used in his chastity experiments, unmindful of what it would do to their social standing.

"When Sardar Patel expressed his stern disapproval of these experiments, Gandhi reacted with a list of cheap allegations, which Patel promptly and convincingly refuted. Lowly insinuations turn out to be a frequent presence in the Mahatma’s correspondence. As the author observes: ‘Reputed historians and other eminent academicians have not undertaken so far any honest study of Gandhi’s character. Just as little is known of his perverse experiments with women, as little is known of his vicious anger and lacerating speech that he routinely spewed at people who opposed him or rejected him.’ While careful not to offend the powerful among his occasional critics, like his sponsor G.D. Birla, ‘he treated those whom he considered inferior to him in status with contempt and in wounding language.’ (p.389)

"Unlike in Lelyveld’s account, the references to Gandhi’s sexual gimmicks here have political relevance. Gandhi’s discomfort with Patel’s disapproval was a major reason for his overruling the Congress workers’ preference for Patel and foisting his flatterer Jawaharlal Nehru as Prime Minister on India instead. Thus, argues Radha Rajan, he handed India’s destiny over to an emergent coalition of anti-Hindu forces. To replace Nehru as party leader, he had his yes-man J.B. Kripalani selected, not coincidentally the one among those in the know who had explicitly okayed the chastity experiments. The Mahatma’s private vices spilled over into his public choices with grave political consequences.

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December 01, 2021 - December 02, 2021.

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Appendix 6: Gandhi and Mandela

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Gandhi is mentioned here as the one emulated in his later career by Mandela, whose earlier armed rebellion is usually not mentioned side his coming to power as ruler of his nation.

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December 01, 2021 - December 01, 2021.

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Appendix 7: Gandhi the Englishman

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Elst, looking at Gandhi's background, life, thinking and writing and speeches, says that he was much more of an Englishman with Christian influenced thinking than an Indian with Hindu values, which doesn't come as a shock, falsehood, or even an exaggeration, but only as an accurate summation, except for one thing - when else says Christian, he of course means as per the story fabricated by church of Rome post council of Nicea.

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December 02, 2021 - December 02, 2021.

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Bibliography

................................................................................................

It's unusual, to say the least, giving bibliography, but the collection here is worth a look.

................................................................................................

Akbar, M.J., Nehru, the Making of India, Penguin, Delhi, 1991.

Ambedkar, B.R., What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables, Thacker, Bombay, 1946.

Ambedkar, B.R., Pakistan, 1940, Vol. 8 of his Writings and Speeches, Education Dpt., Gvt. of Maharashtra, 1990.

Attwood, D.W. et al, eds., City, Countryside and Society in Maharashtra, Univ. of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1988.

Baxter, Craig, The Jana Sangh, OUP, Bombay, 1972.

Bharti, Brahma Datt, Gandhi and Gandhism Unmasked: Was Gandhi a Traitor? Era Books, Delhi, 1992.

Bhave, Vinoba, The Essence of the Quran, Akhil Bharat Sarva Seva Sangh, Varanasi, 1985 (1962).

Chakravarthy, Gargi: Gandhi, a Challenge to Communalism: A Study of Gandhi and the Hindu-Muslim Problem, 1919–1929, EBC, Delhi, 1992 (1987).

Collins, Larry, and Lapierre, Dominique: Freedom at Midnight, Vikas, Delhi, 1988 (1975).

Dalton, Dennis, Mahatma Gandhi, Nonviolent Power in Action, OUP, Delhi, 2001 (2000).

Daniélou, Alain, Histoire de l’Inde, Fayard, Paris, 1983 (1971).

Daniélou, Alain, Le Chemin du Labyrinthe, Laffont, Paris, 1981.

Durga Das, India from Curzon to Nehru and After, Rupa, Delhi, 1977 (1975).

Edwards, Michael, The Myth of the Mahatma, Constable, London, 1986.

Elst, Koenraad, Return of the Swastika, Voice of India, Delhi, 2007.

Fischer, Louis, The Life of Mahatma Gandhi, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Bombay, 1965.

Gandhi, M.K., The Hindu-Muslim Unity, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Bombay, 1965.

