Nov 12 2014 : The Times of India (Delhi)
Nehru vs Patel vs Ambedkar
Sagarika Ghose
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Political contests over historical figures do a disservice to their legacy
Jawaharlal Nehru's 125th birth anniversary nears and the tug of war over history has begun.Nehru is our family property , shouts Congress. Nehru neglected Patel, yells BJP.Blasphemy to compare Narendra Modi to Indira Gandhi, says Congress. Indira Gandhi personified Indian nationalism above all else, says BJP. Vivekananda was the icon of Hindu nationalism, asserts BJP. Ambedkar belongs entirely to us, asserts BSP. Shivaji is the exclusive monopoly of Shiv Sena, and Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and Bhagat Singh the preferred political symbols for those who want to attack Congress.
As India celebrates the Nehru quasquicentennial this week, the question arises, why are modern India's heroes all drawn from the freedom struggle or even earlier? The only heroes a globalising India seems to possess are those from the freedom era. Also, in the process of `remembering' these figures and trapping them in contemporary politics, are we in fact destroying everything they stood for?
Historical figures provide legitimacy to politicians. Congress has harnessed pre-Independence stalwarts to the cause of the Gandhi family . A party ossified by dynasty and paralysed by high command culture still believes it carries a halo because of its monopoly rights over the freedom struggle.
BJP and Sangh Parivar at first lacked mainstream political icons, instead drawing margdarshaks from religion and mythology. But now that BJP straddles the political centre stage it seeks to capture Congress's `neglected icons' to confer on itself the moral and ethical legitimacy of the founding fathers. A reinvented identity has created an ancestral longing for a political heritage more immediate than the Ramayana. Thus BJP and Sangh have hit upon Patel as their messiah of the moment, given that RSS sarsanghchalaks Golwalkar and Hegdewar are not known to have played a stellar role in the national movement. Bahujan Samaj Party has attempted a similar monopoly over Ambedkar.Ambedkar's highly modernist vision has been entirely buried by the usurpation of the entire Ambedkarite lexicon by BSP. Ambedkar detested idolatry and hero-worship. Yet BSP has made Ambedkar into a demigod, dotting the UP landscape with his statues. Indian citizens have paid a price. Caged as a `Dalit icon', many have no idea about Ambedkar the modern Indian committed to annihilating caste and social orthodoxy .
The Modi government has decided to `out-statue' the statue culture of BSP and take idolatry to the soaring heights of a 240 metres tall statue of Patel. Instead of statues, why not commission a series of independent scholarly works into Patel's life and thought? Instead of Congress naming close to 500 schemes after Nehru-Gandhi family, why not support independent writings and scholarship on Nehru's legacy?
But history is now competitive politics. So harnessed is history to party politics that any complex understanding of the past is attacked as vociferously as a political opponent. James Laine's book on Shivaji is not seen as book of history but as an anti-NCP-Shiv Sena document; Romila Thapar is not a doyenne of history, she becomes a political `enemy' of the Hindu rashtra; A K Ramanujan's essay Three Hundred Ramayanas cannot be studied in Delhi University because it conflicts with ABVP's notion of the Ramayana. In the process, future citizens are not allowed to access varied readings of the past because the history class is turning them into political activists.
The tussle between Nehru and Sar dar is now like an electoral contest, complete with competitive advertisements and sloganeering. Yet as Neerja Singh demonstrates in her book Agreement Within Differences, they were lifelong allies who may have had differences in opinion, but they were hardly `rivals'.
For Modi, invoking Patel is a means to establish his credentials as an assertive nationalist, the He-man who talks tough on national security. For Sonia Gandhi, Nehru is a shield to stave off challenges to the embattled dynasty. The run for unity event on Patel's birth anniversary was not exactly a mass event, rather a wellchoreographed political exercise designed to confer Patel's aura on a PM who until recently had claimed Golwalkar as his inspiration, the Golwalkar-led RSS having been banned by Patel after the Mahatma's assassination. But historical facts are expendable in the race to capture ancestors. Congress wears the Nehru jacket but would Nehru have approved of the high command culture or of the Emergency?
It's time to reclaim history from politicians and make it bipartisan. Netas are rampaging over history because India's historians except a few like Romila Thapar and Ramachandra Guha are not committed to writing accessible popular history. The teledons, or TV academics, in other countries Simon Schama or Niall Ferguson or Mary Beard have emerged from their cloisters to bring in newer audiences to their academic enquiries.
But in India we have a plethora of politics over Nehru but hardly any accessible account of his political journey. We have Ambedkar statues but no widely disseminated works on his modern vision; we are about to get a Patel statue but as a figure tied to a party ideology .Political warfare over icons does immense disservice to their legacy .
