Nathuram Godse

I did want to touch on Father and the Assassin because it was a story that I was so unfamiliar with.

I knew so little about Gandhi and even less about Godse.

When you were reading the script yourself, what was sort of like your first reaction to it? And how did you feel about getting the offer to play Gandhi's assassin?

oh my man it was like i could yeah i couldn't believe it i was like what really um but it was a dream come true man on one level just the sort of actor in me getting the chance to play the lead of the olivier the national i was like it's sort of as good as it gets and um the the play in itself came at a time when What was happening in India and the world, the sort of like the tide swaying to the right towards extremist nationalism and all of that was sort of starting to happen and was quite worrying.

And they were happy to use the term terrorism for themselves, which, of course, has pejorative connotations today.

But my thinking there, when everything that was happening in Delhi was happening, is that actually when it comes to means, which is something that Gandhi would have given paramount importance to, Bhagat Singh is closer to Godse than to

Gandhi.

Yes and no.

Yes, in that Bhagat Singh also exalted violence.

But you must remember, Bhagat Singh was very young, in his early 20s.

You know, Godse was in his late 30s when he killed.

At Bhagat Singh, I think what the students knew from Bhagat Singh was the idealism and the fearlessness.

Um, the Viceroy Lord Linlithgow wrote to Churchill that Gandhi was a humbug, and the day he died, it's very interesting, uh, to, to read what Noel Coward said.

Noel Coward said, um, uh, having heard of Gandhi's assassination, he said, "In my opinion, a bloody good thing, but far too late." But today what has happened, um, Gandhi has become a symbol.

Um, Nelson Mandela said he was inspired by Gandhi.

Martin Luther King's Civil Rights Movement, um, um, uh, was inspired by Gandhi.

Brinda Karat really expanded on it.

She pointed out that Nathuram Godse assassinated Gandhi.

And she essentially accused the current power structure of harboring that exact ideology, claiming they are murdering democracy through vote theft.

And the slogans they were chanting were incredibly pointed to.

The methods and motivations behind political assassinations differ markedly between democracies and authoritarian regimes, shaped by the respective political landscapes, levels of control, and the intended messages to both domestic and international audiences.

Nathuram Godse, a former member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and a member of the Hindu Mahasabha, believed that eliminating Gandhi would protect Hindu interests and preserve what he considered the rightful Hindu dominance in India.

But an idea is something which is not so easily killed.

The cause of the First World War that everyone points to is the assassination of Franz Ferdinand by a Serbian nationalist called Gavrilo Princip.