Godses & Gopals - Products of an Awful Ideology!

India is passing through the second darkest phase post-independence, the first being the emergency (1975-1977) declared by Indira Gandhi. This is nothing short of an undeclared emergency where fascists are brandishing their weapons so openly and the law enforcement authorities siding with the criminals more often than not. India is a rainbow of multiple cultures, languages, and religions united by a secular constitution that recognizes diversity. In spite of the pulls and pressures of the past, the people of India did not let the governments play with the sanctity of the basic structure of the constitution. Though most of the politicians, cutting across the party lines, are opportunists, they have not been as brazen as those holding the offices in the government right now in exhibiting their love for an ideology that led Godse to slay one of the all-time icons of India, Mahatma Gandhi. The ruling dispensation has effectively shut the voices of politicians and its critics employing tactics the fascists throughout the world have used. The only people who stand up to them without fear are the youth especially the students in the Universities. Even as I am writing this there is a man - terrorist - named Gopal - interestingly the younger brother of Nathuram Godse is Gopal Vinayak Godse - who opened fire in Jamia where students are protesting against the CAA. This is not the first time that the university students were targets by fascist elements that are hand in glove with the ruling establishment. I will not be surprised if the Delhi Police, which has effectively been turned saffron of late, blame the protesting students to save Gopal, the modern Godse.


Very often our discourse dies down with the arrows never pointing a finger at the archer. The archer indeed is an ideology that is rooted in hate, inspired by mass murderers such as Hitler. There is a greater need to uproot this ideology once and for all from our schools, universities and public spaces. How do we do that? I know better how not. We cannot employ the same strategies that the fascists use. We cannot brandish swords, cannot shoot at people, cannot polarise people in the name of anything. However, we need to tell the young that what kills his or her neighbour will kill him or her too.

One day the majority of Germans deified their fascist leader and today they hang their heads in shame. It is the same with every country and culture that was proud of their fascist leadership. Godses and Gopals are merely the productions of a death-bringing ideology. Perhaps we can get rid of them only to see many more Godses and Gopals to arise! To realize the dreams of our great forefathers we need to unite to oppose with love the ideology of hate that fuelling social unrest with divisive politics.


It is apt to remember the words of the great poet Rabindranath Tagore:


Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high

Where knowledge is free

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments

By narrow domestic walls

Where words come out from the depth of truth

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way

Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit

Where the mind is led forward by thee

Into ever-widening thought and action

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.