Letters to the Editor: Maharashtra genocide

The aftermath of violence that spread after Mahatma Gandhi's assassination has been kept under wraps for many years due to political reasons, but now it is making gradual waves in the mainstream national discourse. The pains of the violence have been preserved for years. The silencing of voices that followed one of the first large-scale massacres in Independent India accounts for one of the biggest cover-ups in modern India. It is the time that nation should know about the crimes committed against Brahmins of Maharashtra that erupted post the assassination of Gandhi.

Gandhiji was killed by Nathuram Vinayak Godse on January 30, 1948 in New Delhi which sent shock waves across the nation. Godse belonged to a Chittapavan Brahmin family living in Pune. Already some resentment was cultivated by that time, a response to their hegemony of century-year-old rule under the Peshwa dynasty. As soon as the family and caste details were made public, the violence against the Brahmins spread like wildfire across the State with Pune being the epicentre. On the very day, i.e., January 30, as many as 50 Brahmin people were murdered in Pune. The spurt of violence spread to other cities with Nagpur and Vidarbha emerged as hotbeds of violence too. Those who were involved in the massacre, included a large number of Congressmen belonging to the non-Brahmin community, who even were holding different portfolios in district and State level. The media during that manhunt turned a blind eye and State pressure was immense to discourage any recording of the events. That's why the nation doesn't have any recorded evidence of the violence available today. It was only after the journalist Maureen Patterson, who was a British national, wrote decisively about the violence against the Brahmins of Maharashtra in 1948 that people started to talk about it. While the violence started with targeting of people with the surname Godse or the caste of Nathuram Godse, later on it quickly spread across all the caste and sub-caste of Brahmins. Like anti Sikh riots aftermath of assassination of Indira Gandhi the Congressmen too were involved in massacre of Maharashtrian Brahmins after the killing of Mahatma Gandhi. The historians who wrote the earlier history textbooks chose to hide the facts or events where the hands of Congress leaders were stained with blood. They were masters of presenting the case from a different angle or in majority times they hid the topic. The Pandit Nehru Government did injustice to the Brahmin people of Maharashtra.

Julie Bhuyan,

Gaurisagar.

Appeal to APSC

Emulating is good, copying is not. APSC is just copying the UPSC and trying to buy itself a new name, a name which is not tainted with scams and corruption. It has recently released its time table for the CCE (Mains) which is scheduled to be held from February 21 to February 27. These dates are clashing with various Government exams, not to mention the gross violation of APSC's own rule of releasing the admit cards three weeks before the exam. The APSC has fixed February 14 as the date for release of the CCE (Mains) admit cards, just a week shy of the exams. It is good that there is a paper on Ethics from this year and I would recommend that the APSC big guns also take this exam. Taking advantage of the powerless (aspirants) to fulfill their own ego is unethical in administration.

There is still time and I would like to request the APSC to cast a kind eye toward the aspirants and push the exam dates to a more comfortable time. We don't want our bright minds, who want to serve the State, to get de-motivated and look for other options.

An aspirant,

Tezpur