It was this singularity of cause Mahatma Gandhi was committed to that was not to the liking of those who wanted to keep India always in pieces, each one fighting against the other.

He was killed because he opposed the fragmentation of not only our country, but also of our people based on community and caste. It was a deeply agonized acceptance that he extended towards the decision of partition. The nation he was the creator of, carried a tradition of composite culture since centuries. He stood for the unity of all the sects and communities, including Hindus and Muslims. But in contrast to his stand, the RSS and Hindu Mahasabha were one with British rulers and their loyalty was threatened by Bapu, the man who led the freedom struggle. It was also a time when Gandhiji identified the spreading gloom in the entire world economy. Stagnation was leading to collapse of colonialism.

Bapu seized the moment and used it to serve his own purpose. We had already attained freedom. But times were turbulent. Jawaharlal Nehru had written, ‘’How many realize what it means to have the presence of Mahatma Gandhi during these months?” About the time, he wrote further, “Fear and hatred blinded our minds and all the restraints the civilization has imposed been swept away. Horror piled on horror, and sudden emptiness seized us at the brute savagery of human minds.” Gandhiji carried the soul of our country and went to every corner possible with his message.

He went to Noakhali district of Bengal, walking all the distances at seventy seven years of age. He was crossing the rivers walking on Bamaboo bridges. He went to Kolkata also. Wherever he went, people came to get the healing touch. In Noakhali where he was in 1946, he had hopes that partition of the country would perhaps be stalled. He went to Bihar, but situation was almost out of hands there as rioting continued without any control. But the ways of Gandhi ji were totally different as he told Bihar people that if they madly wanted to kill people, they should ‘destroy’ him first. Gandhiji was staying in the house of a Muslim which was attacked by fanatics. Gandhiji again managed to get them retreated.

In August-September, 1947, Gandhiji was in Kolkata and C Rajagopalachari, then governor of West Bengal, wrote about him ,”Gandhiji has achieved many things, but there has been nothing, not even independence, which is so truly wonderful as his victory over evil in Calcutta.” In Delhi, this influence carried even a ‘halo’ over him that scared the communalism so much that it had to opt for retreat. He had already told those attending his prayer meetings that he would be killed by someone who would be here with his gun.

In fact Gandhi ji was facing a storm of madness and had placed himself against it. He even attended a meeting of RSS cadres, fiercely anti-Muslim, and opposed to him as well, and told them that they were destroying Hinduism itself with their intolerance. He told them, “There is no gain in returning evil with evil.” He told them that charges against RSS have been made that they were planning conspiracies to assassinate people and asked them that they should come out clean from these charges by proving their sincerity. In the recorded speech that Gandhiji had made, when he was summing up, a question was raised, “Does Hinduism allow to kill an evil doer?” The reply took no time, “One evil doer cannot punish another.” Soon his birthday came and along with that sheafs of best wishes and congratulations, but all he said was, “Would it not be more appropriate to send condolences?” Every time he faced the challenges, he shined more.

On January 30, Gandhiji, the architect of our freedom that was achieved with such little bloodshed and violence, was killed. He was killed because he fought for Hindu and Muslim unity. He was killed because he opposed the partition. But that was not the end. Split kept widening and is now threatening to tear the secular fabric of the nation apart.

The RSS, founded in 1925, was never a part of the freedom movement. Shackles were praised as an ‘act of Providence’ by first chief of the RSS, Dr KB Hedgewar in 1935. This was revealed in a news-report published in The Times of India on October 10, 1935: “The march of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh Volunteers in military order from the Town Hall to the Indian Gymkhana ground today ended the tenth annual celebrations of the Sangh. Dr. Moonje and Dr. Paranjpe were dressed in military uniform.

At the meeting on Reshimbag ground in Nagpur, Dr Hedgewar, the chief promoter of the Sangh, said that the British Raj afforded them a lesson in organisation, and he looked upon it as an act of providence that the Britishers were ruling over them.” And what was the lesson? To keep alive the divide, never let them unite. It is not surprising that the RSS remained in conflict with the freedom fighters, and one of its members, Nathuram Godse, went to the extent of assassinating Mahatma Gandhi on January 30, 1948.

For last couple of years, as the RSS men rule the country and try to control its society and culture, Gandhian vision of a secular India with equal rights for all religions has once again come under attack. The period has witnessed massive efforts to steer the national discourse to treat Muslims as the ‘other’. (IPA Service)