While the 75th Anniversary of our Freedom was an occasion to celebrate, it has also unleashed a bitter round of legacy wars between the BJP and the Congress. With the BJP playing down Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and his contribution to nation building, the Congress has retaliated with a blitzkrieg of videos, panel discussions and articles on all that Nehru stood for. For good measure, they have added old interviews and footage of Indira Gandhi as well. There is a reason for this. During the Independence Day build up, the BJP had been talking about how Nehru was to be blamed for partition, how Jinnah would never have pushed for partition had Nehru and Gandhiji made him Prime Minister of a united India and so on. If you heard some of the spokespersons on TV the entire blame for the partition was heaped on Nehru’s shoulders while giving him none of the credit for our independence. As the debate raged on during TV studio debates, the Prime Minister did make it a point to mention Nehru during his Red Fort speech while naming all those who fought for India’s Freedom. But those looking for such signs also noted that he did so after mentioning many others including the Right Wing icon, Veer Savarkar. The PM noted that the people of the country are thankful to Bapu, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, Babasehed Ambedkar, Veer Savarkar who gave their lives on the path of duty (“kartavya”).
There is a backstory to this. For long, the right wing academicians and intelligentsia have noted how textbooks and signboards under the Congress rule have focused mainly on the achievements of one family to the exclusion of all the others, except perhaps Mahatma Gandhi. The political implications of course was that this was the narrative that kept Nehru’s descendants in power and electoral relevance. So when PM Modi and Amit Shah talk about waging war against Parivar-vad (dynasty), then it’s not too difficult to see that the focus is primarily around one name and his legacy. There is also an argument that the course correction needed to be done. Why did the country have to wait for a BJP Prime Minister before we saw Sardar Patel & Netaji Subash Chandra Bose being honoured? During the Modi era, we have also seen statues of other forgotten legends such as Justice Mehr Chand Mahajan who was sent by Sardar Patel to Srinagar and got Maharaja Hari Singh to sign the Instrument of Accession to India at a time when the Maharaja was dithering in Pakistan’s favour. Justice Mahajan was also a member of the Radcliffe Commission that was set up to demarcate the border between India and Pakistan. It was he who convinced the Commission to allocate Gurdaspur to India. If Gurdaspur had gone to Pakistan, then there would be no way to reach J&K through India. Last month, the Jammu BJP unveiled a statue in Justice Mehr Chand Mahajan’s honour though one of his sons had been a member of the Congress for a brief spell. Again, it is the Modi government that has earlier released a stamp in Justice Mahajan’s name.
Ditto for Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh a Jat Leader and a freedom fighter who donated part of the land for the Aligarh Muslim University. Raja Mahendra Pratap was a reformer who worked in the field of education and also took part in the freedom struggle. He established India’s first provisional government in Afghanistan (1915). Ignored by the Congress, it was only in 2021 the PM and state CM Yogi Adityanath laid the foundation stone for a school to be named after him in Aligarh.
There are many other regional leaders who have been so honoured by the Modi government. One could argue that there is an electoral agenda behind these moves, but at the same time, one has to concede that these are gestures that are long overdue. If only the Congress had honoured others along with their own dynastic icons. But there is a catch here—while honouring others, the BJP is doing no service to the nation if it continues to pull down the contributions of Jawaharlal Nehru. The party should also caution some of its rabid elements against targeting Gandhiji. Both Nehru and Patel can co-exist in history books. That is the diversity of democracy and that is the legacy that each of our freedom fighters laid down their lives for. Besides, you cannot lay the foundations of a new India by pulling down its very roots.