‘Mahatma’ Gandhi’s Popularity Was On A Sharp Decline Before His Assassination

There was a reason why Nathuram Godse’s speech in the court was classified, and the Congress government never let it come out in the public domain for decades after he was gone. There is a reason why Gopal Godse’s book, “Gandhi Vadh Kyon,” in which he had narrated the events that led to Gandhi’s elimination by Nathuram Godse, was banned from being published.

That was because India’s Congress Party was scared that the truth would come out that Nathuram Godse was not very unpopular. They were afraid that public sentiment would go against the Congress party if the truth behind Gandhi’s assignation became available to the public. But truth cannot be hidden forever. Times changed, and the book came out.

Justice G.D. Khosla wrote in his “The Murder of the Mahatma” on pages 47-48 when he talked about the proceedings in the court after Nathuram Godse had spoken:

He also believed that despite all the slander and branding of Nathuram Godse as a ‘Hindu Extremist,’ the public was with Godse. A large population of the country believed that Godse was a hero, that Godse did the right thing, that it was good for the country that Gandhi was finally not there to interfere anymore.

Gandhi had already lost his relevance by the time he was killed. A large section of the Congress party was also against Gandhi for the apparent reason: his continued policy of Muslim appeasement.

Gandhi had lost his popularity very rapidly among the Indian population the moment the India-Pakistan partition as Indians realized how he cheated them throughout, made false promises, and how his non-violence drama had been ineffective disastrous for India and Indians. There was general anger against Gandhi during that period. His Brahamacharya Prayog of sleeping with teenage girls naked and bathing naked with other women and other people’s wives was also causing a lot of anger against Gandhi. Overall, Baapu was one of the most notoriously unpopular leaders of post-colonial India.

On 13^th January 1948, when he was performing his last but most ridiculous ‘fast until death’ gimmick, thousands of refugees (people who came to India displaced of their homes in Pakistan due to the partition) gathered at Birla Bhavan. They shouted slogans of, “Marta Hai to Mar Jaane Do, Gandhi Ko Mar Jaane Do.” Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru heard the slogan and scolded the crowd, angry at them for their verbal ‘mistreatment’ of Gandhiji.

Before Nathuram Godse’s Act, Gandhi Survived Three Mob Lynching Attempts

Gandhi happened to be eliminated by Nathuram Godse as the Providence would have it. But Gandhi had already been attacked three times by different mobs at different places, and lucky for him, he survived.

First, he was attacked in Calcutta in August of 1947. The angry mob attacked because of his highly controversial remarks against Hindus and for his Muslim appeasement right after riots where Hindus were massacred in large numbers. On 12 September 1947, the second attempt happened when he tried to read the Quran on temple premises, people opposed him, and stones were pelted on his vehicle while he was forced to leave. On the same day, an angry Muslim crowd attacked him near Jama Masjid.

It is just to show that Hindus and Muslims also hated Gandhi. Indians had already realized by this time that Gandhi was just a hypocrite, a fraud responsible for 3-4 million lost lives in religious riots during that time because of the India-Pakistan partition that he had promised earlier that he wouldn’t let happen.

Gandhi used to get thousands of letters from all over the country, and several hundreds of them used to be filled with abuses and threats. And Gandhi was at least honest enough to open and read those letters in his prayer sessions, perhaps to collect sympathy from people around…

Gandhi’s third and most favorite son, Ramdas Gandhi, was also disillusioned by his father. The proof of that is the incident where Ramdas Gandhi wrote a letter to his father and said, “You have become a curse on the Hindu Dharma.”

The proof of this comes from Chaudhuri Khaliquzzaman of the Muslim League. In his book, “Pathway to Pakistan,” he writes that Gandhi gave him that letter from Ramdas Gandhi and asked him to read. Gandhi was sad having received this letter from his favorite son. But Gandhi still failed to see his errors and continued his crusade against the Hindu community to appease Muslims.

Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was generally known to always do “yes sir” to Gandhi and never opposed him. But according to the book by Maulana Azad, even Sardar shouted at Gandhiji, hurled some insulting barbs at him, and walked out when Nehru, Maulana, and Sardar Patel had gone to meet Gandhi in the wake of his ‘fast until death’ act to force the government of India to give 55 million Indian rupees to Pakistan when the latter was at war with India.  In that meeting, Sardar Patel told Gandhi in no uncertain terms that Gandhiji had blackened the face of the Hindu community in front of the entire world.

This is how much people were annoyed with Gandhi and wanted to get India free of his continued and ridiculous interference in government and public affairs. Gandhi was a dictator, and people did not know what to do with him. There are documents available that indicate that when Gandhi was performing his last act of ‘fast until death’ for the benefit of Pakistan (and that of the Muslims), there were hot discussions in all corners of Delhi. But unlike the popular guess, people were not discussing how to save Gandhi or get him to break his fast. Instead, the discussions used to be around, “How to get rid of this crooked old man.”

Dr. Ambedkar Aptly Conveyed Nations Sentiments When Gandhi Died

Right after Nathuram Godse’s act, Dr. BR Ambedkar said there was ‘good’ that could come out of Gandhi’s death. The letter he wrote after Gandhi’s assassination went like this:

My own view is that great men are of great service to their country, but they are also, at certain times, a great hindrance to the progress of the country. Mr. Gandhi had become a positive danger to this country.

He had choked all the thoughts. He was holding together the Congress, which is a combination of all the bad and self-seeking elements in society who agreed on no social or moral principle governing the life of society except the one of praising and flattering Mr. Gandhi. Such a body is unfit to govern a country.

As the Bible says that sometimes good cometh out of evil, so also, I think good will come out of the death of Mr. Gandhi. It will release people from bondage to supermen, it will make them think for themselves and compel them to stand on their own merits.