Play ‘glorifying’ Nathuram Godse staged on BHU campus, students file complaint

A play celebrating Mahatma Gandhi's assassin Nathuram Godse at Banaras Hindu University has courted controversy on Wednesday.

A group of students of Banaras Hindu University in Uttar Pradesh wrote to the local police, seeking "strict action" against the organisers of an event on campus that featured an item which, they claimed, "justified the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi".

The play was a part of the three-day cultural festival organised by BHU's Faculty of Arts called Sanskriti 2018.

In the complaint, the students alleged that the performance based on the controversial Marathi play I, Nathuram Godse Speaking, portrayed Mahatma Gandhi in "poor light, held him responsible for Partition, and justified his assassination".

It included a dialogue, "Mujhe garv tha main Hindu hoon. Gandhi ahimsa se hinsa karne lage, Mussalmano ka saath diya, nahi dekha gaya, socha Gandhi ko jaana hoga (I was proud of being a Hindu. Gandhi was violent to the idea of non-violence. He stood for Muslims. I could not see it and decided Gandhi will have to go)." It elicited a big applause from the crowd every time it was said, reports News 18.

The cheers grew louder with "Maine Gandhi ko maara (I killed Gandhi)."

In a letter, the students asked "How did a programme, which hurts the country's constitutional values be allowed? This is indicative of a larger conspiracy. Sentenced to death by the courts, terrorist Godse's glorifying portrayal amounts to hurting the unity and pride of India and this is nothing less than deshdroh. We demand an inquiry into this."

The event hurt the high ideals of the freedom struggle as well as the values of the Constitution and BHU, it added.

OneIndia News