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The Rediff Special

Play on Godse's point of view draws cheers in Bombay

Applause is what one does not expect when Nathuram Godse voices his reasons for murdering Mahatma Gandhi. Yet Me Nathuram Godse Boltoy (I am Nathuram Godse speaking), the latest Marathi play in the Gandhi series, surprises in more ways than one when the character of Godse gets more applause than Gandhi.

Godse, Gandhi's killer, explains his side of the story, including the circumstances and the 'necessity' to assassinate the crusader of non-violence while expressing his respect for Gandhi and his contribution in the freedom movement.

Starting as a monologue, the play tries to explore the events that led to Gandhi's murder and the events which follow till Godse's execution as seen from the assassin's point of view.

"We have tried to put Godse's story before the audience in a balanced form without doing injustice to Gandhi and his principles," says playwright Pradip Dalvi.

The applause came from an audience, comprising mainly senior citizens. They may have been witnesses to Partition and their backing of Godse apparently was due to the fact that their generation thought that Partition was uncalled for.

The two-act play, with just ten characters, portrays the circumstances of the assassination and the aftermath.

Godse, who is engaged in a monologue with the audience, starts his story from the moment the cabinet announced Rs 550 million as financial aid to Pakistan and Gandhi broke his fast unto death. At this point, the Hindu Mahasabha activist's patience and tolerance are shown to have ended as he decides to assassinate Gandhi for his perceived inclination towards Pakistan.

"Gandhi now thinks he is larger than the country," Godse says.

'Mahatma Gandhi' makes a 10-minute appearance on stage and sets forth his principles before the audience.

The play portrays Godse as a man with clarity of ideas. He is shown as a scholar, in contrast to the popular belief that he was a maniac. He speaks on a range of topics while in jail, from chess to his death, but never discusses the assassination with his jail-mates.

Dalvi says thorough research was done into the assassin's personality. He was, says the playwright, not just a hot blooded nationalist but a man who had immense foresight, a quality realised through the book Gandhi's Assassination and Me by his brother Gopal Godse, a co-conspirator in the assassination.

The book mentions Godse to have said that, "Fifty years hence there will come a generation who will understand my point of view and there will be a writer who will pen my side of the story effectively."

"That is what we have tried to," Dalvi says. "The scenes and dialogues are based on statements made by Godse in court and to his friends. The dialogues add punch to the play, an effect purely for drama" which is why he gets the applause, he added.

"We have not tried to glorify the act nor are we trying to shatter the icon of Gandhi. We attempted to balance the two sides and show the fight between the two ideologies."

Godse, played by Sharad Ponkshe in the play, was an active participant in the Marathi literary movement and a journalist, and was never ashamed of his act, says Dalvi.

Since no post-mortem was conducted on Gandhi's body, Dalvi says Godse could have gone scot-free. He had been to Birla Bhavan to shoot Gandhi at noon,, but returned when he found the Mahatma alone. There was no one to catch him and hand him over to the law, he said.

The most controversial part of the play is the scene where Gandhi is shot and falls down without muttering 'He Ram'. Godse's character in the play says that Gandhi never uttered anything more than an unclear 'Aaah' when he died and that his followers invented the story. He justifies his statement saying, "How can a man who has deemed all religions to be equal take the name of only Ram when he died?"

The play has already been translated into Gujarati and has received a tremendous response, Dalvi said. When asked if the play had seen the light of the day due to the changed political situation, Dalvi said the play was written five years ago, but he had been fighting a legal battle for two years with the censor board, for clearance.

The board, on the other hand, is reported to have said that the clearance had been granted after proper scrutiny and the play will not be acted against unless a public complaint is received.

"We have the pain of Partition still raw in our hearts and somehow the cheering seems to arise from the bitterness it left in our minds at that time," says Appa Phadnis a member of the audience.

"I have not seen the play nor do I have any intention of seeing it'' was the immediate reaction of Tushar Gandhi, the Mahatma's great-grandson.

He feels the staging of the play is the handiwork of RSS and Hindu Mahasabha activists. He said he did not wish to be part of a group that glorified a murderer like Godse. "The RSS has waited for the right opportunity to stage the play with the right kind of political support behind them." He said he is working in the direction of giving an appropriate answer to the play in his own way. "The cowards did not have the guts to stage the play before," he said, adding that he was speaking with certain people to retaliate in the "right manner."

UNI

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