Godse's ideas of India

The biography of a potently totemic figure for Hindutva busts several long-standing myths

For many people, whatever politics they profess, the name Nathuram Godse may evoke an unsettling sense of strenuously unacknowledged commonalities. Godse nursed an ill-conceived yearning for a Hindu rashtra; also the misconception about Brahmins being intellectual superiors in Indian society; and a feeling of loss and injured pride at the fact of his caste no longer being considered pre-eminent. That might be the common cultural substrate.

At a personal level, however, Godse stands ap­art. He was massively insecure about his masculinity, having been raised as a girl because of his parents’ superstitions. Further, Godse treads the trail of the