Now, top Gujarat "litterateur" close to Modi says: Godse was patriot, so was Gandhi

Vishnu Pandya

A little over a week after Prime Minister Narendra Modi criticized BJP candidate from Bhopal Pragya Thakur for calling Nathuram Godse a patriot saying he would never forgive her for the remark, a top Sangh Parivar ideologue, known to close to Modi in Gujarat, has supported her, saying her statement should be seen “within a context.” Thakur won from Bhopal by more than 3.5 lakh votes defeating her nearest rival, veteran Congressman and ex-Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijay Singh.
Participating in a debate on GSTV (starting 11 minutes), Vishnu Pandya, who is currently president of the Gujarat Sahitya Akademi and is known to be an incisive Sangh historian, said that “Godse was a patriot, and so was Gandhi”. He was answering a query from another participant in the debate, Rajesh Thaker, a keen Gujarati analyst, who regretted that the likes of Pragya Thakur had won, even though they considered Godse a patriot.
Criticising Thaker, Pandya, a Padma Shree awardee, said, one should understand why Thakur, who had called Godse a patriot, won. “I think she should have won, and she has won. All right, she is on bail, and so is Sonia Gandhi… But basically things reached such a point where a lady, who had cancer, was badly abused… Isn’t that a human rights issue?”

Justifying Thakur’s candidature, Pandya added, she was rightly asked to contest, as there was an “all around there was talk of saffron terror, Hindu terror… Hindus cannot be terrorists, they are by nature tolerant.”

Listen to Pandya speaking 12 minutes onwards here:

Calling her an “ordinary woman, a saint, who would be reciting bhajans”, Pandya said, nobody it talking about the type of choicest abuses hurled on her. “As for her remark that Godse was a patriot, I dare say he was, and so was Gandhi. Only their ways were different. There is a need to look at things in a context”, he said on the live debate.

Referring to the “context”, though without offering any sources, Pandya said, “If Godse killed Gandhi, then in the name of Gandhi, in Maharashtra, 8,000 people, too, were also killed”. Pandya wondered why nobody talks about this. One of victims, added Pandya, was Pandit Satavalekar, was forced to migrate to Gujarat, from Nasik, he lived in Pardi, as “his library was burned down… Hence, If you want to see events (about the murder of Gandhi) you must look at them in totality.”

Sharply criticizing Pandya for his “Godse a patriot” remark, Thaker commented in a Facebook post that the “well-known" political analyst’s view was shocking, and it became finally clear that the recent Modi victory suggested “it is not opposition but also Gandhi who has been defeated.” Calling Pandya as one of the “beneficiaries” of being part of the Sangh Parivar, Thaker added, Pandya made the remark knowing fully well that Modi would not take back the Padma Shree awarded to him for his “Godse was patriot” remark.
Uttambhai Parmar, a Gandhian activist from South Gujarat, heading the Kim Education Society, commented, what is particularly significant is that “the comment on Godse – who killed the Father of the Nation, the man who brought freedom to India – comes from a person who happens to be heading the Gujarat Sahitya Akademi."

Godse, Pragya Thakur

Known for his closeness to Modi, post-2002 Gujarat riots, Pandya was instrumental in providing major inputs on how and what to highlight in Indian history in order to show BJP in good light. One of the inputs was on Gujarat militant nationalist Shyamji Krishna Varma, a freedom fighter who spent his last days in Europe. Pandya wrote a volume on Varma, following which, in 2003, Modi made a major spectacle out of Varma's "contributions", bringing his ashes from Geneva, criticizing the Congress for forgetting "revolutionaries" like him.
Interestingly, Pandya, who once edited RSS mouthpiece "Sadhana", was praised in 2014, among others, by a People's Union of Civil Liberties (Gujarat) book for his "fearless" journalism. Three years later felicitated by the Gujarat Media Club during an annual meet for his "contributions", this is not for the first time that he has insisted on the need to look at Godse “within a context.”
In a Facebook comment in 2017, Pandya praised what he called a “thought provoking and real informative article by Kavita Kavi”, congratulating her for saying that there are a large number of facts about Godse’s act of killing Gandhi which people are not aware of, and they should be told – things like why Godse shot only Gandhi and not the two women who had accompanied her on the fateful day.
---
A version of this article has been published in The Wire

Comments

The soundtrack of resistance: How 'Sada Sada Ya Nabi' is fueling the Iran war

By Syed Ali Mujtaba* The Persian track “ Sada Sada Ya Nabi ye ” by Hossein Sotoodeh has taken the world by storm. This viral media has cut across linguistic barriers to achieve cult status, reaching over 10 million views. The electrifying music and passionate rendition by the Iranian singer have resonated across the globe, particularly as the high-intensity military conflict involving Iran entered its second month in March 2026.

