Talk:Nathuram Godse

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[edit] Pro-assasination

Isn't this a little pro-assasination

Removing the references to patriotism and freedom fighter would help, but other than that, I don't see that the article is POV. But perhaps, as I'm not Indian, I'm missing some code words somewhere. Zora 22:56, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Even if this is thought to be pro-assassination, it is important to retain the full text of Godse's speech, without censoring it, to retain authenticity. As one of the many Indian people with mixed feelings about Gandhi and Godse, I believe it is important to remain faithful to the true nature of the events, without attempting to color it with any agenda. Editing Godse's speech or eliminating it would be a serious case of misrepresentation and bias. PD 09:37, 01 Feb 2005

The speech is still retained if it's in Wikisource and there's a link to it. Currently the inclusion of the speech unbalances the entire article. I don't think that we include long speeches in other Wikipedia historical articles. Zora 00:36, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I agree. An encyclopedia article should not quote a source text of this length. The text should be summarised and, if appropriate, commented on, and the full text should be held in WikiSource and linked to in the 'see also' section. --HappyDog 11:14, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Can someone explain the judge's quote?

The article says: "Judge Khosla who presided over the trial mentioned before awarding the death sentence, "If the people sitting in the court had been on the jury, they would have acquitted Nathuram".

This makes no sense to me. Indian culture/history is not something I've studied, so I can't fill in the gaps myself. Did the jury not hear the same things the people sitting in the court heard? And why would the people sitting in the court have acquitted Nathuram? Was it that his explanation of his reasons was a very moving speech? ...and maybe it's not important, but is the Judge implying that the people in the court would be more easily swayed by emotional arguments than he is? - this seems to be the case since he (I assume, rightly?) heard what the people sitting in the court heard, and yet he was ok dishing out a death sentence. Any clarification in the article would be welcome. Thanks. Gronky 00:51, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

I believe that there was no jury, just three judges. And yes, the judge was saying that the people in the court were highly moved by Godse's speech. The quote apparently comes from a book Judge Khosla wrote, called Murder of the Mahatma (ISBN: 0-88253-051-8). If I were to read the whole thing, I suspect that I would find that yes, the Judge felt that the people were swayed by emotion. Possibly they were Hindutva believers, there because their beliefs, and predisposed to approve of the murder.

I will see what I can do with the article. It has been a constant struggle to keep the article NPOV and not let anonymous Hindutvas turn it into a tribute to Godse. They're still arguing that he did the right thing! Zora 01:26, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Major revision

I rewrote and reorganized. I managed to tone down the Godse adulation a bit, but I'm still uncomfortable with the article. It reeks of Hindutva self-justification. The problem is that they are the only ones who pay much attention to this article. I have a feeling other Indians would much rather forget Godse. Zora 09:19, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Removed temporarily the line added by Imc about Apte and G.Godse because it is incorrect in the current form. They weren't the only ones. There were some 8-10 accused of whom only Savarkar and Shankar Kistiya (servant of Digambar Badge) (and perhaps Badge as well) were released. Vishnu Karkare and Gopal Godse got life imprisonments; Apte was hanged; Dattratreya Parchure, Madanlal Pahwa etc got different sentences.

Can someone complete it and add it back. Tintin Talk 12:56, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Slight POV view?

I was just reading through this article, and one paragraph just caught my attention...

In 1951, the Hindu nationalists created a political wing, the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, which became the Bharatiya Janata Party or BJP, in 1980. Through adroit exploitation of issues such as Ayodhya, the BJP finally won national power. It was the party in power briefly in 1996, and then again from 1998 to 2004, when it was displaced by a revived Congress party.

Isn't that a tad POV?, I mean I personally don't support either the BJP or the Congress for that matter (not really relevant actually), but surely you can't reduce its policies or the reasons for its reaching power to just those mentioned like Ayodhya?

I'd just like to hear what others who have edited this page feel, before making a change like a rephrasing of the paragraph. Regards Kaushik twin 16:12, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Rephrase, if you wish. I think that's my dislike of the BJP and its handling of Ayodhya/Babri Mosque issues seeping into the article. Zora 20:07, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Chitapavan Brahmins

what makes you say that the konkanasthas are particularly well known for their conservatism??... "He was a Marathi Chitpavan Brahmin - a community known for its social conservatism". I think this sentence is suggestive and airs the writers own personal point of view. It certainly should be mentioned that Godse was a Chitapavan Brahmin but I think the rest of the sentence should be deleted in order to adhere to NPOV There are many liberal chitapavan brahmins...and there is no method of quantifying the degree of conservatism within a particular community.(Saurabhb 21:55, 3 January 2006 (UTC))

[edit] Ambala prison, Chandigarh?

The box in the article says he died in Ambala prison, Chandigarh. There may have been such a prison then, at the spot where Chandigarh is now. But I suspect Ambala prison is in Ambala which is now in Haryana and at that time would have been in (East) Punjab. Imc 23:32, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] deeptrivia's revert

Deeptrivia, you reverted to an old version of the article. I do think that I re-organized it so that it flowed more easily, instead of being a fractured collection of factoids. Also, you restored the description of Godse as a "freedom fighter". That's POV. I don't think we can endorse one side of the independence struggle. Zora 00:02, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Sure, sorry about that! deeptrivia (talk) 00:12, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

All is forgiven! Come home and we will kill the fatted tofu for you. Zora 00:23, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Goatse?

