Bharat Bhushan - RSS chief Golwalkar threatened to kill Gandhi - 1947 CID report
The revelations
Delhi police CID
report: On 8 Dec, 1947 Golwalkar said RSS had the means to silence Gandhi
Lucknow CID's letter:
On 1 Dec, 50 RSS men met at Mathura, allegedly discussed assassinating Congress
leaders
More in the story
How did Nehru and
Patel differ on the RSS role in Gandhi's assassination?
Golwalkar's threat
that not a single Muslim will be left in India
The Supreme Court, in
its oral observations, has upbraided Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi for
his statement that "RSS people" killed Mahatma Gandhi. In the apex
court's wisdom, young Rahul Gandhi could not make a "collective denunciation"
of the RSS or the Rashtirya Swayamsewak Sangh. It is a moot point
whether it is for a court of law to give a clean bill of health to the RSS, 68
years after the assassination of the Mahatma.
Two important
questions, however, remain unanswered: Did the RSS threaten to kill Mahatma
Gandhi? And, did the RSS have the capability or the means to do so? Reports available in
the public domain in the Delhi Police Archives say that the RSS did threaten
Gandhi and claimed that it had the means to silence him. These are the secret
source reports of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Delhi Police
for the months preceding Gandhi's assassination.
Here are some extracts
from the verbatim copy of a police report of a crucial RSS meeting where The
threat was made. The CID source is
identified only as "Sewak" (perhaps an impish play on 'sewaks', the
term for RSS volunteers) and filed by Inspector Kartar Singh of the department:
"SEWAK" REPORTS:
"On 8.12.47 about
2500 volunteers of the Sangh collected in their camp on Rohtak Road. After some
drill, MS Golwalkar, the Guru of the Sangh addressed the volunteers. He
explained the principles of the Sangh and said that it was the duty of every
individual to be prepared for facing the coming crisis with full force. Very
soon, they would be placing a complete scheme before them. The time for playing
had gone. ..."
"Referring to the
Government, he said that law could not meet force. We should be prepared for
guerrilla warfare on the lines of the tactics of Shivaji. The Sangh will not
rest content until it had finished Pakistan. If anyone stood in our way we will
have to finish him too, whether it was the Nehru Government or any other
Government. The Sangh could not be won over. They should carry on their
work."
"Referring to
Muslims, he said that no power on earth could keep them in Hindustan. They
shall have to quit this country. Mahatma Gandhi wanted to keep the Muslims in
India so that the Congress may profit by their votes at the time of election.
But by that time not a single Muslim will be left in India. If they were made
to stay here, the responsibility would be the Government's, and the Hindu
community will not be responsible."
"Mahatma Gandhi could
not mislead them any longer. We have the means whereby such men can be
immediately silenced, but it is our tradition not to be inimical to Hindus. If
we are compelled, we will have to resort to that course also."
LETTERS FROM THE
LUCKNOW CID CHIEF
That the government of
the day understood the importance of the secret meeting is evident from letters
to his counterpart in Delhi by GB Wiggins, the Superintendent of Police, CID,
Special Branch, Lucknow, repeatedly asking what had taken place at the meeting
scheduled for 8 December, 1947. Wiggins had first alerted the Delhi police
about the impending meeting based on a report he had received from Mathura.
After two reminders, the Officiating SP of CID Delhi, wrote back, sending him
the report of the Delhi meeting.
The CID report from
Mathura that got Wiggins so deeply worried was about a secret meeting of the
RSS at Gobardhan in Mathura on 1 December, 1947 at the residence of one Antu
Lal Vaish. It was attended by about 50 RSS men from Etah, Aligarh, Delhi and
Mathura. Those present were informed that "a meeting of the delegates from
all over India is to be held in Delhi on or about 8 December 1947 and the
future programme would be chalked out" there.
This source report
also claimed that one of the issues to be discussed at the 8 December meeting
"would be to assassinate leading persons of the Congress in order to
terrorise the public and to get their [RSS'] hold over them" Might one say that
these two reports from Mathura and Delhi in December 1947 constitute a smoking
gun? Not until it can be shown that the RSS had the weapons to carry out the
assassination of Congress leaders.
DID RSS HAVE GUNS?
CID reports indicate
that the police suspected that the RSS was making efforts to procure weapons. A
report classified as "Strictly Secret" dated 13 November 1947
emanating from the Office of Superintendent of Police, CID Delhi, noted
attempts by the RSS workers to suborn policemen on duty at Mori Gate and at
several other places in Delhi regarding a proposed attack on local Muslims.
The RSS workers
boasted to the police "that they had arms of all kinds" and that when
riots broke out the police should not fire on them because they were Hindus!
The reports notes,
"The Policemen did not agree with them, lest action might be taken by the
Government against them." Their argument was that they would be in trouble
if they did not open fire in a riot situation and if they did then some Hindus
were bound to be shot. Interestingly the CID
report notes that the RSS men planning communal violence against Muslims had
"decided that the Sangh workers, in case the riots broke out, would tie
white handkerchiefs on their wrists as a mark of identification"!
This indicates that
RSS workers had access to arms; they were planning violence against Muslims and
were even joining hands with Akali Sikhs to perpetrate it. Another report by CID
Inspector Kartar Singh of Special Branch notes that two life-members of the RSS
- Pyare Lal and Harbans Lal had come to Delhi from Sialkot and then proceeded
to Hardwar and Mussoorie ostensibly to organise the West Punjab refugees. He
wrote to his superiors that he suspected that they had gone to procure arms but
could not confirm it.
Another CID report
indicating procurement of arms is dated 24 November 1947. It notes:
"According to an
unconfirmed news, a couple of volunteers of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh
visited Alwar State ... few days back and purchased about 150 guns in order to
train their volunteers in the use of firearms and at the same time prepare them
for any emergency."
So the RSS either had
weapons or was trying to source weapons for use against Muslims and could use
them against anyone opposed to their ideology. According to an Indian
Express news report dated 6 February, 1948, the revolver that Nathuram
Godse used to kill Mahatma Gandhi was presented to him by an RSS leader in
Nagpur. The CID reports
suggest that there was some truth in what Jawaharlal Nehru said in his letter
of 28 February 1948 to Sardar Patel:
"More and more I
have come to the conlusion that Bapu's murder was not an isolated business but
a part of a much wider campaign organised chiefly by the RSS." He even suggested that
"the Delhi Police has a goodly number of sympathisers with the RSS. It may
not be easy to deal with all of them."
Sardar Patel, however,
gave a clean chit to the RSS in his reply to Nehru, saying, "It also
clearly emerges.. that the RSS was not involved in it [Gandhi's assassination]
at all. It was a fanatical wing of the Hindu Mahasabha directly under [Vinayak
Damodar] Savarkar that [hatched] the conspiracy and saw it through."
Sardar Patel also
noted: "Of course, his assassination was welcomed by those of the RSS and
the Mahasabha who were strongly opposed to his way thinking and his
policy." However he put a
caveat, "In the case of a secret organisation like the RSS which has no
records of membership; no registers; etc. securing of authentic information
whether a particular individual is an active worker or not is rendered a
difficult task."
If the above CID
reports are true, then it's clear that there was an RSS threat to Mahatma
Gandhi's life, coming from an authority as high as RSS chief MG Golwalkar. The
RSS had the means to carry out the assassination and this was allegedly
discussed at the 8 December meeting at Mathura. What cannot be conclusively
established is whether Nathuram Godse's act was related to these incidents or
that he acted on his own.
For facsimiles of documents and newspaper cuttings see:
see also
The Broken Middle (on the 30th anniversary of 1984)
