Legacy of a nation and its history are not commodities, money or properties that can be appropriated by anyone. I pity at the wisdom of some Congress leaders including some Congress Ministers who used this word ‘appropriated’ for BJP in genera and Narendra Modi in particular for showing respect and praising India’s first home minister and deputy Prime Minister Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel. He was a great son of India, a great freedom fighter no less than Jawahar Lal Nehru and a great visionary. It was Patel’s vision and decisions that united India as one nation. To say that Sardar Patel’s legacy belongs to the Congress and the ruling party at the Centre which has the copyright over him is ridiculous proposition.
For decades, the Congress Party and
the successive government headed by it at the Centre in many States ignored
Sardar Patel and for that matter all tall leaders. Post independent it is only
Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and now Sonia and Rahul Gandhi who matter
for the Congress and nobody else.
If Narendra Modi or for that matter
the BJP is trying to revive the legacy of Sardar Patel why this heart burning
amongst the Congress leaders? The Congress has been harping on only one thing
that Sardar Patel as Home Minister had put a ban on the RSS and hence the BJP’s
praise of the Sardar is nothing but a paradox and hypocrisy. The Congress
leaders forget to tell the ban on the RSS was lifted in a year by no else than
Sardar Patel.
Why the Congress went to suppress
the legacy of Sardar Patel? The reason being on many matters Sardar Patel and
Jawahar Lal Nehru disagreed and held diametrically opposite view. Things
reached such a passé that Patel went to Mahatma Gandhi after a few months of
Independence to tell the Mahatma that it was getting increasingly difficult for
him to work under Nehru. He wanted to resign from the government. Nehru then
said if that is the case then why Patel “I should resign”. Mahatma Gandhi
counseled the two leaders to bury the hatched and work together for the
betterment of the country.
It is a well known fact but just to
refresh the point when the Somnath Mandir was rebuilt, Sardar Patel invited the
first President of India Dr. Rajendra Prasad to come on the occasion of the opening
of the temple. Nehru did not like it and in fact asked the President not to
attend the function since India was a secular country. Dr Rajendra Prasad
ignored Nehru’s advice and went ahead to be present at the function at the
Somnath Mandir.
It was here that differences between
Dr Rajendra Prasad and Nehru. Dr Prasad also had returned the Hindu code bill
that was not liked by Nehru and the then Prime Minister opposed the majority
view of his cabinet for a second term for Dr. Rajendra Prasad. Nehru was
overruled and Dr Prasad was elected President of India for the second term.
I remember, I was a student, a
school student then when Dr Rajdnera Prasad died on 28 February 1963 in Patna’s
Sadaqat Ashram. Nehru as Prime Minister did not attend the funeral of Dr Prasad.
Instead he went to Jaipur that day and did not allow even the governor to
attend the funeral of the first President of India. With what face the Congress
claims the legacy of all great leaders who fought for freedom.
Lal Bahadur Shastri too has
been totally ignored by the Congress
government since the days of Indira Gandhi who did not like Shastri to succeed
her father Nehru in 1964.
~R. K. Sinha
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