Nehru vs Patel: Unity in Diversity

HISTORY, UNDER BJP rule, has developed a surprising tendency to dominate our national discourse. Not only has Indian history increasingly become ‘ground zero’ in the battle of narratives between Hindutvavadis and pluralists, it is being wielded as the BJP’s weapon of choice against the Congress.

Prime Minister’s Narendra Modi’s excoriating speech in the Lok Sabha on February 7th, in which he blamed the Congress Party and Jawaharlal Nehru for the Partition of India and the continuing Kashmir dispute, is the latest example of the ruling party’s invocation of historical facts to debate the political present. In the process, Modi exalted his own hero, Sardar Patel, as the man who, had he been put in charge of the country, would have prevented Partition and stopped the loss of territory in Kashmir.

This is not altogether surprising. For some years now the BJP—which, led by the Prime Minister, has sought to drape itself in a proprietary mantle of nationalism—has been seeking to appropriate the freedom struggle for itself. The complication is that the political cause to which the BJP is heir—embodied in the Jana Sangh, the RSS, and the Hindutva movement—had no prominent freedom fighter of its own during the nationalist movement. The BJP traces its origin to leaders who were not particularly active during the struggle for independence.

Read more:

http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/essay/nehru-vs-patel-unity-in-diversity