Nathuram Godse: The portrait of an assassin

The only fact most of us know about Nathuram Godse, for sure, is that he is the man who killed Mahatma Gandhi. Beyond that few of us care, or even dare to think.

Yet, we have come a long distance from that moment, 76 years ago. It is far enough to bury the ghosts, dump the baggage and as a society re-examine him to understand not just the influences upon him (including the psychology of a child who was brought up as a girl in his early years) but also his own inner demons.

Because from the violence of the past decades, we should now have a better understanding of those who think killing is a solution. We have seen and heard of far too many tortured men and women like him in recent times. Misguided and often marginalised, they become terrorists and murderers, as though by assuming this ghastly identity they are elevated into a higher self, especially in the eyes of their peers.

Men like Godse will justify their every action as being idealistic and in their world all solutions lie in death. The world would be a better place if only we exterminated one particular person, or a whole community. But solutions can never exist with this kind of simplicity, and this single-minded hatred or pursuit is bizarre and unbalanced. It is, ironically, almost the same kind of pathological madness with which we fall in love. Then, too, the whole world exists because of one person, and it will fall apart irredeemably also because of that person.

To begin with, there are many who would feel that it is abhorrent to write about or even analyse a man like Godse forgetting that it is partly historical circumstance that make people like him obsessive. As a recent hit Broadway show called Assassins is proving, a time has come for us to put him in the context of other murderers. The Assassins pulls together all the men and women who ever tried killing off US Presidents. It is even set to music. But when someone wrote a play about Godse we were indignant.

And then, of course, we must equally, turn our sad gaze upon those who want to eulogise him. Through this, can we say they are endorsing psychopathic behaviour, even while we must equally accept that violence was a weapon used by many during that period of pre and post-partition? Should we look at Godse as a creation of our tendency towards collective violence, or should we pretend that he was just some peripheral figure, unworthy of our analysis?

It was a brutal time, wasn't it, when millions were killed? Yet we remember one death above all else, because he was our leader. His violent death was caused by someone who misunderstood the various pulls and pressures under which India was divided. Should we use this opportunity to "ban" Godse again, or should we look upon this as a chance to re-examine him, and those who believe he had a part to play? Can we put Godse in context?