THE ASIAN INDEPENDENT UK
By Vidya Bhushan Rawat*
India’s constituent Assembly was a duly elected democratic process and denying it means disrespecting our national movement and its identity
The American forces attacked Indian sailers killing several of them in the Persian Gulf yet the government of India and its prime time loudspeakers and ‘devotees’ have remained completely silent. There is not even a word of condemnation of the US government. Rather, we are being told about the ‘international law’ and ‘legality’ of the issue. Ironically, Iran has condemned this act and called US as international pirate.
Actually, India is ‘reinventing’ varnashramdharma at the moment. The government does not bother about the things which concern people. It is more focussed on temple hopping, name changing, renovating Ghats and demolishing historical buildings so that everything in India can be painted and rebuild in the saffron of Gujarat style. They haave converted the entire beautiful Lutyen’s Zone into obscene Gujarati style structure. Yes, each stone in India everywhere right from our historical places at Badrinath, Kedarnath, Kashi Vishwanath or historical buildings in Delhi must now have a Gujarati imprint. And obviously, all this is not free of cost. Huge funds have been provided for demolition and then a separate fund will be made available for construction everywhere. This is the government, which create news to manage things. It might not have created any ‘employment’ but it finds ways and means to create ‘opportunities’ and ‘employment’ for the ‘cronies’.
Now, three days have passed yet there is no condemnation of the US action. The tame press release by the Ministry of External Affairs show how this government function. It is the Varna order or what Baba Saheb Ambedkar said ascending order of reverence and descending order of contempt. It means that behave spinelessly before the powerful adversary but become a lion or tiger if the adversary is deemed to be not so powerful. If this was a case of Pakistan, Bangladesh etc, these loudspeakers would have made a ‘speakrfod’ performance on their prime time but they remain shamelessly silent.
But that is the compulsion of all this and one must understand how capitalism and imperialism function. Most of our opinion makers, our politicians, bureacrates, militarymen, lawyers or judges, business leaders have their wards or families studying or working/living in the USA and other western countries. That is the reason that they are habitual of looking everything around us from a western perspective. The hyper active Bhakts are silent and unable to condemn the absolutely unlawful American attack on Indian citizens. The Bhakts are ignorant about international politics like their Gurus and hence are desperate to keep their ‘Greencard’ safe from the wrath of Trump administration.
Donald Trump ‘congratulated’ Narendra Modi for becoming the ‘largest serving’ ‘democratically elected’ prime minister. Now, Modi and his government was busy celebrating the biggest ‘achievement’ of becoming India’s largest serving prime minister. I felt that Narendra Modi will have to be the prime minister of India beyond 2031 to cross over the 17 years stint of Jawahar Lal Nehru and till 2030 to pass through the almost 16 years period of Mrs Indira Gandhi. Narendra Modi is not satisfied with merely that. He want all the memories and historical facts about Nehru be erased.
But what about media. This is the month of June and we will have a rituals of ‘remembering’ ‘emergency’. Ramanath Goenka’s bravery will be ‘celebrated’ along with others vastly ignoring the dirty reality that Indian Express today is nothing but a propaganda paper of the government in Power and spread the lies of the government.
Why is the BJP and its shameless promoters denigrading the historical nationalist movement ? A Constituent Assembly of Indian came into being from the vast mandate of the people. It was not merely Nehru who got elected here. Sardar Patel, Dr Ambedkar, M L Jayakar, Syama Prasad Mukherjee, Maulana Azad, Dr Rajendra Prasad, C Rajagopalachari, Rajkumari Amrit Kaur and many more leaders got elected for the constituent assembly. It was a people’s mandate to make a decide a Constitution for India which was drafted by Baba Saheb Ambedkar taking into account all those intricacies in debates and discussion which happened in the Constituent Assembly. Does the BJP want to tell us that this Constitution was not made by the people of India and was gifted to us by the British ? In the Nehru cabinet, which has wider representation from across the political parties. Sardar Patel was the deputy Prime Minister and among the non Congress stalwarts were Syama Prasad Mukherje, Dr Baba Saheb Ambedkar, Sardar Baldev Singh, R K Shanmukham Chetty, John M Matthai. This representation was meant to make the cabinet look wider and inclusive. So Hindu Mahasabha, Scheduled Caste Federation, Justice Party, Akali Dal and independent candidate formed part of the first Cabinet on August 15, 1947 apart from Congress Party which has a huge presence because of the largest number of elected representatives.
One may have differences of opinion with leaders. Nehru is not beyond criticism and for that matter nobody is above criticism. We must understand that the process of political democracy and devising a system is an ongoing process. That was the time, when things were just taking shape and Constituent Assembly guided the fate of India. The first Lok Sabha elections were held between October 25th, 1951 till February 21st, 1952 and Congress won with a huge mandate with 45% vote and 364 seats. Unfortunately, Sardar Patel has passed away on December 15th, 1950 so he could not become part of the election campaign or new government but he will always be called India’s first Deputy Prime Minister and to say that he was not elected is a blatant lie and mean disgracing our national leaders of the freedom movement. The process of election might have been different that time as democratic system was still evolving and we must give credit to our constitutional forefathers for evolving a system which fuctioned efficiently till date to make us the biggest democracy of the world though assault on that system has now taken place systematically.
It is equally important to understand that numbers dont make a person great. Gandhi ji did not held any position yet he was much bigger than any Prime Minister of India like Periyar in Tamilnadu was much more powerful and bigger than the chief ministers of the state. Second, prime minister such as V P Singh remained in power for a very short period but he made history by his actions and deeds. Whenever history of social justice and political empowerment of the marginalised will be written, VP Singh will remain the greatest prime minister of India from a social justice narrative or perspective.
People dont become big or small by the position they uphold but it is important to see them from their actions and facts. Narendra Modi can be great and he has been elected by the people of India but for that he does not need to compare with Nehru. You cant get away from the fact that Jawahar Lal Nehru was independent India’s first prime minister. Ofcourse, if you want to communicate that Nehru was elected prime minister of India only after 1952 then you should not call Sardar Patel as India’s duly elected Deputy Prime minister as he could not participated in 1951-52 general elections. V P Singh was India’s prime minister for a shorter period and could not complete his one year term but from the perspective of Social Justice, he would be considered the greatest prime minister of India and nobody can deny him that space.
History is brutal. It will not get reflected today when one is in power. It haunt when you are not there. It brings facts and the facts may not be rosy all the time. The spineless propagandists calling themselves as ‘media’ are nothing but a big farce and have lost whatever little credibility they had. Nobody can deny the fact that Nehru was India’s first Prime minister duly elected by the people of India. It will better for the current regime to foccus on the issues confronting the nation. The more you target Nehru, the bigger will be the interest of people on searching more about the political climate of India in the late 1940s when RSS and Hindu Mahasabha were just chanting Hindu Muslim and terming British as their friend while other nationalists were seeking complete independence and going to jail. Nehru will always remain ‘Hind ke Jawahar’ for powerfully propagating for the idea of an inclusive, secular and liberal India which is needed so that we are heard globally with respect and admiration.
