Why I killed Gandhi ? Godse's Original words in the court during the proceedingsWhen I was searching for the R'day topics my web search lead me to many interesting subjects. One shock I got is on reading Godse's last official words ... Even the people who had gathered in court room were strongly felt for him. The judge who convicted Nathuram was on record saying that had the public been the jury, Nathuram Godse would have been surely aquitted. - Harish In the pic (L to R) :Nathuram Godse, Narayan Apte and Vishnu KarkareHere is his speach ..." Born in a devotional Brahmin family, I instinctively came to revere Hindu religion, Hindu history and Hindu culture. I had, therefore, been intensely proud of Hinduism as a whole. As I grew up I developed a tendency to free thinking unfettered by any superstitious allegiance to any isms, political or religious. That is why I worked actively for the eradication of untouchability and the caste system based on birth alone. I openly joined anti-caste movements and maintained that all Hindus were of equal status as to rights, social and religious and should be considered high or low on merit alone and not through the accident of birth in a particular caste or profession. I used publicly to take part in organized anti-caste dinners in which thousands of Hindus, Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, Chamars and Bhangis participated. We broke the caste rules and dined in the company of each other. I have read the speeches and writings of Dadabhai Naoroji, Vivekanand, Gokhale, Tilak, along with the books of ancient and modern history of India and some prominent countries like England, France, America and' Russia. Moreover I studied the tenets of Socialism and Marxism. But above all I studied very closely whatever Veer Savarkar and Gandhiji had written and spoken, as to my mind these two ideologies have contributed more to the moulding of the thought and action of the Indian people during the last thirty years or so, than any other single factor has done. All this reading and thinking led me to believe it was my first duty to serve Hindudom and Hindus both as a patriot and as a world citizen. To secure the freedom and to safeguard the just interests of some thirty crores (300 million) of Hindus would automatically constitute the freedom and the well-being of all India, one fifth of human race. This conviction led me naturally to devote myself to the Hindu Sanghtanist ideology and programme, which alone, I came to believe, could win and preserve the national independence of Hindustan, my Motherland, and enable her to render true service to humanity as well.Since the year 1920, that is, after the demise of Lokamanya Tilak, Gandhiji's influence in the Congress first increased and then became supreme. His activities for public awakening were phenomenal in their intensity and were reinforced by the slogan of truth and non-violence which he paraded ostentatiously before the country. No sensible or enlightened person could object to those slogans. In fact there is nothing new or original in them. They are implicit in every constitutional public movement. But it is nothing but a mere dream if you imagine that the bulk of mankind is, or can ever become, capable of scrupulous adherence to these lofty principles in its normal life from day to day. In fact, hunour, duty and love of one's own kith and kin and country might often compel us to disregard non-violence and to use force. I could never conceive that an armed resistance to an aggression is unjust. I would consider it a religious and moral duty to resist and, if possible, to overpower such an enemy by use of force. [In the Ramayana] Rama killed Ravana in a tumultuous fight and relieved Sita. [In the Mahabharata], Krishna killed Kansa to end his wickedness; and Arjuna had to fight and slay quite a number of his friends and relations including the revered Bhishma because the latter was on the side of the aggressor. It is my firm belief that in dubbing Rama, Krishna and Arjuna as guilty of violence, the Mahatma betrayed a total ignorance of the springs of human action. In more recent history, it was the heroic fight put up by Chhatrapati Shivaji that first checked and eventually destroyed the Muslim tyranny in India. It was absolutely essentially for Shivaji to overpower and kill an aggressive Afzal Khan, failing which he would have lost his own life. In condemning history's towering warriors like Shivaji, Rana Pratap and Guru Gobind Singh as misguided patriots, Gandhiji has merely exposed his self-conceit. He was, paradoxical as it may appear, a violent pacifist who brought untold calamities on the country in the name of truth and non-violence, while Rana Pratap, Shivaji and the Guru will remain enshrined in the hearts of their countrymen for ever for the freedom they brought to them.The accumulating provocation of thirty-two years, culminating in his last pro-Muslim fast, at last goaded me to the conclusion that the existence of Gandhi should be brought to an end immediately. Gandhi had done very good in South Africa to uphold the rights and well-being of the Indian community there. But when he