Stoop to conquer Sumit Ganguly | 23 hours 14 min ago inShare Printer-friendly version Send by email The fracas about Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel’s legacy and political beliefs has now become the standard fodder of the campaign leading to next year’s general election. The precise lineaments of his bequest to post-Independence India, quite frankly, are the tasks of professional historians to sort out. However, with his inheritance the subject of an unseemly debate amongst India’s two principal national parties, it is impossible to refrain from some comment about the issue at hand. As both parties seek to invoke Sardar Patel’s memory and contributions to the freedom struggle and beyond, it is important to focus on what is really at stake as this tussle proceeds apace. The Bharatiya Janata Party, obviously, is trying to appropriate his legacy in the realm of national security and also wishes to suggest that he was, at heart, a politician devoted to the cause of a state that privileges the majority community. Furthermore, they would also like to suggest that in the wake of the poor record of governance under the UPA, the country urgently needs someone at the national helm who is an inheritor of Sardar Patel’s famed iron will. The Congress, with equal determination, wants to assert that as a member of the Congress Party, Sardar Patel was no less committed than any other party stalwart to the cause of secularism. Bluntly put, both parties are harnessing his memory for rather crude political ends. The real question, that underlies this indecorous contest, of course, deals with two competing visions of the Indian polity. One idea would ensure that the state remains a secular, civic and plural entity. The other would like to transform it into what Fareed Zakaria, the Indian American intellectual has referred to as an illiberal democracy. Obviously, the Indian state would not dispense with open and fair electoral procedures, it would still maintain essential press freedoms and probably not encroach dramatically on personal rights. However, it would steadily consign minorities and especially Muslims to a diminished status. The irony, of course, is that neither political party, as it brawls over Patel’s legacy, can demonstrate his sterling qualities of head and heart leaving aside his contributions to India’s national security and the strength of his commitment to secularism. The BJP — for all its pretensions of being an exemplar of India’s national security needs and concerns — failed to anticipate a stealthy Pakistani incursion into the Kargil region of Kashmir, witnessed the hijacking of an Indian airliner to Kandahar and was mostly helpless in formulating a decisive response in the wake of a brazen terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament. Patel, it needs to be recalled was not dewy eyed about India’s recalcitrant neighbours and in an extended letter had warned Nehru about possible Chinese machinations along the Himalayan border. At best, the BJP can legitimately claim that it did cross the nuclear Rubicon and managed the diplomatic fallout thereafter with some skill. Even that achievement, however, must be placed into perspective. Successive governments and especially Congress regimes had given genesis to and had nurtured the programme over decades. It was only on the basis of those foundations was the BJP able to make the fraught choice to test. The Congress, too, has it own share of shortcomings as it seeks to trumpet the cause of secularism. There is little question that under Nehru, the party’s adherence to a secular credo was mostly robust. However, since his demise, and the short-lived tenure of Lal Bahadur Shastri, the party can hardly claim to have been a stellar standard bearer of an unequivocal commitment to secularism. Its failures on this front are all too apparent. It is beyond the scope of this discussion to fully document all the dubious deals that the Congress has made over decades in its quest for electoral advantage. However, few can forget its dalliance with Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and the disastrous aftermath of that involvement. Worse still, though never one to shy away from alluding to Narendra Modi’s alleged role in the Godhra tragedy, can the party really be exonerated for the appalling role of some of its own members during the pogrom against Sikhs in New Delhi in 1984? Or, for that matter, can one overlook its pathetic decision to overturn the Shah Bano judgement with one eye firmly cocked at the most obscurantist elements of the Muslim community? That, of course, is perhaps the most egregious blot on its record. Beyond that episode, however, is the insidious role that some within its ranks played in reviving the Babri Masjid issue during the tenure of Rajiv Gandhi. And, of course, to what extent was the government of Narasimha Rao responsible for its failure to anticipate the likelihood of an assault on the mosque on that fateful day in December 1992? Even this brief analysis makes amply clear that both parties are seeking to appropriate and fashion particular elements of the extraordinary patriot’s life and legacy for their very parochial ends. In that process, they are dishonoring the memory of one of India’s greatest sons who was a man of strong convictions, an individual of unstinted personal loyalties and who played a critical role at a vital moment in the country’s nascent history. Few, if any, within India’s political class today are of the stature of that magnificent individual his particular political proclivities and predilections notwithstanding. Fecklessly toying with his substantial contributions both to the freedom struggle and after underscores the callousness of those who are engaged in this unbecoming fracas. One can only hope that the Indian voter, who has time and again demonstrated much political acumen, will not be swayed by this dismal spectacle that both the national parties have now stooped to. The writer holds the Rabindranath Tagore Chair in Indian Cultures and Civilisations at Indiana University, Bloomington
Posted on: Thu, 21 Nov 2013 06:14:49 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015