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Pictures by Sujit Jaiswal. Video by Glenda Kwek.

India’s rising tide of Hindu nationalism is an affront to the legacy of Mahatma Gandhi, his great-grandson says, forward of the seventy fifth anniversary of the revered independence hero’s assassination.

Gandhi was shot lifeless at a multi-faith prayer assembly on January 30, 1948, by Nathuram Godse, a spiritual zealot angered by his sufferer’s conciliatory gestures to the nation’s minority Muslim group.

Godse was executed the next 12 months and stays broadly reviled, however writer and social activist Tushar Gandhi, one of many world peace image’s most outstanding descendants, says his views now have a worrying resonance in India.

“That whole philosophy has now captured India and Indian hearts, the ideology of hate, the ideology of polarisation, the ideology of divisions,” he advised AFP at his Mumbai residence.

“For them, it’s very natural that Godse would be their iconic patriot, their idol.”

Tushar, 63, attributes this tectonic shift to the rise of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Modi took workplace in 2014 and Tushar says his authorities is guilty for undermining the secular and multicultural traditions that his namesake sought to guard.

“His success has been built on hate, we must accept that,” Tushar added.

“There is no denying that in his heart, he also knows what he is doing is lighting a fire that will one day consume India itself.”

Today, Gandhi’s murderer is revered by many Hindu nationalists who’ve pushed for a re-evaluation of his determination to homicide a person synonymous with non-violence.

A temple devoted to Godse was constructed close to New Delhi in 2015, the 12 months after Modi’s election, and activists have campaigned to honour him by renaming an Indian metropolis after him.

Godse was a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a still-prominent Hindu far-right group whose members conduct paramilitary drills and prayer conferences.

The RSS has lengthy distanced itself from Godse’s actions however stays a potent drive, founding Modi’s get together a long time in the past to battle for Hindu causes within the political realm.

Modi has repeatedly paid respect to Gandhi’s legacy however has kept away from weighing in on the marketing campaign to rehabilitate his killer.

Tushar stays a fierce protector of his world-famous ancestor’s legacy of “honesty, equality, unity and inclusiveness”.

He has written two books about Gandhi and his spouse Kasturba, repeatedly talks at public occasions in regards to the significance of democracy and has filed authorized motions in India’s prime court docket as a part of efforts to defend the nation’s secular structure.

His Mumbai abode, a post-independence flat in a quiet neighbourhood compound, is dotted with portraits and small statues of his well-known relative together with a miniature spinning wheel — a reference to Gandhi’s credo of self-reliance.

Tushar is anxious however resigned to the prospect of Modi successful one other time period in subsequent 12 months’s elections, an consequence broadly seen as an inevitability given the weak spot of his potential challengers.

“The poison is so deep, and they’re so successful, that I don’t see my ideology triumphing over in India for a long time now,” he says.

“But it fills me with determination to keep fighting.”

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