Nehru's 125th birth anniversary celebrations have already been marked by competitive Congress-BJP committees.Instead of war by committees, why not create a bipartisan platform that is able to evoke Nehru not as a Congress politician but as a modernist and democrat who probably would have encouraged a genuine debate on his life and work.
As India celebrates the Nehru quasquicentennial this week, the question arises, why are modern India's heroes all drawn from the freedom struggle or even earlier? The only heroes a globalising India seems to possess are those from the freedom era. Also, in the process of `remembering' these figures and trapping them in contemporary politics, are we in fact destroying everything they stood for?
Historical figures provide legitimacy to politicians. Congress has harnessed pre-Independence stalwarts to the cause of the Gandhi family . A party ossified by dynasty and paralysed by high command culture still believes it carries a halo because of its monopoly rights over the freedom struggle.
BJP and Sangh Parivar at first lacked mainstream political icons, instead drawing margdarshaks from religion and mythology. But now that BJP straddles the political centre stage it seeks to capture Congress's `neglected icons' to confer on itself the moral and ethical legitimacy of the founding fathers. A reinvented identity has created an ancestral longing for a political heritage more immediate than the Ramayana. Thus BJP and Sangh have hit upon Patel as their messiah of the moment, given that RSS sarsanghchalaks Golwalkar and Hegdewar are not known to have played a stellar role in the national movement. Bahujan Samaj Party has attempted a similar monopoly over Ambedkar.Ambedkar's highly modernist vision has been entirely buried by the usurpation of the entire Ambedkarite lexicon by BSP. Ambedkar detested idolatry and hero-worship. Yet BSP has made Ambedkar into a demigod, dotting the UP landscape with his statues. Indian citizens have paid a price. Caged as a `Dalit icon', many have no idea about Ambedkar the modern Indian committed to annihilating caste and social orthodoxy .
The Modi government has decided to `out-statue' the statue culture of BSP and take idolatry to the soaring heights of a 240 metres tall statue of Patel. Instead of statues, why not commission a series of independent scholarly works into Patel's life and thought? Instead of Congress naming close to 500 schemes after Nehru-Gandhi family, why not support independent writings and scholarship on Nehru's legacy?
But history is now competitive politics. So harnessed is history to party politics that any complex understanding of the past is attacked as vociferously as a political opponent. James Laine's book on Shivaji is not seen as book of history but as an anti-NCP-Shiv Sena document; Romila Thapar is not a doyenne of history, she becomes a political `enemy' of the Hindu rashtra; A K Ramanujan's essay Three Hundred Ramayanas cannot be studied in Delhi University because it conflicts with ABVP's notion of the Ramayana. In the process, future citizens are not allowed to access varied readings of the past because the history class is turning them into political activists.
The tussle between Nehru and Sar dar is now like an electoral contest, complete with competitive advertisements and sloganeering. Yet as Neerja Singh demonstrates in her book Agreement Within Differences, they were lifelong allies who may have had differences in opinion, but they were hardly `rivals'.
For Modi, invoking Patel is a means to establish his credentials as an assertive nationalist, the He-man who talks tough on national security. For Sonia Gandhi, Nehru is a shield to stave off challenges to the embattled dynasty. The run for unity event on Patel's birth anniversary was not exactly a mass event, rather a wellchoreographed political exercise designed to confer Patel's aura on a PM who until recently had claimed Golwalkar as his inspiration, the Golwalkar-led RSS having been banned by Patel after the Mahatma's assassination. But historical facts are expendable in the race to capture ancestors. Congress wears the Nehru jacket but would Nehru have approved of the high command culture or of the Emergency?
It's time to reclaim history from politicians and make it bipartisan. Netas are rampaging over history because India's historians except a few like Romila Thapar and Ramachandra Guha are not committed to writing accessible popular history. The teledons, or TV academics, in other countries Simon Schama or Niall Ferguson or Mary Beard have emerged from their cloisters to bring in newer audiences to their academic enquiries.
But in India we have a plethora of politics over Nehru but hardly any accessible account of his political journey. We have Ambedkar statues but no widely disseminated works on his modern vision; we are about to get a Patel statue but as a figure tied to a party ideology .Political warfare over icons does immense disservice to their legacy .
Nehru's 125th birth anniversary celebrations have already been marked by competitive Congress-BJP committees.Instead of war by committees, why not create a bipartisan platform that is able to evoke Nehru not as a Congress politician but as a modernist and democrat who probably would have encouraged a genuine debate on his life and work.
