Nathuram Vinayak Godse | |
---|---|
Born | Ramachandra Vinayak Godse 19 May 1910 |
Died | 15 November 1949 | (aged 39)
Cause of death | Execution by hanging |
Organization(s) | Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh Hindu Mahasabha |
Known for | Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi |
Relatives | Gopal Godse (brother) |
Conviction(s) | Murder |
Criminal penalty | Death |
Details | |
Victims | Mahatma Gandhi |
Date | 30 January 1948 |
Weapon | Beretta M 1934 semi-automatic pistol |
Nathuram Vinayak Godse (19 May 1910 – 15 November 1949) () was a Hindu nationalist[1] who on 30 January 1948 assassinated Mahatma Gandhi.[2][3] Godse was a member of the political party, the Hindu Mahasabha;[4] and a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a right-wing Hindu paramilitary volunteer organisation;[5] and a populariser of the work of his mentor Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, who had created the ideology of Hindutva.[6]
Godse together with Narayan Apte made two unsuccessful attempts to assassinate Mahatma Gandhi in 1944 before they succeeded the third time in 1948.[7] After the 1948 assassination, Godse claimed Gandhi favoured the political demands of British India's Muslims during the partition of India of 1947.[2][8][9]
After a trial that lasted over a year, Godse was sentenced to death on 8 November 1949. Although pleas for clemency were made by Gandhi's two sons, Manilal Gandhi and Ramdas Gandhi, they were turned down by India's prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, deputy prime minister Vallabhbhai Patel, and Governor-General Chakravarti Rajagopalachari,[10] and Godse and Apte were executed at the Ambala Central Jail on 15 November 1949.[11]
Because of Gandhi's sensitivity to India's Muslim minority, he was blamed for the partition. In January 1948, in New Delhi, he was assassinated by Nathuram Vinayak Godse, a militant Hindu nationalist.
Nathuram Godse (1910–1949), though rarely discussed in histories of modern India ranks among its significant figure, if only as the assassin of Gandhi and popularizer of the teachings of his own mentor, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, the inventor of 'Hindutva.' As early as 1927, Savarkar had ridiculed the philosophy of non-violence ...
godse-commutation
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).Bandyopadhyay2009
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).