Anirban Ganguly
The Congress party through Anand Sharma made a puerile statement on Friday 19th August, regarding the BJP, Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS), RSS and the freedom movement. The statement was puerile because it had either emanated from a shallow trawling of the internet by some callow researcher in Anand Sharma’s office or perhaps it was the result of some so-called research done by the Congress Vice-President’s office which, of late, increasingly resembles a crèche.
The Congress was particularly peeved at Prime Minister Modi’s observation, that post-independence, the workers of the BJS had to swim against a strong adverse tide, and face difficulties which were often more excruciating than those faced by Congressmen during the freedom movement.
Prime Minister’s reference was mainly in the context of BJS and BJP’s long struggle against decades of state sponsored ideology before emerging as a popular choice. In that era of a dominant state sponsored ideology the Congress, in cahoots with the Left, did everything in its power to exclude all alternate narratives and viewpoints. It was, swimming against this rough and high tide of political intolerance that BJS and then BJP eventually succeeded in striking deep roots and in ultimately emerging with a resounding electoral mandate.
We have always argued that the Congress party was never cerebrally strong and had outsourced a lot of its intellectualism – if at all it had any – to patronized historians and intellectuals from the Marxist fold. Anand Sharma’s press comment this 19th August, was actually a reflection of how disastrous that intellectual outsourcing can be. Thus a refresher for the depleting memories of uninitiated Congress leaders may be useful here. Some points to dispel the propaganda of falsehood that they have churned out follows:
Anand Sharma must remember that the Congress party to which he belongs is the Congress (Indira) and not the original Congress which, as a platform of diverse political opinion and views, spearheaded the freedom struggle. That Congress wasted away after independence, especially after Sardar Patel’s death, and finally ceased to exist in 1969. The present Congress party calling itself the Indian National Congress is thus a travesty of historical facts.
The Congress was never a party it was rather a vehicle for various political opinions to come together to fight for India’s independence. Anand Sharma’s poor knowledge of the freedom struggle and modern India’s history was reflected in his statement. It must have been surely drafted by communist historians who are on the payroll of the Congress party.
It is common and historically supported knowledge that Dr. K.B.Hegdewar, founder of the RSS, was actively involved with the Anushilan group of revolutionary nationalists in his days in Kolkata in the early part of the last century. Dr. Hedgewar continued to be actively associated with the Congress, with the freedom struggle and was jailed twice. In a sense, Hedgewar’s political career spanned from 1905 and ended with his death in 1940. Between 1905 and 1918 he followed Tilak’s political line. The legendary revolutionary Pandurang’s Khankhoje, (1884-1967) once wrote of this period, “Hegdgewar and the other young men were in the forefront of Swadeshi propaganda and delivered speeches”.
On joining the Medical College in Calcutta in 1910 Dr. Hedgewar became an active member of the “Anushilan Samiti”. These dimensions of Hedgewar’s life too are well documented by other revolutionaries and participants who were not members of the RSS!
Veteran Communist leader late E.M.S. Namboodiripad (in his booklet `BJP-RSS: in the service of the Right Reaction’) accepts that “Dr.Hedgewar, the founder of the RSS” was a “nationalist who participated in the Gandhi led movement, [and] continued to be a Congressman for a decade more and participated in the 1930 Salt Satyagrah”.
Dr. Hegdewar had unequivocally declared that “there is no politics for a dependent nation other than the politics of freedom struggle. It is a sine qua non for it”. He responded to Mahatma Gandhi’s call for civil Disobedience and along with others plunged into the movement.
The second phase of Dr. Hedgewar’s political career began with his active participation in the Amritsar Congress in 1919 and soon he was elected the secretary of the Central Provinces Congress Committee. He plunged again into the non-cooperation movement with great vigour and was sentenced to one year rigorous imprisonment on August 21, 1921.
Displaying his ignorance, Anand Sharma said that the Jana Sangh and BJP did not participate in the freedom movement. Jana Sangh & BJP could not have participated in the freedom movement because they were founded after independence. The former, was founded, to provide an alternative to the increasingly dictatorial Congress under Nehru and the latter to prevent anymore desecration of India’s democracy by the fascist Congress under Indira Gandhi which had suspended all democratic rights between 1975 and 1977.
