The assassination of Mahatma Gandhi by Nathuram Godse has jumped out from the confines of Martyrs' Day celebrations and into the political limelight. But the widely divergent perspectives on the assassination are not a product of our times alone. Just days after Godse's act, a man no less than BR Ambedkar said there was 'good' that could come out of Gandhi's death.
Gandhi's assassination has pretty much ruled political attention in India after actor-politician Kamal Haasan said, "Independent India's first terrorist was a Hindu." The remark was met with fiery backlash from some political parties. BJP's Bhopal candidate Sadhvi Pragya Singh countered by called Godse a 'deshbhakt', only to apologise for it a day later.
There has always existed in India's political spectrum a section that viewed Godse as a hero for killing Gandhi, who they claim worked against the interests of Hindus. But Godse has not been the only paradigm from which Gandhi's assassination has been viewed positively.
BR Ambedkar, the architect of India's constitution and a trenchant critic of Gandhi, was among those who saw some positive coming out of Gandhi's death. About a week after the assassination, when much of the nation was still in shock and mourning, Ambedkar discussed Gandhi's death in a letter.
"My own view is that great men are of great service to their country, but they are also at certain times a great hindrance to the progress of the country. Mr Gandhi had become a positive danger to this country," said Ambedkar.
"He had choked all the thoughts. He was holding together the Congress which is a combination of all the bad and self-seeking elements in society who agreed on no social or moral principle governing the life of society except the one of praising and flattering Mr Gandhi. Such a body is unfit to govern a country," he added.
"As the Bible says that sometimes good cometh out of evil, so also I think good will come out of the death of Mr Gandhi. It will release people from bondage to supermen, it will make them think for themselves and compel them to stand on their own merits," Ambedkar wrote.
While no amount of imagination could enable the portrayal of Ambedkar's remarks as being in step with those who see Godse as a hero, it does serve to underscore the vast variety of opinion that has existed within India's political sphere. Politics, as the saying goes, can make strange bedfellows.
