The meeting with Golwalkar: What Gandhi really said | The Indian Express

The meeting with Golwalkar: What Gandhi really said | The Indian Express

Written by Rajmohan Gandhi |Updated: April 16, 2019 8:23:31 am

The writer is research professor at Centre for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign.

The meeting with Golwalkar: What Gandhi really said

He was unconvinced by RSS chief after 1947 meeting, stood against majoritarianism

When an RSS worker asked Gandhi if Hinduism did not permit killing an evildoer, he answered: “How could a sinner claim the right to judge or execute another sinner?”

In his article (‘The Mahatma and the Sangh’, IE, April 12), Manmohan Vaidya, the RSS joint general secretary, recalls an interesting meeting that took place in Delhi in 1947 between Mahatma Gandhi and M S Golwalkar, the RSS chief at that time. Citing Golwalkar’s Complete Works, Vaidya quotes remarks about the meeting that Golwalkar evidently made 22 years later, in 1969. Vaidya writes: “On the occasion of the birth centenary of Mahatma Gandhi, a statue of Gandhiji was unveiled by Golwalkar. In his address, he said: ‘. My last meeting with Mahatma ji was in 1947. At that time riots broke in Delhi. Even those who were non-violent by tradition had become cruel, rogue and heartless. Mahatma Ji said to me: ‘See, what is happening?’ I said: ‘This is our misfortune. British used to say when we leave; you people will slit each other’s throats. Today, the same thing is happening. It is bringing disrepute to us in the whole world.’ In the prayer meeting of that day, Gandhijii took my name with pride and expressed my thoughts.”