Godse's Gandhi and Gandhi's Truth

Abstract

This essay considers the representation of Gandhi in the detailed statement given to the court by his assassin, Nathuram Godse, in 1948. It discusses how Gandhi was perceived by those who wished to re-create Hinduism as a modern political ideology. Juxtaposing the views of Godse and his political mentor, V. D. Savarkar, with those of Gandhi, the essay focuses on the overdetermined invisibility or illegibility of Gandhi's conceptions of truth, religion, and political community in the discourse of the Hindu right. A bleak realization regarding the contemporary extent of this illegibility drives this essay. While the radically egalitarian potential of Gandhi's language has not been substantively inherited by any significant group in the political sphere today, Godse's language has found many heirs in India as well as in other countries.