‘Godse’ expunged, Hemant Godse, Sena MP, asks what about me?

Many have had their books banned, others their movies, but what will you do if your own name figures on a list of “unparliamentary” words?

That’s the “painful and heartrending” question haunting Hemant Godse, Shiv Sena MP from Nashik, who has written to the offices of the Lok Sabha Speaker and Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman, asking them to remove his surname from such a list “with immediate effect”.

In response, officials of the Lok Sabha Secretariat have agreed that the fault of one Godse — Mahatma Gandhi’s assassin Nathuram Godse — cannot be a reason to expunge the word itself from the House, but the Speaker is yet to take a final decision.

The officials, meanwhile, dug into their records to understand the context in which “Godse” was classified as unparliamentary.

“It had happened in April 1956 on the directions of the then Lok Sabha Deputy Speaker Sardar Hukam Singh when the House was debating the States Reorganisation Bill,” a source said.

“Two MPs then had uttered Nathuram Godse’s name in the same breath as some renowned spiritual leaders and this had led to this word being expunged,” he added.

During the last winter session, it was Rajya Sabha Deputy Speaker P J Kurien who pointed this out afresh when CPM’s P Rajeeve raised the Hindu Mahasabha’s plan to install busts of Nathuram Godse in various locations.

“This decision is very painful and heartrending to our community and to me too,” Hemant Godse wrote in January, adding that a large number of people with the same surname live in different parts of Maharashtra.

“As per records of the Honourable Parliament, the word “Godse” has been included among the list of unparliamentary words, which cannot be uttered or used in the hallowed halls of our Parliament. Although I understand the context in which it was originally placed in the list, I wish to bring to your notice that “Godse” is also my ancestral surname. It has a lineage of hundreds of years,” he added.

Wondering how an MP’s surname could be considered unparliamentary, Godse wrote, “It is definitely not my fault that my surname is ‘Godse’ and furthermore, I also cannot and will not change it as it is my ancestral surname.”

Otherwise, the MP added, it would cast “undue aspersion on my surname and that of my ancestors too”.

Source:: Indian Express