By Ganesh Prasad Baranwal
DENIGRATION and maligning of Hindus is the ?egg mark? of secularism. It has rather become an intellectual fashion to appear on the political ramps as a model ridiculing and undermining whatever is worth the Hindu name. Shri Mani Shankar Aiyer of bureaucratic breed is a political turncoat who has been competing with Shri Arjun Singh'sdesaffronising move by his analogous drive of maligning Hindu freedom fighters. Let us see who of the two ultimately wins the race to avail the favour of Congress-communist generalismos. The removal of Savarkar'splaque though now is a fait accompli, yet its trial would not be out of joint.
On August 8, 2004 Shri Aiyer, out of his daredevilry, got the Savarkar'splaque removed from the Cellular Jail in Andamans. Following his induction in the Central cabinet, he made himself busy by targetting Savarkar who had fought the mighty British Empire tooth and nail and sacrificed the prime of his youth on the altar of the jail. Shri Aiyer and his beau monde, out of their core malice against the Hindu freedom fighters, are bent upon character assassination beginning from Savarkar. Shri Aiyer'sresearch is understandable. However, his laboured findings cannot escape facts, logic and authenticity.
Shri Aiyer has chargesheeted that Savarkar had written letters seeking clemency from the British Government. As such he does not merit to be honoured as a patriot-cum-freedom fighter. Let us probe his charge. The points given below are: (a) Let us suppose Savarkar wrote the letters begging for mercy from the government. The doubt arises as to where did he get the pen and papers when the two items were strictly prohibited to him during his internment. If Savarkar could avail the writing material, it means that the government itself provided it and forced Savarkar to dance to its tune under duress. Under the circumstances, he would have been compelled to write the letters as per the jail officer'swishes. (b) It is just possible that the letter-writing story was concocted by the government itself in order to first tarnish the image of Savarkar and thereby demoralise the other freedom fighters. A fraudulent colonial government cannot be trusted as a saint but for a bureaucrat it is far more trustworthy. (c) It may be conducive to truth that Savarkar wrote the letters. Neverthless, he would have done this as a part of his considered strategy. A born revolutionary and patriot as he was, he would not have liked to spend the remaining part of his life within the walls of the jail. The covetous release might provide opportunity to him to retreat to his old path. Sentence to death could be preferable to him than a inhumanly tortured life. The government was aware of the iron-willed man. Hence, it did not bail Savarkar out despite the letters in its hands, as the same government later did with the communists in 1942.
The points given below are: (a) Let us suppose Savarkar wrote the letters begging for mercy from the government. The doubt arises as to where did he get the pen and papers when the two items were strictly prohibited to him during his internment. If Savarkar could avail the writing material, it means that the government itself provided it and forced Savarkar to dance to its tune under duress.
Not far from reference, the titanic repression of the ?Quit India? movement forced Gandhiji to write a letter to Lord Linlithgo, the then Viceroy, on September 23, 1942. In this letter he disowned altogether the responsibility of the August movement. He was rather defensive and apologetic too. Just after their release, Jawaharlal, Patel and Pant, in a joint statement dated December 21, 1945, had expressed emphatically a similar view. Does it not lead the Congress leaders to the bar? To our utter surprise, the same leaders in the wake of general elections held in 1945 and during the trial of INA officials and armymen purging their previous stand started feeling pride publically for what had happened during the 1942 movement.
Again, we find Shri Aiyer and his Congress have been honeymooning with the Communist Party since the formation of the UPA government. There is no need to describe the anti-national, pro-colonial and perfidious role of the communists. The rank communists overnight turned paid government approvers involving themselves in spying on the movement'sleaders and ordinary activitists. And the spinal cord of the UPA government received cosy rewards for the fifth-column services it rendered to an alien government. It reminds one of the idiom, ?What to say of a winnowing basket, even the sieve with 72 holes has the teeth to speak.?
Again, in the craze of humiliating the unparalleled, all-rounder hero, the placement of the portrait of Savarkar in the wall of the Parliament House was opposed on the pretext that he was a Hindu Mahasabhaite?a core communal outfit. How shameful it is that Shri Somnath Chatterji, the worthy son of Shri N.C. Chatterji?the unworthy father (unworthy because he too was the president of Hindu Mahasabha) did not oppose the placement of his father'sportrait. Let us hope Shri Aiyer will do his best to remove the tainted portrait of Shri N.C. Chatterji from the holy altar of the Parliament.
My hope is based on the expectation that Shri Aiyer is not a secularist of cross-standard, double-speak and double-dealing.
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