Born in a devotional Brahmin
family, I instinctively came to
revere Hindu religion, Hindu
history, and Hindu culture. I had,
therefore, been intensely proud
of Hinduism as a whole. As I
grew up I developed a tendency
to free thinking unfettered by
any superstitious allegiance to
any isms, political or religious.
That is why I worked actively for
the eradication of untouchables
and the caste system based on
birth alone. I openly joined RSS
wing of anti-caste movements
and maintained that all Hindus
were of equal status as to rights,
social, and religious and should
be considered high or low on
merit alone and not through the
accident of birth in a particular
caste or profession.
I used publicly to take part in
organized anti-caste dinners in
which thousands of Hindus,
Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas,
Chamars and Bhangis
participated. We broke the caste
rules and dined in the company
of each other. I have read the
speeches and writings of Ravana,
Chanakiya, Dadabhai Naoroji,
Vivekanand, Gokhale, Tilak, along
with the books of ancient and
modern history of India and
some prominent countries like
England , France , America , and
Russia .Moreover I studied the
tenets of Socialism and Marxism.
But above all I studied very
closely whatever Veer Savarkar
and Gandhiji had written and
spoken, as to my mind these two
ideologies have contributed
more to the molding of the
thought and action of the Indian
people during the last thirty
years or so, than any other single
factor has done.
All this reading and thinking
led me to believe it was my first
duty to serve Hinduism and
Hindus both as a patriot and as a
world citizen. To secure the
freedom and to safeguard the
just interests of some thirty
crores (300 million) of Hindus
would automatically constitute
the freedom and the well-being
of all India , one fifth of human
race. This conviction led me
naturally to devote myself to the
Hindu Sanghtanist ideology and
program, which alone, I came to
believe, could win and preserve
the national independence of
Hindustan , my Motherland, and
enable her to render true service
to humanity as well.
Since the year 1920, that is,
after the demise of Lokamanya
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 paraded ostentatiously
before the country. No sensible
or enlightened person could
object to those slogans. In fact
there is nothing new or original
in them. They are implicit in every
constitutional public movement.
But it is nothing but a mere
dream if you 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.
In fact, honour, duty, and
love of one's own kith and kin
and country might often compel
us to disregard non-violence and
to use force. I could never
conceive that an armed
resistance to an aggression is
unjust. I would consider it a
religious and moral duty to resist
and, if possible, to overpower
such an enemy by use of force.
[In the Ramayana] Rama killed
Ravana in a tumultuous fight and
relieved Sita.. [In the
Mahabharata], Krishna killed
Kansa to end his wickedness;
and Arjuna 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.
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.
The accumulating
provocation of thirty-two years,
culminating in his last pro-Muslim
fast, at last goaded me to the
conclusion that the existence of
Gandhi should be brought to an
end immediately. Gandhi had
done very well 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.
Against such an attitude
there can be no halfway house.
Either Congress had to surrender
its will to his and had to be
content with playing second
fiddle to all his eccentricity,
whimsicality, metaphysics and
primitive vision, or it had to carry
on without him.
He alone was the Judge of
everyone and every thing; he
was the master brain guiding the
civil disobedience movement; no
other could know the technique
of that movement. He alone knew
when to begin and when to
withdraw it. The movement
might succeed or fail, it might
bring untold disaster, and
political reverses but that could
make no difference to the
Mahatma's infallibility. 'A
Satyagrahi can never fail' was his
formula for declaring his own
infallibility and nobody except
himself knew what a Satyagrahi
is. Thus, the Mahatma became
the judge and jury in his own
cause. These childish insanities
and obstinacies, coupled with a
most severe austerity of life,
ceaseless work and lofty
character made Gandhi
formidable and irresistible.
Many people thought that his
politics were irrational but they
had either to withdraw from the
Congress or place their
intelligence at his feet to do with
as he liked. In a position of such
absolute irresponsibility Gandhi
was guilty of blunder after
blunder, failure after failure,
disaster after disaster. Gandhi's
pro-Muslim policy is blatantly in
his perverse attitude on the
question of the national
language of India . It is quite
obvious that Hindi has the most
prior claim to be accepted as the
premier language. In the
beginning of his career in India ,
Gandhi gave a great impetus to
Hindi but as he found that the
Muslims did not like it, he became
a champion of what is called
Hindustani.. Everybody in India
knows that there is no language
called Hindustani; it has no
grammar; it has no vocabulary. It
is a mere dialect, it is spoken, but
not written. It is a bastard
tongue and cross-breed 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 .
His blind followers, of course,
supported him and the so-called
hybrid language began to be
used. The charm and purity of
the Hindi language was to be
prostituted to please the Muslims.
