Book review: ‘Gandhi’s Assassin: The Making of Nathuram Godse and His Idea of India’ by Dhirendra K. Jha

D.K. Jha's book studies Gandhi's assassination in light of new and hitherto untapped evidence, provides perhaps the first complete biographical account of Nathuram Godse in English, and challenges the dominant narrative that Godse was not associated with the RSS. By examining the contested politics of India's pre-independence era, and how religion played a divisive role in it, it offers contemporary relevance, writes MD. ZEESHAN AHMAD.

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MANY books and academic essays have been written over the years studying the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi on January 30, 1948. The role of Nathuram Godse, Gandhi's assassin, and a protégé of Vinayak Savarkar – the chief theorizer of Hindutva, has also been examined closely by scholars. Even the conspiratorial role played by both the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh [RSS] and the Hindu Mahasabha in the killing of Gandhi, and Godse's association with both the organisations, at the same time, has been well documented in academic works. Considerable literature has also been produced on Gandhi's murder trial in which, among others, Godse and Narayan Apte were awarded death sentence, and Savarkar, an accused, was exonerated for want of independent corroborative evidence.

Prominent works covering the above themes are author and activist Tushar Gandhi's 'Let's Kill Gandhi !: A Chronicle of His Last Days, the Conspiracy, Murder, Investigation, and Trial' (2007), lawyer A.G. Noorani's 'Savarkar and Hindutva: The Godse Connection' (2002), English-American author Robert Payne's 'The Life and Death of Mahatma Gandhi' (1969), lawyer P.L. Inamdar's 'The Story of the Red Fort Trial, 1948-49' (1979) and American writer Larry Collins and French author Dominique Lapierre's 'Freedom at Midnight' (1976).