Gandhi, M.K., Trusteeship, Navajivan, Ahmedabad, 1966.

Gandhi, M.K., Satyagraha in South Africa, Navajivan, Ahmedabad, 1966.

Gandhi, M.K., Hind Swaraj, Navajivan, Ahmedabad, 1982 (1909).

Gandhi, M.K., Collected Works, vols. 24, 75, 79, 80, Pub. Div., Delhi, 1993.

Ghosh, Tapan, The Gandhi Murder Trial, Asia, Bombay, 1973.

Godse, Gopal, Gandhiji’s Murder and After, Surya Prakashan, Delhi, 1989.

Godse, Nathuram, Why I Assassinated Gandhi, Surya Bharti Prakashan, Delhi, 1993.

Goel, Sita Ram, Perversion of India’s Political Parlance, Voice of India, Delhi, 1995.

Goel, Sita Ram, ed., Freedom of Expression, ‘Secular Theocracy vs. Liberal Democracy’, Voice of India, Delhi, 1998.

Goel, Sita Ram, History of Hindu-Christian Encounters, 2nd ed., Voice of India, Delhi, 1996.

Goyal, Des Raj, Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh, Radha Krishna, Delhi, 1979.

Huq, Fazlul, Gandhi Saint or Sinner?, Dalit Sahitya Akademi, Bangalore, 1992.

Inamdar, P.L., The Story of the Red Fort Trial 1948–49, Popular Prakashan, Bombay, 1979.

Johnson, Paul, Modern Times, Orion, London, 1992.

Jordens, J.T.F., Swami Shraddhananda.

His Life and Causes, OUP, Delhi, 1981.

Karanjia, R.K., The Mind of Mr. Nehru, London, 1960.

Khosla, G.D., The Murder of the Mahatma and Other Cases from a Judge’s Note Book, Jaico, Delhi, 1977.

Khosla, G.D., Stern Reckoning: A Survey of the Events Leading up to and Following the Partition of India, OUP, Delhi, 1989.

Kothari, M.M., Critique of Gandhi, Critique Publ., Jodhpur, 1996.

Madhok, Balraj, Rationale of Hindu State, Indian Book Gallery, Delhi, 1982.

Majumdar, R.C., British Paramountcy and Indian Renaissance, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Bombay, 1963.

Majumdar, R.C., The Struggle for Freedom, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Bombay, 1969.

Malgonkar, Manohar, The Men Who Killed Gandhi, Vision Books, Delhi, 1981.

Malkani, K.R., The Politics of Ayodhya and Hindu-Muslim Relations, Har Anand, Delhi, 1994.

Mehta, Ved, Mahatma Gandhi and His Apostles, India Book Co., Lucknow, 1978.

Nanda, B.R., Gandhi and His Critics, OUP, Delhi, 1985.

Nandy, Ashis, At the Edge of Psychology, OUP, Delhi, 1980.

Orwell, George, Collected Essays, vol. 4, London, 1968.

Pande, B.N., Islam and Indian Culture, Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Public Library, Patna, 1985.

Rajshekar (Shetty), V.T.: Why Godse Killed Gandhi, Dalit Sahitya Akademi, Bangalore, 1983.

Ram Gopal, Hindu Culture during and after Muslim Rule: Survival and Subsequent Challenges, MD Pub., Delhi, 1994.

Seervai, H.M., Partition of India: Legend and Reality, Emmenem Pub., Bombay, 1989.

Shaikh, Anwar, The Tale of Two Gujarati Saints, A. Ghosh, Houston, 1997.

Shourie, Arun: Individuals, Institutions, Processes: How One may Strengthen the Other in India Today, Viking, Delhi, 1990.

Shourie, Arun, Worshipping False Gods; Ambedkar, and the Facts which have been Erased, ASA, Delhi, 1997.

Sri Aurobindo, India’s Rebirth, Mysore, 1993.

Talageri, Shrikant, Aryan Invasion Theory and Indian Nationalism, Voice of India, Delhi, 1993.

Tendulkar, D.G., Mahatma Gandhi, Vol. 1, Bombay, 1961.

Waterstone, Richard, De Wijsheid van India, Librero, Kerkdriel, 2001.

