Politic | Why Patriotism Isn't a Sangh Monopoly

Political discourse nowadays leaves you under the illusion that nobody beyond the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-Bharatiya Janata Party (RSS-BJP) ecosystem can be patriotic. While the media’s intellectual bankruptcy, or deceit, fuels this falsehood, the Sangh Parivar itself never loses an opportunity to hawk its patriotism and brand others as anti-national.

After listening to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech on Vande Mataram in parliament a few days ago, any gullible mind will believe in the RSS-BJP monopoly over patriotism, wondering whether Jawaharlal Nehru was indeed a problem. Fortunately, no law has yet been enacted to prevent the opposition members from speaking in parliament. That countervailing force is still available. They once again reminded the nation that Nehru can’t be blamed for the collective decision of not adopting the full script as the national song. They presented historical evidence to show how the BJP harangue insulted such stalwarts like Rabindranath Tagore, Subash Chandra Bose, C. Rajagopalachari, Acharya Kripalani, Rajendra Prasad and others.

History lies beyond the bluff and bluster shaping contemporary discourse. If a curious student will go rummaging through the pages of history to find groups of RSS people going to jail chanting Vande Mataram and Inquilab Zindabad, he or she will be deeply disappointed. If you are a Sangh sympathiser, avoid probing who was singing Sarfaroshi ki tamanna ab hamare dil mein hai/dekhna hai zor kitna baju-e-qaatil mein hai, you will get acutely embarrassed to discover none belonged to the ideological fraternity that rules today. You will be shocked to know the names of revolutionary nationalists if you have accepted the lie about some outfit’s monopoly over patriotism – Surya Sen, Jatin Das, Bhagat Singh, Chandrashekhar Azad, Ramprasad Bismil, Roshan Singh, Sukhdev, Rajguru, Ashfaqulla Khan.

Nehru, Sangh’s pet aversion, did spend 3259 days in jail during the freedom struggle. Among peasants and politicians, workers and capitalists, poets and writers, you won’t find one from the RSS who was ready to sacrifice all for the nation. The call to “sacrifice all” did come from the RSS chief M.S. Golwalkar in 1951, when he asked the youth to work for the national renaissance, treating the demand for complete ban on cow-slaughter as the topmost priority. In the pre-Independence days, both the Hindu and Muslim communalists made Mahatma Gandhi’s task extremely difficult by siding with the colonial power and feeding their sinister divide-&-rule tactic. They not only became the greatest monopolist of patriotism by magic today, they also started the business of distributing certificates of sedition to anybody who differed with them.

Narrative tweak

Parliament obviously isn’t a theatre of the absurd. But absurdity reigns over reason, creating hallucinations in the spectator that he is wandering on the wildest shores of farce. Many BJP members, including home minister Amit Shah, insisted that vote-chori happened for the first time when Nehru became the prime minister even as majority of Congress leaders favoured Sardar Patel. Let’s accept this lie for a moment. But how is that vote-chori? Which law was violated by Congress party’s internal politics? How is it comparable to the serious charges of violation of model code of conduct, millions of fake and duplicate voters and manipulation through EVMs?

Had the BJP decided in advance to trivialise the debate and the likes of Kangana Ranaut were deliberately fielded for that purpose? Kangana said the Congress played with the dignity of the Brazilian model whose photograph was used without her permission. In her words, “antar-rashtriya mool ki mahila ki tasveer uchhaali gai.” What is antar-rashtriya mool? Is there an international origin or race? Kangana tendered an apology to the Brazilian model on behalf of India’s parliament. Who gave her the right to do so? Who is responsible for the misuse of the model’s photograph – Rahul Gandhi or the Election Commission? What’s the issue here - fraud in the electoral roll or the prestige of a foreigner?

Many people will ask why target an actress who doesn’t have brains? But she was not acting here; she was representing India’s ruling party in parliament on a critical issue like electoral reforms. She also said former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was disqualified by the court for doing vote-chori. She was reflecting the party’s thinking; even Shah presented this as one of the examples of vote-chori. Facts of the case again expose the farcical nature of this contention.

What were the charges against Indira Gandhi? She used the services of Yashpal Kapoor, a government official, in election campaign and the dais for a rally in her constituency was erected by police officials. The fact is that Kapoor had resigned but his resignation had not been accepted by then. Though the court declared her election invalid on this frivolous charge and disqualified her as the Prime Minister, how is this vote-chori? Even the third example given by Shah – that Sonia Gandhi became a voter before she acquired Indian citizenship – is illegal but not comparable to the charges of vote-chori which is directly linked with the future of democracy in India.

Also read: Dear Modi, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhya is Not Your ‘Da’

While Rahul Gandhi has alleged electoral rolls are manipulated through a centralised system, many outfits and individuals have expressed suspicions that Modi wins elections through manipulations. India is mature enough a democracy to expect a more meaningful and reasoned answer from the Home Minister, if not from an actress who is known for her outrageous fulminations. The BJP was attacking the Congress a day before in the Vande Mataram debate and advertised its true patriotism by showcasing an MP, Kangana Ranaut, who had besmirched the entire freedom movement by arguing that real freedom came in 2014 when Modi became the prime minister, not in 1947 when Gandhi-Nehru were “begging” before the British rulers.

Now, the fact about the Nehru-Patel controversy. That there was an electoral contest between Nehru and Patel for the prime minister’s post is a cock-&-bull story. When have the district or state presidents of a party voted to elect a prime minister? The state units did send their opinions on the choice of next Congress president, preferring Patel, but no question of the Prime Minister’s post was involved. Patel himself has written that Nehru deserved to be the prime minister. This oft-repeated lie has been killed countless times but it refuses to lie down in the coffin.

Fact and fiction

Rewriting history has become the Sangh Parivar’s favourite sport but it’s not easy to erase the truth embedded in national memory. Shah yet again said this in the parliament: “We are from RSS and we live and die for the nation.” Nobody knows who from the RSS laid down his life in the 100 years of its existence? Among the freedom fighters who took bullets on their chest or were hanged to death, none was from the RSS.

Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty.

In the context of Bhagat Singh’s martyrdom, RSS chief M.S. Golwalkar said, “The people who sacrifice their lives are doubtless great. But we have not placed them as an ideal to be followed. Hamne balidan ko mahanata ka sarvocch bindu, jiski manushya aakanksha kare, nahin maana hai. Kyonki, antatah we apna uddeshya prapt karne mein asafal huye aur asafalta ka arth hai ki uname koi gambhir truti thi (We have not accepted sacrifice as the highest point of greatness, which should be followed by others. Because, ultimately, they failed to achieve their target and the failure means there was some serious flaw in their approach.)"

It’s a recorded fact that the RSS opposed Quit India movement, Mahatma Gandhi’s tactics and the constitution, and even the choice of Tricolour as the national flag. Their icon, V.D. Savarkar, came out of jail by filing mercy petitions and vowed to work for the British rulers till he was alive. It was because of the RSS philosophy and track-record that the BJP was treated as untouchable in Indian politics for a long time. Atal Bihari Vajpayee managed to sew up a broad coalition because of his liberal and tolerant attitude. But the last 11 years of Modi-Shah duopoly destroyed that goodwill no matter how deeply entrenched they are in the country today. They will discover to their shock after exiting office: power doesn’t necessarily bring legitimacy.

Sanjay K. Jha is a political commentator.

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