Narayan Dattatraya Apte
Neil Ozman
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Senate/7153/soh.html?mipyh8.html&2
Narayan Dattatraya Apte Ki Jai!
Narayan Dattatraya Apte was born in 1911. His family lived in Poona, and his
father was a well-known historian and Sanskrit scholar. Narayan, the eldest
male child among three sisters and four brothers. He was popularly known as
Nana. Nana's four brothers, Balwant, Vishnu, Madhav, and Manohar, were all
well occupied in their own separate professions.
In 1932 he graduated from Bombay University as a Bachelor of Science. After
obtaining his B.Sc., Degree, Nana accepted a teacher's job at Ahmednagar.
During his stay at Ahmednagar he was married to Shri Phadtare's daughter
named Smt Champa.
At Ahmednagar his innate skill and deep interest in teaching attracted
pupils to the private tuition classes he conducted. He appeared for his B.T.
examination and got his degree.
Endowed with a fair complexion and chiselled features, but with a body
slightly tender-built, the ever smiling Nana was known in his friends circle
to be eminently fitted for a female role.
Faith in and loyalty to Hinduism are seen to be inherent at least in the
cultured families of Maharashtra. So Nana too was nurtured under these
traditional domestic influences.
Nana's organizing ability and skill were fast developing, while his contact
with Nathuram was maturing through the sessions of the Hindu Mahasabha and
gradually both of them came to realise that the other possessed some rare
qualities. So towards the early part of 1944 they both planned to start a
daily, called Agrani'. Nana became the manager of the daily, while Nathuram
its editor. This manager-editor relation of these two was to remain
steadfast till the end.
The Government of the time used to get exasperated with the Hindu Mahasabha
policy of fostering loyalty to Hindutwa amongst the Hindus, because the
Congress Ministries followed the policy of appeasement of the Muslims.
Security deposits were demanded from AgranP in quick succession.
While Gandhiji was staying at Panchagani a group of some twenty-five young
men led by Nana staged a protest against Gandhiji's policies on 22nd July
1944.
Nana planned and executed another such demonstration before Gandhiji when he
was staying in the sweepers' colony in Delhi, with the object of telling him
personally not to make any donation to the Muslims at the cost of the
Hindus, for such a donation was not going to appease them; not to accept the
partition of India; and to learn a lesson from the massacre of the Hindus at
Noakhali. Gandhiji's former pledges had all proved futile and the land had
been vivisected.
Nana Apte had made a separate Will expressing therein, among other things,
the desire to immerse his remains in the Sindhu river, just as Nathuram had
done.
On an occasion Nana said to Gopal Godse, Look, Gopal, from the point of view
of the deceased it is absolutely immaterial how his or her dead body or the
ashes are disposed ofi But the survivors of the deceased are anxious to
honour his or her feelings. We do not have a blind faith in our scriptures.
True, we do customarily immerse our mortal remains into the Ganga. But don't
we regard all the rivers of India, such equally scared? Remember, our death
is of a political -- more particularly of a national character; as such it
is but natural that we should cherish feelings of loyalty to our nation. But
now th.t you have posed this question before us, I must answer it
satisfactorily. There are two sores which constantly rankle in our hearts.
This new-born state of Pakistan is a parasite weed that has grown
rancorously on the land of the Hindus sucking their vital life-stream,'
thundered Nana with passionate indignation. No sooner did it receive the
nourishment of independence and separate existence than it has started
inflicting insults on the rest of India. We have restricted our remark to
things that concern us, because that is our limit. May I ask which of all
the nations of the world has insulted Gandhiji after his death?
Which one?
It's none other than Pakistan! Do you remember the condolence message, sent
by Jinnah?'
Yes quite well. A leader of the Hindus has passed away.
Isn't it a great insult to Gandhiji?
How?
Was it not Jinnah's duty to show gratitude to the man at-least after his
death - who for the whole of his life suppressed the aspirations only to
foster by his connivance and concessions the fissiparous and aggressive
designs of the Muslims in India in the vain hope of bringing about the Hindu
Muslim unity? Had he called - and he did call - Gandhiji to be such a leader
before the birth of Pakistan, it wouldn't have amounted to an insult to him.
For that would have been looked upon as Jinnah's političal ruse to achieve
his end. That is why we earnestly desire that only after the state where
Gandhiji was insulted as a Hindu' is brought under our control with the
whole of the river Indus, the Sindhu, watering the territories under the
sway of
India, should our remains be immersed in it -- the sacred river of ours -
ours from the very hoary past.
Shri Shreeprakash was the then Indian High Commissioner in Pakistan, who
complained with tears in his voice that the Government of Pakistan didn't
allow the immersion of Gandhiji's ashes into the river Indus, But the
immersion of Gandhiji's ashes into the river Indus was purely a matter of
sentiment - and more particularly a matter of Hindu sentiment. How could
they then tolerate the holy water of a holy river in their holy land to be
polluted by the ashes of a Hindu?
We fondly hoped,' continued Nana, that our Government would preserve one urn
containing Gandhiji's ashes to be immersed into the river Indus when it
would be possible for it to do so. But we swallowed that insulting refusal
of Pakistan quite sheepishly.'
Nana had told his wife, Soubhagyavati Champutai, the day before execution
, "If you believe in the immortality of the soul, then you are and will
remain Soubhagyavati even after my death! Move about in the society wearing
your external symbols of your Soubhagya.2 "Soubhagyavati Champutai works as
a teacher in the Kindergarten School conducted by the Rani Lakshmibai Smarak
Mandal.
He was executed on 15, Nov. 1949, at ambala Jail.
For detail about execution, please see "The Execution" section of Shri
Nathuram Vinayak Godse ( Part-II )
Smt. Soubhagyavati Champutai
2 "Soubhagyavati" precedes the name of a married Hindu woman whose husband
is alive.