A scene from ‘Gandhi Godse: Ek War’
At a time when history is being fictionalized, director Rajkumar Santoshi uses creative license to debunk the rumors that have been circulating for years to invalidate Mahatma Gandhi in the public conscience. From being called a pawn of the empire to fasting falsely, a belief has been created that Gandhi forced the first government of independent India to release Rs 55 crore to Pakistan.
The film states that this instigated Nathuram Godse to kill Gandhi on January 30, 1948. Santoshi revisits the events leading up to Gandhi’s assassination and then jumps to a fictional location where Gandhi survived the three bullets that Godse fired into his chest. communicate with him.
Based on the play by prominent Hindi scholar Asghar Wajahat, the need to provide a platform to Godse and draw a false analogy with Gandhi can be questioned, but as the film progresses, it becomes clear that Gandhi And Godse is just a metaphor. The idea is to start a dialogue on the idea of India which was cut short at the time of partition of the country. Instead of brushing the divide under the carpet of euphemisms, it experiments with bitter truths and seeks a middle ground.
When Gandhi tells Godse that his ideology has weakened both Hindustan and Hinduism and enforced the idea of inclusiveness that has defined India for centuries, he responds to Godse’s supporters who serve vested interests. Majority keep selling fear. When he was accused of appeasement of Muslims, he asked Godse to simply travel around the country to get a sense of the diverse culture he loved to preserve. When a prisoner asks Godse whether he had thrown a stone at the British government before shooting Gandhi, Savarkar’s disciple has no answer.
At a time when Hindutva ideology is seeing a boom, Santoshi, who once brought Bhagat Singh back into the national imagination, denies Godse the pleasure of martyrdom and allows him to flourish. At the same time, he attempts to humanize and critique Gandhi in his parallel universe.
Opposite Richard Attenborough, the film examines Gandhi’s personal space and questions his idea of celibacy where physical love is seen as a disorder and how he inflicts psychological violence on those close to him. He also addresses how Gandhian thought Rule of villagers to some extent would have come in the way of the functioning of the government as he could see the poor and marginalized were yet to be freed. Here is a man who does not allow non-violence to cover up a lack of courage.
It gives space to personalities like Bhimrao Ambedkar with whom he had ideological differences and questions Congress leaders on their decision to convert a movement into a political party. But the bottom line is in the battle of ideas; You don’t silence people with bullets. As Gandhi says, you cannot achieve good by evil means.
Deepak Antani as Gandhi gets Gandhi’s gait and smile right and manages to provide an insight into the mind of the Mahatma. Chinmay Mandlekar is also not bad but gets dramatic at times. However, the supporting cast could not display the depth needed to convey complex ideas and layered characters. Tanisha Santoshi is impressive as the woman whose devotion to Gandhi comes in the way of her love life. In a stroke of genius, Santoshi uses the prayer “Vaishnava Jan To” as a hymn to heartache.
There are certain parts in the film that shudders as Santoshi cannot get rid of the immobility of the drama on screen. The didactic parts and an outdated technique make the film inconsistent, but an important film nonetheless as it seeks a middle ground in an increasingly polarized world.
Gandhi Godse: A War is on in cinemas now