K. Jayakumar, former Chief Secretary of the State and Vice Chancellor of Malayalam University, has said that Nathuram Godse, who killed Mahatma Gandhi, was the worst failure of an assassin in the history of mankind.
“He killed Gandhi because of his ideology, which flourished after his death and is still considered relevant”, Mr. Jayakumar said. “It was proven once again that no bullet can kill an ideology”.
Mr. Jayakumar was speaking on “Relevance of Gandhi in the 21st century” organised by the Chavara Cultural Centre here on Monday.
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He sketched life in the 21st century as one of technologically-driven capitalistic growth where nothing other than profit mattered and almost everyone was governed by greed. Widespread violence, commercialisation of health and education and selfishness in general had been accepted as the norm. Besides, anyone who spoke for the environment was dubbed as anti-development conspirator, he said.
Mr. Jayakumar said that Gandhism had the key to most of our problems at a time when all Gods had failed; it is only that Gandhi’s views needed to be interpreted in a way suitable to the time.