India’s
struggle for the Idea of India
Our defense minister, Mr. Rajnath
Singh had courted a controversy. He made
a statement that Vinayak Damodar Savarkar was advised by Mahatma Gandhiji to
file a mercy petition to the British government. Vinayak Damodhar Savarkar had
filed his first mercy petition in 1911. By this the defense minister wanted to white
wash Vinayak D. Savarkar of all his dubious role in the freedom struggle.
In 1911 Gandhiji was in South
Africa. Our defense minister Rajnath
Singh was not only peddling falsehood but he also got history wrong. His statement was far from the truth. Mahatma Gandhi would have been glad to
support the release of Savarkar from the Cellular jail but he would not have
suggested Savarkar to ask mercy from the British government. Savarkar assured that he would not do
anything against the British empire and that he would cooperate with the
British Empire. This assurance by
Savarkar would go dead against the conviction of Mahatma Gandhi.
The significance of the statement of
our defense minister is very clear.
There is an attempt on the part of the present ruling dispensation to re
write the history of India. This is
similar to none other than the British Empire’s policy who divided the Indian
society along with the lines of religion to ensure that the Indians do not
unite and fight against the British Empire.
“Teaching of Indian history in schools and colleges from a basically
communal point of view made a major contribution to the rise and growth of
communalism. For generations, almost
from the beginning of modern school system, communal interpretation of history
of various degree of virulence were propagated, first by the imperialist
writers and then by others. So deep and
widespread was the penetration of the communal view of history that even sturdy
nationalists unconsciously accepted some of its basic tenets.” Bhipan Chandra and Mukharjees, Indian
Struggle for Independence.
It was a struggle before adopting the
constitution. There were two ideas of India put forward by two opposing political
persuasion. One was the idea of “One
Nation” and another was “Two Nation Theory”.
The idea of two nation theory was promoted by Mohamad Jinnah and By
Vinayak Damodar, Golwalkar, Hedge War, the leaders of Hindu Mahasabha. Both Mohamad Jinnah and the leaders of the
Hindu Mahasabha held that in India there were two nations, one the Hindus and
the other, Muslims. Their idea of India
was based on religion, Hindu Rashtra and Islamic state. The idea of Nation was identified with the
religion of the majority of the people (majoritarianism).
From 1906 Jinnah propagated the theme
of National Unity. Sarojini Naidu gave
him the title ‘Ambassador of Hindu Muslim Unity’. But Mohamad Jinnah went away from the Indian National Congress
to the Muslim league and formed the Islamic republic. One must remember that Mohamad Jinnah was not
a devout Muslim. In his life style he
was the most secular persons. He did not
believe in the Muslim customs and religious practices. He even smoked and ate pork. His Islamic State was a political move to
become the prime minister of Pakistan.
The idea of India of the Hindu
Mahasabha will become clear to us if we read the instruction Golwalkar gave to
the Muslims and to other religious minorities.
He said, “The non-Hindu people in Hindusthan must either adopt the
Hindu culture and language, must learn to respect and hold in reverence Hindu
religion, must entertain no idea but those of glorification of the Hindu race
and culture, i.e., they must not only give up their attitude of intolerance and
ungratefulness towards this land and its age long traditions but must also
cultivate the positive attitude of love and devotion instead – in one word,
they must cease to be foreigners , or may stay in the country, wholly
subordinated to the Hindu nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges,
far less any preferential treatment, not even citizen’s right.” Golwalkar, We
or Our Nationhood Defined, Nagpur 1947.
But the Indian National Congress held
that India is ‘One Nation’, one secular nation. The identity of India is not defined by the
religion but by secularism. The idea of
Secularism holds that all religions and all people are equal before the
constitution of India. People can follow
what ever religion they want. The
religion should be a private practice of the citizens.
India’ struggle for the idea of India
has been completed by drafting and adopting the “Constitution of India”.