His statement on 5th August 1921 in court is worth remembering, perhaps Anand Sharma and his Congress Vice-President may try to learn it by heart, it has very inspiring and useful pointers for inculcating the spirit of nationalism and freedom. “It has been charged”, began Hedgewar, “that my speeches [delivered in course of the non-cooperation movement] have spread discontent, hatred, feelings of sedition towards the British Empire in the minds of Indians and sown seeds of enmity between Indians and Europeans. And I have been asked to explain. I consider it an affront to the dignity of my great country that a foreign government should subject a native Indian to inquiry and sit in judgment. I do not recognize that there exists in India today any lawfully established government. It will be surprising if anybody should claim so. What obtains today is a regime of usurped authority and repressive rule deriving power therefrom. The present laws and courts are but handmaids of this unauthorized regime. In any part of the world it is only a government of the people constituted for the people that is entitled to administer law. All the other forms of rules are but ruses adopted by deceitful usurpers to loot helpless nations. What I tried to do was to inspire in the hearts of my countrymen an attitude of reverential solicitude for their motherland which at the moment happens to be in a wretched condition. I tried to instill in the people the conviction that India belongs to Indians. If an Indian speaking for his country and spreading the nationalist feeling is regarded as committing sedition, if he cannot speak the truth without promoting hatred between Indians and Europeans, Europeans and those claiming to be the Indian government would do well to bear in mind that the day is not far off when foreigners will be forced to quit this country.” The judge passing delivering the judgment remarked that his defence was “more seditious than his speech”.
In fact Dr. Hedgewar’s vision for declaring complete Independence saw its fruition with the Congress’s decision to observe Jan 26, 1930 as Independence Day. His letter to RSS Shakhas on the occasion reads, “This year the Congress has passed a resolution declaring complete Independence as its goal. The Congress Working Committee has called upon the entire nation to celebrate Sunday the 26th January 1930 as Independence Day. We of the Sangh are naturally immensely happy that the All India Congress has endorsed our goal of Complete Independence…It is therefore suggested that all Swayamsevaks of each Shakha meet at 6 p.m. on Sunday, 26th January 1930, at the respective Sanghatans. After offering salutation to the National Flag, i.e. the Bhagwa Dhwaj, the concept of Independence and the reason why this ideal alone should be kept before every one should be explained. The function should conclude with an expression of congratulations to the Congress for having accepted the ideal of Complete Independence.”
Swayamsevaks in large numbers and Dr. Hedgewar himself participated in the Salt Satyagraha. For Dr. Hedgewar, as he said on the eve of his participation in the Salt Satyagraha, “Preparedness to lay down one’s life for the country is the essence of such lasting patriotism [and] the present fate of the country [could not] be changed unless lakhs of young men dedicate their entire lifetime for that cause. To mould the minds of our youth towards that end [was] the supreme end of the Sangh.” He was also arrested in Yavatmal for breaking the “Forest Law” while participating in the “Jungle Satyagraha” under Loknayak M.S.Aney and was interned for nine months.
Displaying his ignorance, Anand Sharma said that the Jana Sangh and BJP did not participate in the freedom movement. Jana Sangh & BJP could not have participated in the freedom movement because they were founded after independence. The former, was founded, to provide an alternative to the increasingly dictatorial Congress under Nehru and the latter to prevent anymore desecration of India’s democracy by the fascist Congress under Indira Gandhi which had suspended all democratic rights between 1975 and 1977.
It is common historical knowledge that during the Quit India movement a large number of Congressmen continued their political struggle and existence under the umbrella of the RSS. A large number of RSS Swayamsevaks were, in fact, part of the Congress and were active throughout the Quit India movement. The Hindu Mahasabha too had become the umbrella under which a large number of Congress volunteers and workers continued the struggle.
It is the Congress party’s eternal political bedfellows the Communists, who had in fact collaborated with the British during Quit India, with the aim of containing the movement and getting revolutionaries arrested. A large number of files exists which show how Indian Communists were patronized by the British and worked to sabotage the movement. It is only a party as shameless as the Congress that has, till date, repeatedly aligned itself with the Communist parties in India.
It was Savarkar and Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee who spearheaded a countrywide movement demanding the release of Gandhiji during his Poona incarceration and fast. It was again Savarkar and Dr. Mookerjee who took out a countrywide movement in support of the INA soldiers. It was Dr. Mookerjee who exposed the horrors of the manmade Bengal Famine of 1943. While Nehru wrote his Discovery of India as a guest of the British Government – Dr. Mookerjee kept up the pressure on the colonial government exposing its misdeed and its collusion with the Muslim League. Dr Mookerjee’s English daily, The Nationalist, was considered to be, as per British intelligence records, “consistently anti-British.” It was this anti-British attitude of his during the war that led to Dr. Mookerjee’s exclusion in the Shimla Conference held at the end of the war under Wavell’s chairmanship.
Anand Sharma’s little propaganda statement turned pamphlet ludicrously accuses Dr. Mookerjee of colluding with the Muslim League through his alliance with A.K.Fazlul Haq, little knowing that Fazlul Haq was not a member of the Muslim League when the Democratic Progressive Coalition was formed in 1941 with Haq as premier and Dr. Mookerjee as finance minister.
