Why is PM Modi angry with the Congress and Nehru?

PM Modi's speeches in both the Houses of Indian Parliament on February 7, 2017 belied hope which some political analysts carried that Modi, after becoming the prime minister would mature and overcome Hindutva traits of double-speak, rabble rousing and resorting to lies which he learnt in the RSS shakhas. While replying to the Motion of Thanks on the President’s address, he showed that he still remains a Hindu nationalist which he claimed to be his while talking to Reuters in 2013 as Chief Minister of Gujarat. He resorted to lies, half-truths and demagogy as a seasoned Hindu nationalist.

He talked of Gandhi and Sardar Patel and talked of India of their dreams. The prime minister thinks our nation does not know what Hindu nationalists did to Gandhi and what opinion Sardar Patel had about Hindu nationalist organisations like RSS and Hindu Mahasabha. Gandhi was killed by Hindu nationalists who described his killing as Heavenly ordained 'vadh'. According to a favourite author of RSS, KV Sitharamiah, Gandhi was 'terrible, wicked and most sinful'. Rejoicing the killing Gandhi he declared, “As Bhagwan Shri Krishna said in the Gita, 'For the protection of the good, for the destruction of the wicked and for the establishment of righteousness, I am born in every age' On…30th January 1948 evening, Shriram came in the form of Nathuram Godse and ended the life of Gandhi.”

So far as the newfound love of RSS/BJP with Sardar Patel is concerned, he as the first home minister of India had decided to ban RSS for its role in the assasination of Father of the Nation. When RSS denied it, Sardar in a letter dated 11 September 1948 to the then boss of RSS, Golwalkar told him that as a final result of the poison spread by RSS against Gandhi, "the country had to suffer the sacrifice of the invaluable life of Gandhiji…The RSS men expressed joy and distributed sweets after Gandhiji’s death."

PM Modi talked of democracy. It looks funny when the prime minister, a seasoned RSS cadre, ideologically groomed by Golwalkar into a political leader, talks of democracy. This guru of PM Modi, while delivering a speech before the 1350 top level cadres of the RSS at RSS headquarter, Resham Bagh in 1940 declared, “RSS inspired by one flag, one leader and one ideology" was to light "the flame of Hindutva in each and every corner of this great land”. This is exactly what is happening under Modi. Indians are living under constant fear, living virtually under undeclared Emergency.

Democracy under PM Modi is for crony capitalists and business cartels. Self-confessed Modi bhakt, and a renowned columnist, Tavleen Singh last week wrote, "In the villages I visited, living standards were so degraded that all that mostly illiterate villagers aspired to daily was finding enough water and food to keep their families alive. Their homes were huts of thatch and mud and their poverty was extreme. I met nobody who owned a cellphone or a television. The villages were bereft of schools, health centres, roads and public services of any other kind…This kind of desperate poverty exists in some measure in most states that the BJP has won since 2014…So in Davos when I listened to the Prime Minister expound upon the successes of his style of governance, I found it very disquieting".

Under PM Modi's rule, gathering of wealth is one-way traffic. It is for the rich; so far as the vast majority of poor Indians have Hindutva to live with and enjoy. The Modi mantra seems to be wealth for the rich and Hindutva for the poor.

Modi is angry with the Congress for agreeing to Partition. It is true that Congress agreed to Partition, Sardar Patel being the first Congress leader to be convinced by Viceroy Mountbatten. But what were our Hindutva zealots doing? Were they fighting for a democratic-secular India? No, absolutely not. The Hindutva gang joined Muslim League in declaring that India was not one nation but two nations; Hindu nation and Muslim nation. Long before Muslim League's Pakistan resolution, it was the RSS darling Savarkar who, while addressing the 19th Session of Hindu Mahasabha at Ahmedabad in 1937, declared, "India cannot be assumed today to be a Unitarian and homogenous nation, but on the contrary, there are two nations in the main: the Hindus and the Moslems, in India."

Modi wants us to forget about the criminal betrayal of the united freedom struggle by the Hindutva gang. During the Quit India Movement, when Congress was banned, all Congress leaders were jailed, thousands of Congress worker were shot dead for carrying the Tricolour, it was Hindu Mahasabha which ran coalition governments with Muslim League in the provinces of Bengal, Sind and NWFP. Not only this, Hindu Mahasabha under the leadership of Savarkar organised recruitment camps for the British armed forces throughout India when Netaji was trying to liberate India militarily. Savarkar was doing all this with the full support of RSS.

If Muslim League as flag-bearer of Muslim separatism was demanding Pakistan, RSS too demanded a Hindu State to replace democratic-secular India. RSS organ Organiser in its issue on the very eve of Independence, dated 14 August, 1947, rejected the whole concept of a composite nation (under the editorial titled ‘Whither’): “Let us no longer allow ourselves to be influenced by false notions of nationhood. Much of the mental confusion and the present and future troubles can be removed by the ready recognition of the simple fact that in Hindusthan only the Hindus form the nation and the national structure must be built on that safe and sound foundation…the nation itself must be built up of Hindus, on Hindu traditions, culture, ideas and aspirations”.

In the same issue, Organiser, demeaning the choice of the National Flag wrote: "The people who have come to power by the kick of fate may give in our hands the Tricolour but it never be respected and owned by Hindus. The word three is in itself an evil, and a flag having three colours will certainly produce a very bad psychological effect and is injurious to a country."

Jawaharlal Nehru was a special target of PM Modi's hatred. Modi seems to be obsessed with Nehru-bashing. For Modi, Nehru was responsible for all ills faced by India. Nehru, a close confidant of Gandhi and Sardar Patel died in 1964 and to subject him to unparalleled insults and denigration 55 years after his death is sickening and disgusting. It not only showed the true character of our Hindu nationalist PM but also made it clear that Nehru remains the most formidable opponent to the Hindutva juggernaut which is on roll to destroy democratic-secular polity. Actually, it is not Nehru but his idea of an all-inclusive India that upsets them so. The Hindutva rulers know that despite 'vadh' of Gandhi by the Hindutva terrorists and death of Nehru long back, Idea of India propounded and practised by these two continues to motivate the Hindutva adversaries. Gandhi and Nehru may be killed every day but it is an undeniable fact that it is due to the versatility of their Idea of India that India is the only country which survives as a democratic-secular polity out of 35 countries which were born after World War II.

PM Modi's intolerant speech made it clear once again that Nehru even now remains the greatest impediment in their agenda of taking India on the path which Pakistan took, and which has virtually destroyed Pakistan.

The writer is former professor of political science in Delhi University