Mee Nathuram Godse Boltoy

One of the positive things that happened in the hour or so that I spent watching Vibes – the Culnite of Capitol (Delhi Regional Assoc.) , apart from increasing my IQ was the promo of the EDC ( English Drama Club) play eponymous with the title of this entry. It was slickly made, doing everything that a promo should do- give the basic plot without revealing too much, and also succeeding in arousing curiosity in the minds of the audience. I eagerly waited for a week and finally made it to the audi tonight to witness the first EDC play of the semester.

The whole play hinged on the performance of Arjun P Kumar (APK to friends) who potrayed Nathuram Godse, and he carried it off splendidly like only he could. The whole play was structured in a way that it presented Nathuram’s point of view (The title translates to “Am Nathuram Godse Speaking”) and only his view. Every scene and every character in the play did their bit to elevate the protagonist and his controversial views on Gandhi. Based on a Marathi Play that raised a lot of controversy, it was very bold of EDC to have carried of this adaptation and they did quite a good job of it, their efforts clearly showing on stage.

While watching the play, halfway I started to observe the audience reaction subconsciously, and what I found was one unified bunch of youngsters rooting for Nathuram Godse, the villain of our school textbooks, the guy we were taught to be hated as the murderer of the “Father of the Nation”.

But here we were, 59 years after he pulled the fateful trigger, finding sympathy and reason in his actions. Why the transformation?

I am sure it would have been blasphemous to side with Nathuram in the early years of Independent India, unless one hailed from a hardcore Gandhi-bashing family, who could be easily spotted as those having wide memberships in RSS, Hindu MahaSabha and the like. But come the turn of the century, and we were treated to Kamal Hassan’s Magnum Opus “Hey Ram” (and the finest piece of cinema Kodambakkam has produced, in my opinion). This was followed by the Marathi play that inspired the EDC one, a movie on How Gandhi the Father of the Nation was not such a good father to his own sons (Anil Kapoor produced “Gandhi- My Father”). Even Tushar Gandhi’s biography of Gandhi had some unflattering things to say about him

Why are we, as a nation going back and inspecting our prized trophy and frowning at irregularities, rust and corrosion instead of polishing it? Is it because we believe he had failed in his “Paternal Duties” as the Father of the Nation? Aren’t we able to digest the fact that this Father had a big hand to play in the splitting of our house, when he could have prevented it? Or is it because by the end of his life, his Muslim appeasement had grown in magnitude to eclipse the sacrifices he undertook to get us freedom?

Have we concluded that peace, Satyagraha and Ahimsa are good to speak about and tell children, but not practical to practice it? It’s true that though Ahimsa could win a nation back for us, it wouldn’t help in sustaining it. An Eye for an Eye would make the whole world blind. But if we don’t react, only we would end up getting our eyes gorged out. A similar parable is found in the case of Ashoka and the Mauryan Empire. Ahimsa flourished in the period of Ashoka after the battle of Kalinga, but after him, the Mauryan empire was never able to recover from the inherent lack of self defence that weakend the borders of the empire. Added to that his successors weren’t as able either and within a century and half, the Mauryan Empire crumbled. Was Ashoka’s imposition of his personal beliefs on the empire and its affairs a cause for cracks to appear in the empire? Is Ahimsa a concept that’s fine when followed individually but not collectively as a nation?

All said and done, Ahimsa or for that matter any value or principle won’t help me face the tests lined against me so I return to the more immediate concerns of Ghoting for Exams. So more on this later…