In fact, Haq had already left the Muslim League and there was a golden opportunity for the Congress to form a coalition with him and the MLAs of his Krishak Praja Party and sideline the League. But the Congress did not do it, abdicating a great opportunity. Dr. Mookerjee stepped in with the support of Sarat Chandra Bose, formed a successful coalition of Hindus & Muslims in Bengal and succeeded in sidelining the Muslim League and in providing a successful administration. It is too much to expect the Congress party and Anand Sharma to know this much history.
One of the disastrous effects of the resignation of the Congress provincial ministries, however, was that it allowed the Muslim League to take a lead. The letter that Anand Sharma quotes selectively and with malicious intent is a letter Dr. Mookerjee wrote on July 26 1942 asking the British Governor of Bengal to allow Indian ministers to work and to take steps to diffuse the situation that was gradually building up and to take the leaders and the people of India in confidence and make a joint effort to face the Axis threat. Dr. Mookerjee basically argued that his Indian colleagues in the ministry be allowed to take decisions without hindrance or interference. The letter’s context, its content and its objective is too vast and too complex and too multi-dimensional for the comprehension of Congress party spokespersons or that of its Vice President.
The paragraph that Anand Sharma asininely and selectively quotes from Dr. Mookerjee’s letter ends with the following exhortation which his prompters have cleverly omitted, “You as Governor will function as the constitutional head of the province and will be guided entirely on the advice of your [Indian] Ministers. Permanent officials must be made to feel that Ministers will have both power and responsibility, and that they can never approach you over the head of the Ministers, or by way of appeal from their decision. The policy to be pursued by the Ministers will be related, on the one hand, to the genuine economic and political rights of the people, and on the other hand, to the paramount needs of defence against the enemy’s attack. It is only by a transfer of power to Indians that you can hope to win the active and willing support of the people of Bengal.”
Dr. Mookerjee tried his best to prevent the crackdown on satyagrahis and Quit India volunteers in Bengal and eventually resigned in protest against it and against the effort to block the functioning of provincial autonomy by the permanent civil service controlled by the British.
In a final letter he wrote to the Viceroy on August 12 1942, Dr. Mookerjee emphatically argued that, “The British Government should declare that India’s freedom is formally recognized” and that “the demand of the Congress as embodied in its latest resolution virtually constitutes the national demand of India as a whole.” “It is regrettable”, he observed, “that a campaign of misrepresentation is now being carried in some sections of the foreign press characterizing the Congress demand as a virtual invitation to Japan and a surrender to chaos and confusion.” In fact during this period Dr. Mookerjee emerged as the stoutest champion of India’s freedom.
Post independence the BJS faced and survived under highly adverse circumstances. Be it remembered that its founding president, Dr. Mookerjee, himself a former union minister in free India’s first cabinet, member of the Constituent Assembly and thus one of the founding fathers of our Constitution, member of the first Lok Sabha, unofficial leader of opposition was tricked into entering Kashmir, detained and incarcerated there simply because he demanded greater integration of that part with the Indian Union and argued that the writ of the Indian Constitution run uniformly across the country. He paid the price for struggling for unity, greater integration and for protecting India’s sovereignty. Dr. Mookerjee was imprisoned at the behest of the present Congress Vice-President’s great grandfather and died in detention, unattended, medically neglected and segregated from family, friends and supporters. What greater adversity could there have been for the fledgling Jana Sangh?
While Nehru’s Congress twiddled its thumb on the Goa issue and allowed Portuguese rule to continue, it was BJS which took part in the Goa liberation movement and on 23rd June 1955, launched the Goa mukti satyagraha under the leadership of Jagannath Rao Joshi. The satyagrahis under Joshi’s leadership were fired upon, many killed and injured, and then imprisoned and tortured. The movement continued unabated while Nehru procrastinated and finally ordered a military action only in 1961. When Prime Minister Modi referred to the extreme adversity through which the party grew he referred to this phase as well, to this era of sacrifice. These were the kind of adversity and struggle that BJS and later the BJP went through in independent India. The resistance of BJS and RSS workers during Emergency, their struggle for preserving democracy by facing torture, imprisonment and death is a saga that is yet to be told in its entirety.
Apologists of separatism, communist sympathizers and leaders who have lost all national moorings and vision invariably resort to false propaganda – it is a sort of oxygen for them. The present Congress party is unfortunately full of such elements.
As for for Rahul Gandhi whose latest fad is to quote – again out context – passages from the Upanishad, he would be well advised to remember and internalise the following adage – buddhir yasya, balam tasya, nirbuddhisya kuto balam – strength and power lies with the intelligent, the unintelligent, the uninformed is devoid of strength and power.
Rahul can lead his party into a deep introspective reflection on that ageless maxim sprung from the perennial wisdom of our traditions!
The writer is Author and Columnist & this article is published in DailyO.in