Naturam Godse
...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,...
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