ABSTRACT
In popular accounts, Gandhi's murder has often been called a martyrdom. The Hindi words for it that come to mind are shahadat and balidaan, but these are, once again, attempts to repress the most uncomfortable aspect of this killing, which are that a Hindu killed Gandhi; that the killer was neither demented nor out of control but perfectly calm, deliberate, and rational; that he was a well-read Brahmin who quoted the scriptures; that he stood for and articulated the anti-Gandhi sentiments of a sizeable section of the population; that the government was negligent in preventing this tragedy; that the specious if elaborate reasoning offered to justify the murder still has adherents; and so on. The repression of the Partition, following Frederic Jameson's argument in The Political Unconscious, signifies not just the failure of the national project as envisaged by Gandhi and his associates, but also the unacknowledged desire for a reunion some time in the future.