finally returned to India he developed a subjective mentality under which he alone was to be the final judge of what was right or wrong. If the country wanted his leadership, it had to accept his infallibility; if it did not, he would stand aloof from the Congress and carry on his own way. Against such an attitude there can be no halfway house. Either Congress had to surrender its will to his and had to be content with playing second fiddle to all his eccentricity, whimsicality, metaphysics and primitive vision, or it had to carry on without him. He alone was the Judge of everyone and every thing; he was the master brain guiding the civil disobedience movement; no other could know the technique of that movement. He alone knew when to begin and when to withdraw it. The movement might succeed or fail, it might bring untold disaster and political reverses but that could make no difference to the Mahatma's infallibility. 'A Satyagrahi can never fail' was his formula for declaring his own infallibility and nobody except himself knew what a Satyagrahi is.Thus, the Mahatma became the judge and jury in his own cause. These childish insanities and obstinacies, coupled with a most severe austerity of life, ceaseless work and lofty character made Gandhi formidable and irresistible. Many people thought that his politics were irrational but they had either to withdraw from the Congress or place their intelligence at his feet to do with as he liked. In a position of such absolute irresponsibility Gandhi was guilty of blunder after blunder, failure after failure, disaster after disaster.Gandhi's pro-Muslim policy is blatantly in his perverse attitude on the question of the national language of India. It is quite obvious that Hindi has the most prior claim to be accepted as the premier language. In the beginning of his career in India, Gandhi gave a great impetus to Hindi but as he found that the Muslims did not like it, he became a champion of what is called Hindustani. Everybody in India knows that there is no language called Hindustani; it has no grammar; it has no vocabulary. It is a mere dialect, it is spoken, but not written. It is a bastard tongue and cross-breed between Hindi and Urdu, and not even the Mahatma's sophistry could make it popular. But in his desire to please the Muslims he insisted that Hindustani alone should be the national language of India. His blind followers, of course, supported him and the so-called hybrid language began to be used. The charm and purity of the Hindi language was to be prostituted to please the Muslims. All his experiments were at the expense of the Hindus. From August 1946 onwards the private armies of the Muslim League began a massacre of the Hindus. The then Viceroy, Lord Wavell, though distressed at what was happening, would not use his powers under the Government of India Act of 1935 to prevent the rape, murder and arson. The Hindu blood began to flow from Bengal to Karachi with some retaliation by the Hindus. The Interim Government formed in September was sabotaged by its Muslim League members right from its inception, but the more they became disloyal and treasonable to the government of which they were a part, the greater was Gandhi's infatuation for them. Lord Wavell had to resign as he could not bring about a settlement and he was succeeded by Lord Mountbatten. King Log was followed by King Stork. The Congress which had boasted of its nationalism and socialism secretly accepted Pakistan literally at the point of the bayonet and abjectly surrendered to Jinnah. India was vivisected and one-third of the Indian territory became foreign land to us from August 15, 1947. Lord Mountbatten came to be described in Congress circles as the greatest Viceroy and Governor-General this country ever had. The official date for handing over power was fixed for June 30, 1948, but Mountbatten with his ruthless surgery gave us a gift of vivisected India ten months in advance. This is what Gandhi had achieved after thirty years of undisputed dictatorship and this is what Congress party calls 'freedom' and 'peaceful transfer of power'. The Hindu-Muslim unity bubble was finally burst and a theocratic state was established with the consent of Nehru and his crowd and they have called 'freedom won by them with sacrifice' - whose sacrifice? When top leaders of Congress, with the consent of Gandhi, divided and tore the country - which we consider a deity of worship - my mind was filled with direful anger. One of the conditions imposed by Gandhi for his breaking of the fast unto death related to the mosques in Delhi occupied by the Hindu refugees. But when Hindus in Pakistan were subjected to violent attacks he did not so much as utter a single word to protest and censure the Pakistan Government or the Muslims concerned. Gandhi was shrewd enough to know that while undertaking a fast unto death, had he imposed for its break some condition on the Muslims in Pakistan, there would have been found hardly any Muslims who could have shown some grief if the fast had ended in his death. It was for this reason that he purposely avoided imposing any condition on the Muslims. He was fully