Kolkata dialogue flags policy and finance deficit in wetland sustainability

By A Representative Wetlands were the focus of India–Germany climate talks in Kolkata, where experts from government, business, and civil society stressed both their ecological importance and the urgent need for stronger conservation frameworks.

Beyond Lata: How Asha Bhosle redefined the female voice with her underrated versatility

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* The news of iconic Asha Bhosle’s ‘untimely’ demise has shocked music lovers across the country. Asha Tai was 92 years young. Normally, people celebrate a passing at this age, but Asha Bhosle—much like another legend, Dev Anand—never made us feel she was growing old. She was perhaps the most versatile artist in Bombay cinema. Hailing from a family devoted to music, Asha’s journey to success and fame was not easy. Her elder sister, Lata Mangeshkar, had already become the voice of women in cinema, and most contemporaries like Shamshad Begum, Suraiya, and Noor Jehan had slowly faded into oblivion. Frankly, there was no second or third to Lata Mangeshkar; she became the first—and perhaps the only—choice for music directors and all those who mattered in filmmaking. Asha started her musical journey at age 10 with a Marathi film, but her first break in Hindustani cinema came with the film "Chunariya" (1948). Though she was not the first choice of ...

Lata Mangeshkar, a Dalit from Devdasi family, 'refused to sing a song' about Ambedkar

By Pramod Ranjan* An artist is known and respected for her art. But she is equally, or even more so known and respected for her social concerns. An artist's social concerns or in other words, her worldview, give a direction and purpose to her art. History remembers only such artists whose social concerns are deep, reasoned and of durable importance. Lata Mangeshkar (28 September 1929 – 6 February 2022) was a celebrated playback singer of the Hindi film industry. She was the uncrowned queen of Indian music for over seven decades. Her popularity was unmatched. Her songs were heard and admired not only in India but also in Pakistan, Bangladesh and many other South Asian countries. In this article, we will focus on her social concerns. Lata lived for 92 long years. Music ran in her blood. Her father also belonged to the world of music. Her two sisters, Asha Bhonsle and Usha Mangeshkar, are well-known singers. Lata might have been born in Indore but the blood of a famous Devdasi family...

Maoist activity in India: Weakening structures, 'shifts' in leadership, strategy and ideology

By Harsh Thakor* Recent statements by government representatives have suggested that Maoism in India has been effectively eliminated, citing the weakening of central leadership and intensified security operations. These claims follow sustained counterinsurgency efforts across key regions, including central and eastern India. However, available information from security agencies and independent observers indicates that while the organizational structure of the CPI (Maoist) has been significantly disrupted, elements of the movement remain active. Reports acknowledge the continued presence of cadres in certain forested regions such as Bastar and parts of Dandakaranya, alongside smaller, decentralized units adapting their operational strategies.

46% own nothing, 1% own 18%: The truth about India’s land inequality

By Vikas Meshram * “Agriculture is the backbone of India” — this is what we have been hearing for generations. But there is a pain hollowing out this backbone from within: the unequal distribution of land. On one hand, news of farmer suicides, indebtedness, and rural migration keeps coming; on the other, agricultural land across the country continues to concentrate in the hands of a few wealthy individuals.

From Manesar to Noida: Workers take to streets for bread, media looks away

By Sunil Kumar* Across several states in India, a workers’ movement is gathering momentum. This is not a movement born of luxury or ambition, nor a demand for power-sharing within the state. At its core lies a stark and basic plea: the right to survive with dignity—adequate food, and wages sufficient to afford it.

US study links ultra-processed diets to preterm birth, sparks concern in India

By Jag Jivan A growing body of scientific evidence linking ultra-processed food (UPF) consumption during pregnancy to adverse maternal and neonatal outcomes has sparked fresh concern among public health experts, with Indian nutrition advocates warning of serious implications for the country’s already strained maternal health landscape.

Midnight weeping: The sociology of tragic vision in Badri Narayan’s poetry

By Ravi Ranjan* Badri Narayan, a distinguished Hindi poet and social scientist, occupies a unique position in contemporary Indian intellectual life by bridging the worlds of creative literature and critical social inquiry. His poetic journey began significantly with the 1993 collection 'Saca Sune Hue Kaï Dina Hue' (Truth Heard Many Days Ago). As a social historian and cultural anthropologist, Narayan pioneered a methodological shift away from elite archives toward the oral traditions and folk myths of marginalized communities. He eventually legitimized "folk-ethnography" as a rigorous academic discipline during his tenure as Director of the G.B. Pant Social Science Institute.

Search This Blog