The Himachal Pradesh CPM has accused the RSS/ BJP for trying to brazenly usurp the rich legacy of the freedom movement of the country.
Tikender Singh Panwar, CPM leader and Shimla MC Deputy Mayor, has criticized BJP for making Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel death anniversary a political event. Panwar stated that the Run for Unity event, in which the BJP had organised a run for collection of funds for the statue of Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel, shows complete desperation over this tendency. It is a great irony that the party inter alia the ideology that was banned by Sardar Patel for murdering Mahatama Gandhi, is trying to distort the history and is trying to steal a link to the freedom struggle.
The fact however remains that the RSS with its wing the Jan Sangh was never in favour of the present secular form of Independence and instead wanted India to be a theocratic state. And it is because of this reason that not a single freedom fighter owing to RSS allegiance is heard of in the history of the Indian freedom movement. The CPM has stated, this statue is being projected as “encapsulating the unity and integrity of India along with its rich culture and heritage”. The mobilisation is akin to the collection of bricks for the construction of the temple on the disputed site in Ayodhya that spread communal hatred and mayhem devouring many lives and catapulted the first ever BJP-led government to the Centre.
It is precisely this vision of Sardar Patel’s “unity and integrity of India” based on the commonality among the rich diversity that bonds us together that is sought to be undermined by the RSS’s project. CPM leader said that it’s necessary to recollect that it was this very Sardar Patel who banned the RSS following the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi.
A government communiqué dated February 4, 1948, drafted by Sardar Patel, announcing the ban on the RSS reads: “The objectionable and harmful activities of the Sangh have, however, continued unabated and the cult of violence sponsored and inspired by the activities of the Sangh has claimed many victims. The latest and the most precious to fall was Gandhiji himself”.
Mahatma Gandhi’s private secretary, Pyare Lal Nayyar, in his book Mahatma Gandhi: The Last Phase recollects: “A letter which Sardar Patel received after the assassination from a young man, who according to his own statement had been gulled into joining the RSS organisation but was later disillusioned, described how members of the RSS at some places had been instructed beforehand to tune in their radio sets on the fateful Friday for the ‘good news’. After the news, sweets were distributed in RSS circles at several places, including Delhi.”
Such a misappropriation of Sardar Patel is part of the overall objective of rewriting Indian history in order to straitjacket it into a monolithic record of the glorification of the ‘Hindu Nation’.
The CPM has reiterated that the whole vision of the RSS was for a fascist Hindu Rashtra and the run up is for the 2014 general elections. This vision was defeated during the freedom struggle and a modern democratic secular India was created contrary to the fascist thoughts.
To pursue its efforts to metamorphose the modern Indian republic into its vision of a ‘Hindu Rashtra’ has been the prime objective for the RSS. CPM leader said that the pursuit of this objective, amongst others like sharpening communal polarization, requires a major rewriting of history. And this is what precisely is being done by the RSS/ BJP to wash off its dirty linen with a new Avtar in the name of Modi which is more fascist and draconian for the unity of this country, he added.
