Nathuram Godse was a Hindu nationalist who is well known for assassinating Mohandas Gandhi.
He lived from 1912 until 1948.
Godse was a devout devotee of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, a
Hindu nationalist whose formulation associated Hindu identity with Indian
patriotism.
The partition of India in 1947, according to Savarkar and
his supporters, was a "vivisection" of Mother India, separating her
into India and Pakistan.
Gandhi's post-partition efforts to protect Indian Muslims
and influence the Indian government's policy toward Pakistan, particularly his
hunger strike to force the Indian government to transfer to Pakistan a large
sum of money that had been promised, enraged Godse, as did many of Savarkar's
followers.
Godse overtook Gandhi on his way to a prayer gathering,
touched his feet as a symbol of respect, and then shot him three times, filled
with the belief that Gandhi had to be stopped.
Godse was prosecuted and hanged for his actions, and he is
sometimes referred to as a martyr by today's most passionate nationalists.
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