All his experiments were at the
expense of the Hindus.
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 with
some retaliation by the Hindus.
The Interim Government formed
in September was sabotaged by
its Muslim League member ’s right
from its inception, but the more
they became disloyal and
treasonable to the government
of which they were a part, the
greater was Gandhi's infatuation
for them. Lord Wavell had to
resign as he could not bring
about a settlement and he was
succeeded by Lord Mountbatten.
King Log was followed by King
Stork. The Congress which had
boasted of its nationalism and
socialism secretly accepted
Pakistan literally at the point of
the bayonet and abjectly
surrendered to Jinnah. India was
vivisected and one-third of the
Indian territory became foreign
land to us from August 15, 1947.
Lord Mount batten came to
be described in Congress circles
as the greatest Viceroy and
overnor-General this country ever
had. The official date for handing
over power was fixed for June
30, 1948, but Mount batten with
his ruthless surgery gave us a
gift of vivisected India ten
months in advance. This is what
Gandhi had achieved after thirty
years of undisputed dictatorship
and this is what Congress party
calls 'freedom' and 'peaceful
transfer of power'. The Hindu-
Muslim unity bubble was finally
burst and a the ocratic state was
established with the consent of
Nehru and his crowd and they
have called 'freedom won by
them with sacrifice' - whose
sacrifice? When top leaders of
Congress, with the consent of
Gandhi, divided and tore the
country - which we consider a
deity of worship - my mind was
filled with direful anger.
One of the conditions
imposed by Gandhi for his
breaking of the fast unto death
related to the mosques in Delhi
occupied by the Hindu refugees.
But when Hindus in Pakistan
were subjected to violent attacks
he did not so much as utter a
single word to protest and
censure the Pakistan Government
or the Muslims concerned.
Gandhi was shrewd enough to
know that while undertaking a
fast unto death, had he imposed
for its break some condition on
the Muslims in Pakistan , there
would have been found hardly
any Muslims who could have
shown some grief if the fast had
ended in his death. It was for
this reason that he purposely
avoided imposing any condition
on the Muslims. He was fully
aware of from the experience
that Jinnah was not at all
perturbed or influenced by his
fast and the Muslim League
hardly attached any value to the
inner voice of Gandhi. Gandhi is
being referred to as the Father of
the Nation.
But if that is so, he had failed
his paternal duty in as much as
he has acted very treacherously
to the nation by his consenting
to the partitioning of it. I stoutly
maintain that Gandhi has failed
in his duty.
He has proved to be the
Father of Pakistan. His inner-
voice, his spiritual power and his
doctrine of non-violence of
which so much is made of, all
crumbled before Jinnah's iron
will, and proved to be powerless.
Briefly speaking, I thought to
myself and foresaw I shall be
totally ruined, and the only thing
I could expect from the people
would be nothing but hatred and
that I shall have lost my entire
honor, even more valuable than
my life, if I were to kill Gandhiji.
But at the same time I felt that
the Indian politics in the absence
of Gandhiji would surely be
proved 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.
People may even call me and dub
me as devoid of any sense or
foolish, but the nation would be
free to follow the course
founded on the reason which I
consider to be necessary for
sound nation-building.
After having fully considered
the question, I took the final
decision in the matter, but I did
not speak about it to anyone
whatsoever. I took courage in
both my hands and I did fire the
shots at Gandhiji on 30th January
1948, on the prayer-grounds of
Birla House. I do say that
my shots were fired at the
person whose policy and action
had brought rack and ruin and
destruction to millions of Hindus.
There was no legal machinery by
which such an offender could be
brought to book and for this
reason I fired those fatal shots. I
bear no ill will towards anyone
individually but I do say that I
had no respect for the present
government owing to their policy
which was unfairly favorable
towards the Muslims. But at the
same time I could clearly see that
the policy was entirely due to the
presence of Gandhi.
I have to say with great
regret that Primes Minister Nehru
quite forgets that his preaching's
and deeds are at times at
variances with each other when
he talks about India as a secular
state in season and out of
season, because it is significant
to note that Nehru has played
a leading role in the
establishment of the theocratic
state of Pakistan, and his job was
made easier by Gandhi's
persistent policy of appeasement
towards the Muslims. I now
stand before the court to accept
the full share of my responsibility
for what I have done and the
judge would, of course, pass
against me such orders of
sentence as may be considered
proper. But I would like to add
that I do not desire any mercy to
be shown to me, nor do I wish
that anyone else should beg for
mercy on my behalf. My
confidence about the moral side
of my action has not been
shaken even by the criticism
leveled against it on all sides. I
have no doubt that honest
writers of history will weighs my
act and find the true value
thereof some day in future.
JAI HIND !
