Madhya Pradesh editor removed over Nathuram Godse article

Bhopal: The Madhya Pradesh government has removed editor of one of its publications for publishing an article covering Nathuram Godse, the assassin of Mahatma Gandhi.

State public relations minister P.C. Sharma ordered to relieve Manoj Khare of his charges as editor of Madhya Pradesh Sandesh, a monthly Hindi magazine, for publishing the article contributed by Shweta Rani, a research scholar, in its January edition, a senior officer of the department told this newspaper on Wednesday unwilling to be quoted.

The order was issued on February 22 but came to light late on Tuesday evening when the department took initiative to find Mr Khare’s replacement.

The article titled “Mahatma zinda hai” (Mahatma is alive) has apparently sought to analyze the personality of Godse, saying that it was not correct to say that Gandhiji died (assassinated) on January 30,1948, or Godse died (hanged to death) on November 15, 1949.

“Neither of them died. Both exist in our mind. We have to take the decision as to whose ideology we should carry forward- whether of Gandhiji or Godse”, the thought provoking article said.

She extensively quoted the book “Why I killed Gandhi”, authored by Godse’s brother Gopal, in the article while noting that Godse held that Gandhiji had played a key role in partition and tried to stifle interests of Hindus with some particular actions.

That’s why Godse resolved to kill Gandhiji, the article said quoting the book.