“The First Political Massacre of Chitpavan Brahmins in Independent India”

After hundreds of years of freedom struggle, India got her independence from foreigners in 1947 but it instantly became the slave of a political dynasty. A family which kept trying to enslave it for decades by intimidating its voters and polarizing them at the same time.

Premeditated massacres, riots, and use of state machinery to impose emergency on poor Indians were the tools used by the governments to enslave India and keep ruling for decades.

The first use of state machinery and the guided mob were used in 1948 just after the assassination of Gandhi by Nathuram Godse. The orchestrated cold-blooded killings of Brahmins started in Maharashtra by the Congress workers and local Maratha who took the political advantage of the situation. Along with local Marathas, Jains and Lingayats too joined the mob and destroyed houses and factories owned by Chitpavan Brahmins.

Brahmins were in minority in Maharashtra, but they dominated the area administratively, culturally, economically, and educatively. The Chitpavans were constantly against the Britishers and later they were against the secular and anti-India politics of then Congress government.

Mahadev Rande, Gopal Krishna Gokhle, Lokmanyaya Tilak, Veer Savarkar, etc. were the notable Chitpavan Brahmins and their selfless contribution in the freedom struggle was un-matchable. The Peshawas who spread the Maratha influence outside Maharashtra and establish Maratha empire pan-India were also Chitpavan Brahmins.

In order to eliminate the influence of Chitpavan Brahmins in post-independent India, their massacre was planned. Their killings were orchestrated and the death of Gandhi was used to unleash the mob against them. The hatred against the minority Brahmins was used to gather a vote-bank of other castes and communities.

Addresses of Brahmin houses, shops and factories were pin-pointed and shared with the mob. Within the two hours of the death of Gandhi, planned and simultaneous attacks were unleashed on the Brahmins. The mob was provided with Kerosene canisters, rods, and machetes. Houses, shops, and factories were torched by throwing kerosene-soaked paper and cotton balls at them, women were raped and people were killed for no reason and Brahmins were forced to flee. The barbarity spanned across 300 districts of all 13 Talukas.

The hatred was so intense that the properties of Veer Savarkar were destroyed by the perpetrators and his younger brother Veer Narayan Savarkar was killed by the mob by stone-pelting. The family, which fought for the independence of Hindus was destroyed by the same Hindus. Brahmins who were wealthy migrated to the US and the other countries whereas those who couldn’t afford their escape got located themselves in the different parts of India to save their coming generations.

This massacre was equally intense as the 1984 massacre, but no Indian media ever talked about this. The incident was reported in many foreign newspapers, but Indian media, which was under the influence of then Congress government didn’t mention it.

The unofficial number of deaths in this massacre is above 5000. Thousands of houses were torched in a single night. The voice and pain of those Brahmins were torched forever. They had to flee their own land, they had to leave their dreams behind. For the trillions of times, the death of Gandhi has been used by the Congress government for the votes, but the massacre of those poor Brahmins was never ever discussed. None of them ever got justice. Not a single rioter was sent to jail.

Each year the death of Gandhi is mourned by all the political parties but not a single political leader dares to talk about this massacre because those massacred Chitpavan Brahmins were not a majority and a vote-bank which can help political parties to win elections.