aware of from the experience that Jinnah was not at all perturbed or influenced by his fast and the Muslim League hardly attached any value to the inner voice of Gandhi. Gandhi is being referred to as the Father of the Nation. But if that is so, he had failed his paternal duty inasmuch as he has acted very treacherously to the nation by his consenting to the partitioning of it. I stoutly maintain that Gandhi has failed in his duty. He has proved to be the Father of Pakistan. His inner-voice, his spiritual power and his doctrine of non-violence of which so much is made of, all crumbled before Jinnah's iron will and proved to be powerless. Briefly speaking, I thought to myself and foresaw I shall be totally ruined, and the only thing I could expect from the people would be nothing but hatred and that I shall have lost all my honour, even more valuable than my life, if I were to kill Gandhiji. But at the same time I felt that the Indian politics in the absence of Gandhiji would surely be proved practical, able to retaliate, and would be powerful with armed forces. No doubt, my own future would be totally ruined, but the nation would be saved from the inroads of Pakistan. People may even call me and dub me as devoid of any sense or foolish, but the nation would be free to follow the course founded on the reason which I consider to be necessary for sound nation-building. After having fully considered the question, I took the final decision in the matter, but I did not speak about it to anyone whatsoever. I took courage in both my hands and I did fire the shots at Gandhiji on 30th January 1948, on the prayer-grounds of Birla House. I do say that my shots were fired at the person whose policy and action had brought rack and ruin and destruction to millions of Hindus. There was no legal machinery by which such an offender could be brought to book and for this reason I fired those fatal shots. I bear no ill will towards anyone individually but I do say that I had no respect for the present government owing to their policy which was unfairly favourable towards the Muslims. But at the same time I could clearly see that the policy was entirely due to the presence of Gandhi. I have to say with great regret that Prime Minister Nehru quite forgets that his preachings and deeds are at times at variances with each other when he talks about India as a secular state in season and out of season, because it is significant to note that Nehru has played a leading role in the establishment of the theocratic state of Pakistan, and his job was made easier by Gandhi's persistent policy of appeasement towards the Muslims. I now stand before the court to accept the full share of my responsibility for what I have done and the judge would, of course, pass against me such orders of sentence as may be considered proper. But I would like to add that I do not desire any mercy to be shown to me, nor do I wish that anyone else should beg for mercy on my behalf. My confidence about the moral side of my action has not been shaken even by the criticism levelled against it on all sides. I have no doubt that honest writers of history will weigh my act and find the true value thereof some day in future. "
Psycho History
In 1900, when Jules Verne wrote about submarines and moon travel, it would have seemed unbelievable. Today it is so common. One day, same might be true of Isaac Asimov's ideas regarding space travel, robots and psycho-history. Psycho-history has been one concept that has fascinated me like no other. So in this post I am going to write about psycho history. First let me explain the concept as described by Asimov and then move on to why I think it could be feasible.
Psycho history is a science that mathematically models human history based on the psychology of groups of people. Then this model can be extrapolated to predict the future. He gives an analogy from physics. Whereas the motion of a single molecule can not be predicted, thermodynamics predicts the properties of a gas enclosed in a container, which is actually an aggregate of molecules and the property of the gas is the average of the motion of all the molecules. So the average is predictable. Same is the case with societies. An individual's behavior can not be predicted but the net results arising out of the aggregate behavior of a large group of humans should be predictable. This is what psycho-history seeks to do. For instance, say for a certain event to occur, there needs to be certain type of individuals in the society. It might not be possible to predict who would be those individuals. But given the prevailing social conditions, the number of such individuals can be predictable and they would precipitate the change in the society. Thus society's future can be predicted with the accuracy going down as we go more and more into the future as the prediction regarding the next state is based on the previous state and errors begin to multiply. Similarly higher number of individuals tend to make the model more accurate as is the case with throwing of a fair coin where it is more likely to get 50% heads and 50% tails when the number of throws increases.
