Author: Editorial
Publication: The Free Press Journal
Date: February 28, 2003
URL: http://www.samachar.com/features/280203-editorial.html
No party can have a monopoly over
the interpretation of history. No, not even the constantly evolving Indian
Communists. Every word or deed has a certain context in time and space.
And it is important for its true evaluation that it be done with that relevant
context in mind. Therefore those making a great show of their opposition
to the installation of the portrait of the great revolutionary freedom
fighter, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, do themselves a great disservice. Savarkar
was too great to be hurt by the slings of these petty men and women who
resent him his rightful place in the Central Hall of Parliament. For, in
protesting against the belated recognition given to one of the foremost
warriors of independence struggle they belittle his inspiring contribution.
And thus seek to deify only a few men and women around whom the Indian
State under the Nehru-Gandhi family in the initial decades of independent
India had sought to create a halo to the exclusion of everyone else in
the pantheon of our nationalist heroes.
Thanks to the Congress monopoly
of power in the initial decades of freedom, only Gandhi and Nehru were
accorded State recognition as the leaders of the independence movement.
Indeed, following Nehru's death, his daughter Indira Gandhi had more or
less denied even the Mahatma official sanction with the emphasis being
only on building up the aura around the name of Nehru. It was as if the
Nehrus alone had made sacrifices for the sake of freeing India from the
colonial masters. There was an unwritten gag order on noting the contribution
of such greats as Subhash Chandra Bose, B. R.Ambdedkar, Jayaprakash Narayan,
C. R. Rajagopalachary, etc.
Despite the disproportionately high
Nehru-centric propaganda, the British were obliged to leave these shores
due to a variety of factors, a very important one being the contribution
of faceless millions who willingly sacrificed their all for the nation.
The contribution of those anonymous freedom fighters was not recorded by
any historian while the officially patronised hagiography centering around
the Nehru family made it out as if he was the lone warrior battling the
cruel Brits. As against his years spent in gilded jails, Savarkar underwent
unmentionable tribulations in the cellular jail `kala paani' in Andaman.
The petty-minded quote out of context his so-called mercy' plea to the
British unmindful of its context. A man who willingly put up with the worst
possible will not crumble and jettison the cause most dear to him. He sought
to change his strategy to create a strong and militaristic nation and consolidate
the Hindu nation in view of the rising militancy displayed by the leaders
of the Muslim League. His actions and writings were context-specific. To
tear them apart from that context and thus to paint him in the darkest
of hues is to misrepresent Savarkar and India's recent history. Also, it
is wholly wrong and malicious.
However it is ironic in the extreme
that those denigrating Savarkar have themselves emerged as the biggest
revisionists of modern times. The Indian Communists had abused Netaji Subhash
Chandra Bose, Mahatma Gandhi, Bhagat Singh et al in the strongest of words.
Why, they had very unkind words to say about Nehru as well, though it was
a different matter that now they had teamed up with Sonia Gandhi, who claims
the Nehru family as her own, in debunking the great freedom fighter and
thinker, Savarkar. Come to think of it, not long ago the Indian Communists
had the harshest of words to say about Sonia Gandhi herself, though they
were now beginning to sup with her.
Therefore one need not take what
the Communists say very seriously. Indeed, only a few weeks ago they and
the Congress Party were a willing party to the decision to install Savarkar's
portrait in the Central Hall of Parliament. Petty-minded politics soon
made the same Communists and the Congress leaders to renege on their own
decision. Also, much has been said that Savarkar's Hindutva philosophy
militates against the secular, liberal, republican tradition of the Constitution.
Surely, Savarkar had his own world-view with a Hindu-specific focus, but
he cannot be faulted for not anticipating the events which took place several
decades after he penned his controversial thesis. Times change and with
that thought processes too undergo revisions. Besides, the controversy
over the spot chosen to hang the framed portrait of Savarkar too is pointless.
A hall which displays the portrait of Ambedkar, the creator of the Constitution,
along with that of Indira Gandhi, who virtually killed it in 1975-77, cannot
look very incongruous should it also feature the portrait of Savarkar who
too represented a significant stream of the Indian nationalist thought
in the 20th century.
