Playing politics with history is a low art

It is not clear what steps the present government has taken to revive interest in the life and work of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose and Dr B.R. Ambedkar so that a new evaluation of their contributions may emerge in order to correct distortions, if any. At any rate, Prime Minister Narendra Modi held forth on these issues at the Red Fort on Sunday although his grasp of history does appear to be uncertain, going by the serious gaffes he has made while making references to prominent Magadh rulers of ancient India in the course of electioneering. But then, politics and not historical accuracy is Mr Modi’s express purpose. Running through most of his speechs in the past five years is a discernible zealot’s commitment to running down the first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and members of his family, whose role in the politics and development of this country — negative as much as positive — is not concealed from any Indian. Indeed, their story is a much-commented-on open book. The PM asserted at the Red Fort, at an occasion to mark the 75th anniversary of the creation of the Azad Hind Sarkar by Bose, that the role of Patel, Bose and Ambedkar “in the freedom movement” had been sought to be obscured in order to highlight the part played by “one family”. This is a bee in the bonnet that derives from the RSS school. But what are the facts?

Bose became a hero in his own lifetime. None other than Nehru was his foremost defender and colleague when Gandhi expressed hesitations and doubts over courses of action proposed by him. Nehru and Bose were together leaders of the Congress Left then and had extremely close personal bonds until Bose sought to link up with the European fascists and their Axis allies, the Japanese, in order to defeat the British. Nevertheless, when the British later tried members of the Azad Hind Fauj, ironically at the very Red Fort from where Mr Modi ran down Nehru, Nehru and his father Motilal donned their lawyers’ gowns to defend the actions of Bose’s Army in the far-east during World War II. Patel was a stalwart of the freedom movement and of the country’s integration on the eve of Independence. But he died not long after Independence and had no time to leave his impress on the governance of India, unlike Nehru who was PM for 17 years. As for Bose, historians widely believe he perished in an air-crash during the war, well before Independence, and had no role after India’s freedom. As for Ambedkar, his role was a revolutionary one in raising dalit consciousness against the Hindu caste system and in drafting the Constitution, but he was not exactly known as a freedom fighter.

Giants like Patel and Bose need no new statues and commemoration volumes for the nation to remember them, as Mr Modi may think. And, the role of historical figures is best assessed by experts, not by practitioners of day-to-day politics.