Other authors who seem to substantiate this view are Leo Tolstoy, Karl Marx and Plato. Leo Tolstoy in his book 'War and Peace' tries to point out that emergence of Napoleon was inevitable given the social conditions in France. If the individual called Napoleon had not been there, some other individual would have filled that spot in the history. But history would have remained the same. In the words of Shakespeare "All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players". If one player does not play his role, another would play the part but the show would go on. Men many come and men may go but history flows on. Napoleon's actions were not that of an individual but the will of the French nation of that time.
Karl Marx presents similar views in his conception of historic necessity. Plato in his seminal work 'The Republic' explains the four kinds of societies and how one society would lead to another - starting with the rule of the philosopher kings to an armed aristocracy followed by a plutocracy , then a democracy and finally a tyranny. He has said that so many years ago and we can see the evidence today. The time millenniums before Christ was time of philosopher kings with prosperity and civilization flourishing in Greece, India and China where knowledge and wisdom was of prime importance. The Hindu sages of India, The Confucianism philosophers in China and Greek Philosophers are the people we remember from those times. Then came the armed aristocracy with the rise of Macedonian Greece under Alexander the Great, followed by the Romans and then the Christian and Islamic Kings of the Crusades and so on. . Current age is a plutarchy, where money and big corporations rule the roost. There is a joke of the early 90's about George Bush Sr. meeting God and saying I am the president of the most powerful nation. God says come and it to my left. Gorbachev comes and says he is the president of the second most powerful nation. He is asked to it to his left. Then Bill Gates comes. When asked for his credentials, he tells God "You are sitting in my seat". Such is the power of business men. Once can see traces of breaking down of this order and tendency towards a world democracy with emergence of technologies like the internet that empower the individuals. At individual country levels democracy has become the norm. At that level, one can see people getting fed up with the indecisiveness inherent in democracy and one can expect to see dictators emerging in many countries in years to come. I have just touched Plato's idea cursorily. Maybe I shall discuss them in detail in another post.
So much for the evidence from past philosophers. Now we will see what kinds of currently available mathematical tools can help us in establishing this model. Game theory would be pivotal. Game theory can predict the results of interactions of competing entities. For the uninitiated watch out for a post where I present my understanding of game theory. Concepts like genetic algorithms help model more complex situations. Some of the latest concepts like stochastic calculus that are used in attempting to predict movement of stock markets may also find use.
Before I conclude let me return to Asimov and give an example of prediction from one of his books. Consider a small nation having certain minimum military prowess next to a huge country that is bigger than a critical size. One can say with certainty that the small nation is safe. Consider the following cases. The big kingdom is ruled by an emperor and there is a viceroy at the frontier. So viceroy has to take initiative to attack the small kingdom. Consider various possibilities.
Case 1: Weak Emperor, Weak Viceroy - Viceroys need to consolidate their own positions. So they will not go for adventures.
Case 2: Strong emperor, Weak Viceroy - Again Viceroy will not go for adventure as he has to consolidate his own position.
Case 3: Weak Emperor, Strong Viceroy - Viceroy is likely to reap greater gains by focusing his attention on usurping his own kingdom overthrowing the Emperor rather than outside the kingdom
Case 4: Strong Emperor, Strong Viceroy- If the emperor allows such ambitious viceroys to grow his own position would be under threat eventually and he would have never become a strong emperor. So he would have such a viceroy removed.
Now we have a case where Emperor himself leads the attack. That is possible only if big kingdom is less than a critical size. Else while Emperor is fighting at the borders, there can be a rebellion within the kingdom.
And so we have our prediction that a kingdom beyond a particular critical mass can not attack other kingdoms.
Psycho history is a science that mathematically models human history based on the psychology of groups of people. Then this model can be extrapolated to predict the future. He gives an analogy from physics. Whereas the motion of a single molecule can not be predicted, thermodynamics predicts the properties of a gas enclosed in a container, which is actually an aggregate of molecules and the property of the gas is the average of the motion of all the molecules. So the average is predictable. Same is the case with societies. An individual's behavior can not be predicted but the net results arising out of the aggregate behavior of a large group of humans should be predictable. This is what psycho-history seeks to do. For instance, say for a certain event to occur, there needs to be certain type of individuals in the society. It might not be possible to predict who would be those individuals. But given the prevailing social conditions, the number of such individuals can be predictable and they would precipitate the change in the society. Thus society's future can be predicted with the accuracy going down as we go more and more into the future as the prediction regarding the next state is based on the previous state and errors begin to multiply. Similarly higher number of individuals tend to make the model more accurate as is the case with throwing of a fair coin where it is more likely to get 50% heads and 50% tails when the number of throws increases.
