In January, a schedule for a theatre festival was circulated on social media, which mentioned that a play named “Godse” would be performed on 30 January 2021, in Varanasi, the prime minister Narendra Modi’s parliamentary constituency in Uttar Pradesh. The festival, called “Benaras Rang Mohatsav,” is organised by the National School of Drama, Varanasi, and Sanskar Bharti, a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh affiliate. Nathuram Godse was a Hindu-supremacist fanatic who killed Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi on 30 January 1948. The inclusion of the “Godse” play in the program invited backlash from civil society in Varanasi.
Critics of the play believed that it would glorify Godse because there have been efforts to portray him in a positive light in recent years and due to Sanskar Bharti’s involvement in the festival. In The Caravan’s January 2020 cover story on “The Apostle of Hate: Historical records expose the lie that Nathuram Godse left the RSS,” the writer Dhirendra N Jha wrote,
“Godse has continued to hold pride of place in the imagination of Hindutva followers, despite the RSS’s attempts to distance itself from him. Prominent office-bearers with affiliations to the Sangh and its political arm, the Bharatiya Janata Party, have often expressed appreciation for Godse. With a former RSS pracharak—full-time worker—Narendra Modi, as the prime minister since 2014, the BJP’s leaders are embracing Godse more openly. The BJP MPs Sakshi Maharaj and Pragya Singh Thakur, the latter an accused in the 2008 Malegaon blasts, have praised Godse multiple times. The BJP government of Uttar Pradesh has proposed renaming Meerut district to ‘Pandit Nathuram Godse Nagar.’”
The play incident is the second controversy surrounding Godse in January 2021. Earlier this month, the Indian Express reported that the Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha, a Hindu nationalist organisation, had opened a library dedicated to Godse at its Gwalior office in the second week of January. Godse was a member of the Hindu Mahasabha. The Gwalior authorities shut it down on 12 January, the report mentioned. “Apart from offering literature on the life and views of Godse, the library was to also hold lectures on Godse’s journey and Mahatma Gandhi’s ‘failure’ to stop the Partition,” the report added.
The Benaras Rang Mohatsav theatre festival has to stage five plays between 27 January and 31 January. Sanskar Bharti being one of the organisers of the festival is one of the reasons that the “Godse” play faced opposition. Jagriti Rahi is a member of the Sanjha Sanskriti Manch, a civil-society organisation. Rahi said that while the organisers said that the Godse play was cancelled, it was suspicious that a play by the same writer and director was still being staged on 30 January. “When this drama is being conducted by an institution like Sanskar Bharati, which is itself the wing of the RSS, you need to understand what all they can they do,” she said. “Our younger generation which is not as familiar with history—they are showing a new history to it, to mislead it.” Rahi told me she is a Gandhian activist. “While the whole world was once being told, ‘We are celebrating Gandhiji’s 150th birth anniversary [in 2019], on the day he was murdered, the person who killed him is being glorified,” she said.
Ram Ji Bali, the director of the National School of Drama, Varanasi, told me that the “Godse” play was never supposed to feature in the schedule. “See, this play never had to be held,” he said. “When we were designing this program, we had many plays, including that play—due to this, there was some miscommunication with the designer. So he thought that this drama is happening, and that pamphlet reached social media. We dismissed this on 24 January itself.” Another play written by Utkarsh Upendra Sahasrabuddhe, the writer of the “Godse” play, is now being scheduled for 30 January. When I asked him for details about the “Godse” play, Sahasrabuddhe said, “We will not give the details and script to anyone.” He added that the script of the play was incomplete.
Critics of the play told me that Sahasrabuddhe and Bali’s explanations about “Godse” did not stand up to scrutiny. Among them was Vijay Vineet, a senior journalist and the former editor of Jansandesh Times, a daily newspaper. Vineet said that the play making it to the festival’s schedule is unlikely to be a mistake. “No festival is decided in a day. It must have been kept, the play’s team must have been contacted. And they must have held rehearsals as well. No drama is made in a day. And nor is it written in a day,” he said. “If you keep a play in Gandhi’s favour, you will name it after him. Why will you name it after a villain?” He termed selecting the play as an “agenda.”
Vineet and Rahi both believed that the play was a part of a larger ideological project. “Gandhiji’s history is being erased, these people are trying for their agenda to be a new history,” Vineet told me. “Their agenda is to dismiss Gandhi and bring Godse forward because he was a Hindutva leader.” He added, “Now the BJP has power, and media bhi inke rang mein rang chuka hai”—the media has also started behaving like them. Vineet pointed out that the media has a responsibility to not glorify criminals. “The country’s soul lies in Varanasi. In a place like that, you are working with this kind of a mindset and promoting it,” he said. “Call it Hinduwaadi, casteism, or whatever—they are trying to establish a new ideology here to give a new colour to politics.” Rahi added, “This is one ideology’s fight with another. These BJP people are afraid of Gandhi’s thinking.”
Bali, however, insisted that the play was never shortlisted to be performed. Sahasrabuddhe told me that the backlash was unfounded and “an issue” was created as no one knew the script of the play. “Those who opposed the play just knew that Godse is the title,” he said. According to Sahasrabuddhe, after the backlash, “the whole programme was going to be cancelled. Then me and my director said that we should postpone it.” The organisers then released a poster saying that Sahasrabuddhe’s team will perform a play titled, “The Infamous Conflict.” Sahasrabuddhe said that his team again faced opposition, and then they decided to perform a play called, “Dukhwa Mein Beetal Rattiya.”
On 28 January, representatives of about five civil-society organisations of Varanasi—Sanjha Sanskriti Manch, Joint Action Committee, Sarv Seva Sangh, Uttar Pradesh Gandhi Nidhi, Lok Manch—wrote a letter and handed it over to Bali and Kaushal Raj Sharma, the district magistrate. In it, they mentioned that they have received some information that in an attempt to show “Godse’s act as correct and make it respectable, a play based on a script of objectionable ideas ‘Godse/The Infamous Conflict’ is being staged” on 30 January. The letter mentioned, “We all want to register our objections and protests to this because Sanskar Bharti may be a private body with a particular ideology, but it is being organised under the auspices of the National School of Drama (NSD).” The letter ended with the statement that if a direction is not given to stop the Godse play, then the five organisations will protest peacefully.