Oh, please don’t blame Ananth Kumar Hegde for all that he utters. For he knows no better; he has been told no better by the RSS in all these decades. Let’s therefore be generous in our judgement of him. Perhaps with his “Gandhi’s drama” comment, he was only reflecting, in his brainwashed way, what Albert Einstein had put so poignantly – that future generation would scarcely believe that such a man as Gandhi ever walked on this planet. Hegde’s, and Modi’s
and RSS’, inability to comprehend Gandhi results in their idea that the freedom struggle was all drama. Didn’t Modi himself say in Parliament last year, “Angrez inko virasat main de gaye…”
Aap psychology samjhiye. “Ask them how we got our freedom, they say, ‘We performed Satyagraha, and got our freedom. Apparently, the British got frightened of their fast and took to their heels. Hearing this account, even cold blood will start to boil,’” said Hegde (and conveniently denied that he was talking about Gandhi!) Hegde, Modi, their whole Parivar cannot comprehend how you can convince someone of an idea without violence – in thought, speech and action.
What Hegde said is just what has been whispered into his ears from the time he first wore the Khakhi Chaddi. And into the ears of everyone that wears it. And into the minds of everyone on thousands of WhatsApp groups. The whisper campaign against Gandhi and Nehru over the last 70 years has been so effective that the other day, even a former Air Vice Marshal whispered to me, “Don’t you know, Nehru, Sheikh Abdullah and Jinnah were actually brothers. They made a deal to divide India between themselves – Pakistan for Jinnah, Kashmir for Abdullah, and the rest for Nehru!”
Of course! Didn’t Modi stand in Parliament and tell us why Partition happened, “Someone wanted to be Prime Minister…”
But for those outside the influence of the Parivar, its whisper campaigns and WhatsApp university, the question is: Alright, Gandhi and Nehru and their freedom struggle (but not Sardar Patel’s, apparently) was all drama, they were hand-in-glove with the British (adjustment, 20-20, as Hegde put it), they were responsible for Partition, their non-violent struggle was not the reason for the British quitting India, and so on. But what were the superpatriots like RSS founder KB Hedgewar, his successor MS Golwalkar (who is “sab kuchh” for Modi), the ideologue BS Moonje, and Nathuram Godse, the new entrant to the superpatriot club -- all admirers of Hitler and Mussolini’s ideologies and methods – doing during the freedom struggle? Why didn’t they stop Gandhi’s ‘drama’ and instead wage the ‘real’ freedom struggle themselves?
Alright, Nehru and Gandhi had an ‘adjustment’ with the British and they spent several years of their lives in jail -- Nehru spent nearly 10 years in various jails, Gandhi about the same, Patel somewhat less -- but they had cosy lives in jail. But how many days, let alone years, did Hedgewar, Golwalkar, etc., spend in jail? Have you ever heard of an RSS leader having faced a British lathi? Mind you, the RSS cadres of that time – just as they are now – were patriotic and wanted to be part of Gandhi-Nehru-Patel’s “drama.” Were their superpatriot leaders similarly inclined?
Alright, Gandhi and Nehru were all drama and their Satyagraha useless, so the RSS and Hindu Mahasabha leaders did not join them in the freedom struggle. But why didn’t Hedgewar, Golwalkar, etc., join the likes of Bhagat Singh and Subhas Bose, for whom the RSS and today’s Hindu Hriday Samrat profess so much respect and say theirs was the real freedom struggle?
If you look up the list of people in Gandhi’s ‘drama company’, you won’t see the names of any RSS, Hindu Mahasabha leaders; but neither do you find any of their names in the list of Indian revolutionaries in the ‘drama’ company of Bhagat Singh, nor in the Indian National Army of Bose. Why? Some 60% of Bose’s INA were Muslims. Why weren’t the Hindutva superpatriots part of it?
Bhagat Singh and his fellow revolutionaries in the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association knew who were running the real drama company and for whose benefit. Bhagat Singh and Azad called them “toady bachchas” (British hirelings).
The ideological inheritors of those “toady bachchas” have come for Gandhi now. The inner Godse must be straining at the leash.