Wolpert, Stanley A., Jinnah of Pakistan, OUP, Delhi, 1984.

Wolpert, Stanley A., Tilak and Gokhale, Surjeet Pub., Delhi, 1989.

Zelliot, Eleanor, and Berntsen, Maxine, eds., The Experience of Hinduism, Sri Satguru, Delhi, 1995.

................................................................................................

Quoted from

Why I Killed Gandhi

by Nathuram Godse.

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August 08, 2021 - August 08, 2021.

................................................

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................................................

August 08, 2021 - November 14, 2021

- December 01 2021.

Purchased August 15, 2021.

Kindle Edition, 240 pages

Published December 20th 2017

by Rupa Publications

(first published January 1st 2001)

ASIN:- B078X8YYX5

................................................

"First Edition : 2019

ISBN : 9789389440072"

................................................................................................

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4356584527

................................................

Will Durant

................................................

The Mohammedan conquest of India was probably the bloodiest story in history.

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................................................

Alain Danielou

................................................

From the time Muslims started arriving, around 632 AD, the history of India becomes a long, monotonous series of murders, massacres, spoliations, and destructions

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Rizwan Salim

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Their minds filled with venom against the idol-worshippers of Hindustan, the Muslims destroyed a large number of ancient Hindu temples. This is a historical fact, mentioned by Muslim chronicles and others of the time.

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Rizwan Salim

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Savages at a very low level of civilization and no culture worth the name, from Arabia and west Asia, began entering India from the early century onwards. Islamic invaders demolished countless Hindu temples, shattered uncountable sculpture and idols, plundered innumerable palaces and forts of Hindu kings, killed vast numbers of Hindu men and carried off Hindu women..….. But many Indians still do not seem to recognize that the alien Muslim marauders destroyed the historical evolution of the earth’s most mentally advanced civilization, the most richly imaginative culture, and the most vigorously creative society.

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Irfan Husain

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The Muslim heroes who figure larger than life in our history books committed many dreadful crimes. Mahmud of Ghazni, Qutb-ud-Din Aibak, Balban, Mohammed bin Qasim, and Sultan Mohammad Tughlak, all have blood-stained hands that the passage of years has not cleansed. Indeed, the presence of Muslim historians on their various campaigns has ensured that the memory of their deeds will live long after they were buried…..Seen through Hindu eyes, the Muslim invasion of their homeland was an unmitigated disaster.

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Dr. Younis Shaikh

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….eighty million were slaughtered and millions of women were raped…..it was standard practice for Islamic warlords like Ghori and Ghazni to unleash the mass rape and enslavement of hundreds of thousands of women after the slaughter of all males.

An extremely large percentage of Muslims in South Asia today are the progeny of forcible conversions and systematic rape campaigns by marauding Muslim invaders.

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Koenraad Elst

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..the number of victims of the persecutions of Hindus by Muslims is easily of the same order of magnitude as that of the Nazi extermination policy, though no one has yet made the effort of tabulating the reported massacres and proposing a reasonable estimate of how many millions exactly must have died in the course of the Islamic campaign against Hinduism (such research is taboo). On top of these there is a similar number of abductions and deportations to harems and slave-markets, as well as centuries of political oppression and cultural destruction……

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Dr K D Prithipal

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Muslims will only live as an oppressive majority and a turbulent minority.

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Sardar Ballavbhai Patel

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A nationalist Muslim is only a contradiction in terms.

**********************************************

Godse

................................................................................................

................................................

August 08, 2021 - November 14, 2021

- December 01, 2021.

Purchased August 15, 2021.

Kindle Edition, 240 pages

Published December 20th 2017

by Rupa Publications

(first published January 1st 2001)

ASIN:- B078X8YYX5

................................................

"First Edition : 2019

ISBN : 9789389440072"

................................................................................................

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4356584527

................................................................................................

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4362142336

................................................................................................

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4162584732

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December 02, 2021 - December 02, 2021.

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Reviews - Books I Read - DRJG

Friday, November 26, 2021

Why I Killed the Mahatma: Understanding Godse's Defence, by Koenraad Elst.

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