Other authors who seem to substantiate this view are Leo Tolstoy, Karl Marx and Plato. Leo Tolstoy in his book 'War and Peace' tries to point out that emergence of Napoleon was inevitable given the social conditions in France. If the individual called Napoleon had not been there, some other individual would have filled that spot in the history. But history would have remained the same. In the words of Shakespeare "All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players". If one player does not play his role, another would play the part but the show would go on. Men many come and men may go but history flows on. Napoleon's actions were not that of an individual but the will of the French nation of that time.
Karl Marx presents similar views in his conception of historic necessity. Plato in his seminal work 'The Republic' explains the four kinds of societies and how one society would lead to another - starting with the rule of the philosopher kings to an armed aristocracy followed by a plutocracy , then a democracy and finally a tyranny. He has said that so many years ago and we can see the evidence today. The time millenniums before Christ was time of philosopher kings with prosperity and civilization flourishing in Greece, India and China where knowledge and wisdom was of prime importance. The Hindu sages of India, The Confucianism philosophers in China and Greek Philosophers are the people we remember from those times. Then came the armed aristocracy with the rise of Macedonian Greece under Alexander the Great, followed by the Romans and then the Christian and Islamic Kings of the Crusades and so on. . Current age is a plutarchy, where money and big corporations rule the roost. There is a joke of the early 90's about George Bush Sr. meeting God and saying I am the president of the most powerful nation. God says come and it to my left. Gorbachev comes and says he is the president of the second most powerful nation. He is asked to it to his left. Then Bill Gates comes. When asked for his credentials, he tells God "You are sitting in my seat". Such is the power of business men. Once can see traces of breaking down of this order and tendency towards a world democracy with emergence of technologies like the internet that empower the individuals. At individual country levels democracy has become the norm. At that level, one can see people getting fed up with the indecisiveness inherent in democracy and one can expect to see dictators emerging in many countries in years to come. I have just touched Plato's idea cursorily. Maybe I shall discuss them in detail in another post.
So much for the evidence from past philosophers. Now we will see what kinds of currently available mathematical tools can help us in establishing this model. Game theory would be pivotal. Game theory can predict the results of interactions of competing entities. For the uninitiated watch out for a post where I present my understanding of game theory. Concepts like genetic algorithms help model more complex situations. Some of the latest concepts like stochastic calculus that are used in attempting to predict movement of stock markets may also find use.
Before I conclude let me return to Asimov and give an example of prediction from one of his books. Consider a small nation having certain minimum military prowess next to a huge country that is bigger than a critical size. One can say with certainty that the small nation is safe. Consider the following cases. The big kingdom is ruled by an emperor and there is a viceroy at the frontier. So viceroy has to take initiative to attack the small kingdom. Consider various possibilities.
Case 1: Weak Emperor, Weak Viceroy - Viceroys need to consolidate their own positions. So they will not go for adventures.
Case 2: Strong emperor, Weak Viceroy - Again Viceroy will not go for adventure as he has to consolidate his own position.
Case 3: Weak Emperor, Strong Viceroy - Viceroy is likely to reap greater gains by focusing his attention on usurping his own kingdom overthrowing the Emperor rather than outside the kingdom
Case 4: Strong Emperor, Strong Viceroy- If the emperor allows such ambitious viceroys to grow his own position would be under threat eventually and he would have never become a strong emperor. So he would have such a viceroy removed.
Now we have a case where Emperor himself leads the attack. That is possible only if big kingdom is less than a critical size. Else while Emperor is fighting at the borders, there can be a rebellion within the kingdom.
And so we have our prediction that a kingdom beyond a particular critical mass can not attack other kingdoms.
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