Beyond Doubt:
A Dossier on Gandhi’s Assassination
compiled and introduced by TEESTA SETALVAD
January 2015
9.5 x 6.25 inches
x + 278 pages
Paperback
ISBN: 978-93-82381-50-1
Rs 450
The
assassination of Mahatma Gandhi on 30 January 1948 was a declaration of
war and a statement of intent. For the forces who conspired in the
killing, the act was a declaration of war against the secular,
democratic Indian state and all those who stood to affirm these
principles, as well as an announcement of a lasting commitment to India
as a ‘Hindu Rashtra’. It was also an act to signal the elimination of
all that India’s national movement against imperialism stood for.
Beyond Doubt
is a dossier of historical and critical documents that aims to
contextualize the politics, motivations and circumstances behind the
assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. Attempts to legitimize the act of
killing and to celebrate the killers have re-doubled since May 2014,
following the coming to power of the new regime in New Delhi. The time
is right, therefore, to set the record straight.
The
visceral hatred directed against Gandhi and the denigration of
everything he stood for need to be recounted if we are to understand the
political nature of that dastardly act. This book attempts to
weave together archival documents from Government of India records
relating to developments after the assassination, with translation of
works in Marathi, Gujarati and Hindi de-constructing the ideology
responsible for the political killing. While several of the documents
have appeared before in issues of Communalism Combat, this compilation presents new material on the subject. The first English translation of Jagan Phadnis’s book, Mahatmyache Akher,
forms part of the dossier, as do Y.D. Phadke’s analysis of attempts to
legitimize Gandhi’s killing and Chunibhai Vaidya’s analysis of Pradeep
Dalvi’s play on Godse. It also covers the recent controversy over the
destruction of files relating to Gandhi’s assassination by Government of
India.
Teesta Setalvad is a senior journalist, educationist and activist. She is co-editor of the monthly Communalism Combat,
along with Javed Anand. Setalvad is involved with broadening the
boundaries of history and social studies teaching through KHOJ, a
programme for secular education, and has worked extensively on exclusion
and communalization in school curricula and textbooks. She has analysed
and documented the communalization of India’s law and order machinery,
and the building up of communal conflict in Gujarat, since the early
1990s. Trained also in law, Setalvad was convenor of the Concerned
Citizens Tribunal – Crimes Against Humanity, Gujarat 2002, headed by
Justices V.R. Krishna Iyer,
P.B. Sawant and Hosbet Suresh. She is secretary of Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP), a civil rights group set up by her and other concerned citizens of Mumbai in April 2002.
P.B. Sawant and Hosbet Suresh. She is secretary of Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP), a civil rights group set up by her and other concerned citizens of Mumbai in April 2002.
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Tulika Books, 35 A/1 (ground floor) Shahpur Jat, New Delhi 110 049. Email: tulikadelhi@gmail.com
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