Nathuram Godse

Nathuram Godse is identified as the man who killed Mahatma Gandhi, and his name briefly alters how the news is received within Saleem’s family. The announcement makes Godse consequential not through a personal appearance or developed biography, but through the political and communal fears his identity releases and the stark disagreement it provokes between Amina and Aadam.

Identification and the announcement

During a film premiere, the projection is interrupted by news that Mahatma Gandhi has been killed in Delhi. The audience reacts with shock, and Hanif warns his sister that if a Muslim committed the killing, there will be danger. For the family, the question of the assassin’s identity is therefore immediately bound to the possibility of reprisals against Muslims.

After two days spent behind the walls of Buckingham Villa, the radio supplies the name Nathuram Godse. The announcement resolves the specific fear that the killer might be Muslim, but it does not undo the killing or the tension created by the news.

A name with opposing meanings

Amina responds to the name with relief: because Godse is not a Muslim name, she believes the family’s immediate danger has eased. In her hurried reasoning, the identity of the killer seems to have protected them. Godse consequently functions in her response as an accidental shield against communal suspicion, not as a figure she praises for the assassination itself.

Aadam rejects that interpretation. He insists that Godse is nothing to be grateful for, refusing to let relief about the family’s exposure to danger turn into gratitude toward the man who killed Gandhi. Their opposing reactions distinguish the immediate logic of self-preservation from a moral judgment of the act.

Narrative role

Godse is present in this episode through a name carried by radio and through the consequences that name has for others. The contrast between Amina’s relief and Aadam’s rebuke shows how a political assassination enters domestic life: the family’s safety feels dependent on the killer’s communal identity, while Aadam insists that this contingency cannot make the killer an object of thanks.