Generally, we would like to point
fingers at the rightwing political parties and Politicians. As Mahatma Gandhi had pointed out the
malaise of communalism has penetrated deep in the minds of people, but worst in
the minds of politicians. We have seen how many politicians have changed their
coats from red to white to saffron. The
Congress party that stood for the idea of India as a secular, democratic and
socialist country has only handful leaders so are really committed to the
secular, democratic idea of India. Host
of Congress legislators in Karnataka left the congress party and went over to
the BJP. Similar and even worse cross
over from Congress to BJP happened in Madhya Pradesh. Jyotiraditya Shinde was known to be a staunch
Congressman. He had inherited his political conviction from his father, Madhav
Rao Shinde, who was a staunch secular person of the Congress party. But since
he did not get power in the congress government formed under Kamal Nath, he
left Congress along with his supporters and went over to BJP.
Tom Vaddakan was a Congress
spokesperson. But he crossed over to the
BJP and appears on and off on TV as a spokesperson of the BJP. What is worst is that the Bishop of Pala
peddled the jihad concept of the right-wing political persuasion.
The spirit of Golwalkar is expressed
in the attempt of the Government of Karnataka which is conducting a survey of
Christian churches in Karnataka to keep in check the activities of the
Christians. There have been attacks on
the Christian prayer gatherings. The
basic Christian community and their gatherings for prayer has been a common
practice. The RSS and Bajrang Dal have been attacking these gatherings in the
name of prevention of conversion.
Christians have been accused of converting by allurement. Conversion by allurement has become a catch
phrase for the Bajrang Dal and RSS. But
there is no talk of converting MLAs and MPs by offering allurements amounting
to crores of rupees. Converting the
members of the opposition parties to pulled down the democratically elected governments
is seen as Chanakya’s intelligence.
Christians have been peace loving people and their contribution to
education and health care is unparallel.
But now they are suspect in the eyes of the rulers.
Therefore, Gandhiji wrote, “Communal
harmony could not be permanently established in our country so long as highly
distorted versions of history were being taught in her schools and colleges
through the history text books.” A.
N. Vidyalakar “National Integration and Teaching of History.
Even today, we have innumerable
attempts to distort the historical facts and undermine the role of the freedom
fighters like Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Vallabh Bai Patel and even
Mahatma Gandhi. The Indian Council of
Historical research published a poster on freedom fighters. But this poster did not include the
Jawaharlal Nehru though it was Nehru along with Vallabhai Patel Mahatma Gandhi
and many other fought for 30 years for freedom.
Nehru spent ten years in jail during the freedom struggle. Mahatma Gandhi called Nehru the jewel of
India. The present dispensation blames
Nehru for all the ills of the society.
The people who believed in two nation theory like Mohamed Jinnah blame
Nehru for the partition of India. Nathuram
Godse, who killed Mahatma Gandhi is portrayed by some as a hero and his statues
are being installed. Vinayak Savarkar
was one of the accused in plotting to kill Mahatma Gandhi. Now he has been portrayed very differently.
We have moved away from the past to
the 21st century. Imperial
rulers who divided us to rule for their benefit have gone. We have no need of the mischief played by our
rulers from abroad. We have come of age.
We must recognize that the most serious challenge our country is facing
is that of communalism. It has assumed
menacing proportion, threatening the very unity of the country and the basic
character of Indian culture and civilization.
When our constitution declares our republic as secular, we need to
separate religion from politics, economics and large areas of culture. We need to treat religion as a private and
personal affair of the citizens. In a
multi-religious society, like ours, secularism means the state being
equidistant from or showing equal respect for all religions, including
atheism. Political parties have used
religion to gain political power. There should
be all out effort to prevent communalization of politics and abuse of religious
symbols by politicians.
We have a huge task to extricate our
youth from this climate of communalism and hate campaign. All the school and particularly the families
have a task of placing before our youth the facts of history of freedom
struggle and the greatness of a democratic, secular and socialist idea of
India. Democracy means equality of all before the constitution. It is important that we familiarize our youth
with the tenets of our constitution.
Studying the Constitution of India should be part of the curriculum of
the high school education.
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