Is there any relation to goatse?—Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.35.148.201 (talk • contribs)

What do you think? --AW 22:33, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 4th Standard - countering systemic bias.

quote from the article: "Nathuram attended the local school at Baramati up through the fourth standard."

'Fourth standard'? This is not clearly defined in the article. Needs clarification by someone who is familiar with the Indian education system.

→ P.MacUidhir (t) (c) 08:14, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, I don't understand this term either --AW 22:32, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] text on infobox

trying to remove "[[Image:{{{image_name}}}|none|200px| ]]" from infobox (Saurabhb)

Why Godse's image is removed? 'Was he a bad man or Not', that is not a question here. We read Wikipedia to get "Information" and Not "Opinions" San25872 07:42, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Apparently there was no copyright information on the picture. If you can find a public domain picture of Godse that we can use, please upload it! Zora 07:48, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removed one recently added section

A grandson of someone who was present at the assassination was in the news recently, talking about the event as recounted by his grandfather. This may have been in the news, but it's not good history. We have enough eyewitness statements, recorded at the time, that we don't need someone's version of what his aged grandfather told him. So I removed that section. It's not a reliable source. Zora 06:40, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

This is not a valid reason for removal, especially as it was properly referenced. The section could have been rewritten and incorporated properly into the article, but this whole sale deletion is removing content from Wikipedia and thus irresponsible. I'm going to revert your edit later and then work out a way of incorporating the information into the article.

In future, please try to think of valid reasons for removing content beyond personal preferences. Ekantik ^talk 18:25, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Ekantik, do you have any academic training in history? Do you understand what a reliable source is? Second hand reminiscences are junk compared to first-hand impressions recorded at the time. Just because something got some recent media play (because the media is ignorant of history) is no justification for considering it a useful historical source. Zora 20:05, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

No, I just go to university for the heck of it. How many times do I have to go through this with you? Employing a quote (from someone else) on my own userpage:

“

Encyclopedia. Say it with me: en-cy-clo-pe-di-a. Now, go work on it.

”

Reliable sources → WP:RS. "Academic training in history" has nothing to do with the way an encyclopaedia is formulated, except maybe at Wikiversity. Is this a history textbook or an encyclopaedia? If you want to go ahead and be an exclusionist that's fine with me (although I strongly disapprove), but if you'd bothered to read my comment properly, I said that the information is useful to be retained if it is rewritten properly to fit within the scope of this article. I agree that the article in question is not an ideal source, but there is plenty more in the article that can be used. Fact is, you removed content that was properly referenced without a valid reason: This is not about what you think should be in an encyclopaedia, it is about what should be in an encyclopaedia.

I'd highly appreciate it if you refrained from making patronising/personal remarks in the future, limiting your discussion to the topic only. Thanks, Ekantik ^talk 23:56, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

That bit would be useful ONLY if there were dozens of other quotes from eyewitnesses. Putting that man's family-glorifying remarks about his famous grandfather on the page as if it were the only useful commentary on the event is a distortion. If you want to set up a section of links to "Current media commentary on the assassination" and put it there, along with links to other essays, that would be OK. Featuring it in the body of the article is giving it way too much importance. Zora 03:12, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

OK, whatever. I'll agree just to keep the peace. :) Ekantik ^talk 05:07, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] POV,Much?

Just a smidgen don't ya think? --Axe27 16:49, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Removed it. --Kamden 19:11, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Please be Objective. This is wikipedia.

Three things.

1 This is Wikipedia, wherein we try to put whatever info is available about a person/event in as much an objective manner as possible without drawing any inferences out of the info available. Let the reader arrive at his/her own conclusions. The page is filled up with content heavy with personal prejudices. Please abstain from doing that. It applies for the talk page as well.

2 Let me know if anybody is actively looking after this article so that we could add citations at places where it is required. I do have the requisite material. Would be glad to help him/her out.

3 Article 3.2 seems to be a tad too short & devoid of the all the info expected for such an important event. Would like to enhance it with some more info that is available. Case in point:

http://www.httabloid.com/news/181_1919124,00300002.htm

http://www.india-today.com/itoday/03081998/cover2.html

Please let me know your views on the same.

Kunal.--Kunalpathak13 14:35, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Goadse pretended to be a muslim ?

The source cited is a communist rag and the article referenced isn't about Gandhi or Godse. It is about the caste system, and Goadse is mentioned briefly as a Brahmin troublemaker.

You only need to look up Godse's court testimony, which was heavily suppressed until recently, to see that this is just an urban legend. There are several translations from Marathi to English (each has its own biased vocabulary) of Godse's testimony but they all clearly show that Godse clearly identified himself as a hindu.

A fairly mainstream translation used in Indian colleges is...

Why I Assassinated Mahatma Gandhi (Surya Bharti Prakashan, Delhi, 1993)

But I don't know how to cite things on this website so I will leave that to someone else