By IndiaTomorrow.net,
Meerut (Uttar Pradesh), 04 Jan 2015: A group of Gandhians of different age kicked off a campaign in Meerut city of Uttar Pradesh on Saturday to counter attempts of some saffron outfits to set up a temple and buts for Mahatma Gandhi’s assassin Nathuram Godse here and other parts of the country. Named as Gandhi ham sharminda hain (Gandhi, we are ashamed), the campaign will tour around the country.
“We have launched this campaign from Meerut because a few days ago, right wing groups had announced that they would erect Godse’s statues all over the country, starting from Meerut. The fact is, Godse is only a symbol. There is a deep-rooted conspiracy by right-wing groups to brainwash the youth of this country and get them to align with their divisive ideology. We are here to reverse that process,” said former IIT-Delhi professor VK Tripathi who is associated with Khudai Khidmatgar and National Alliance for People’s Movement, the organizers of the campaign.
The tussle between Gandhi and Godse is larger than it appears to be.
“This struggle, ‘Gandhi versus Godse’, is really a fight between the principles of peace and violence, of ‘people versus anti-people’, or ‘all-inclusive versus exclusivist’. We cannot afford silence in such an environment…Powers-that-be have been busy trying to denigrate positive and progressive symbols of modern India, spreading distorted ‘facts’,” said Faisal Khan, convenor of Khudai Khidmatgar.
Members of Khudai Khidmatgar in Meerut, Uttar Pradesh on 03 Jan 2015
The inaugural program of the campaign was held at Gandhi’s statue inside Meerut’s Town Hall park in Meerut. The yatra will cover different parts of the country including Gujarat and will culminate at Delhi’s Rajghat, the mausoleum of Father of the Nation on January 30, Martyrs Day. Gandhi was killed by Godse on the same day in 1948.
On December 24, activists of the Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha reportedly performed bhumi pujan in Meerut for construction of a temple dedicated to Godse. The administration has ordered a probe into the matter.
Sadiq Zafar, one of the campaigners, said: “The reason behind choosing Meerut as the starting point is that some organisations wanted to build here a temple dedicated to Nathuram Godse.” He added that the four-week campaign would also cover states like Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat. In Uttar Pradesh, the campaign would also cover Muzaffarnagar and Farrukhabad.
Major Himanshu of Jal Biradari said the “appreciation” of Godse’s politics — though muted and rare — was “always there. “However, extreme reactionary outfits now feel emboldened to come out in the open with a vengeance,” he said.
