R K Misra
It is often said that a diplomat… is a person who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you actually look forward to the trip!.The same thing can be said for a potentate of a politician like Prime Minister Narendra Modi. His celebration of the birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel,India’s first home minister stands out as a case in point.
The Sardar,it is widely felt in Gujarat, did not get his due for the critical role that he played,both in uniting India and thereafter.The ostensible aim in restoring his standing is laudable,the objective in doing so is far removed from it. The quest for ‘appropriation’ of freedom struggle icons apart,the way Modi went about it makes it clear that he was using the Sardar to efface the official memory of late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, whose death anniversary falls on the same day at the same time seeking to build a constituency for himself. While virtually ignoring the sacrifices of the first ever prime minister to be assassinated in office,he played on the killing of the Sikhs that had followed it,even announcing further compensation for the victims. The taint of 2002 notwithstanding, Modi,as a BJP Prime Minister , is today heir to the legacy of a liberal like Atal Bihari Vajpayee and it ill behoves one who mouths lofty idealism to paddle pedestrian politics.
For a journalist who has keenly tracked, for over three decades, the onetime RSS pracharak who rode pillion behind friend turned bitter political rival Shankersinh Vaghela,the ‘injustice’ to the Sardar was an issue which came in handy to Modi after he assumed power as Gujarat Chief Minister in 2001.Modi was being hauled over the coals by the Congress opposition for his role in the 2002 communal riots that followed the Godhra train carnage.Modi resurrected the ‘Sardar’ issue to hit back seeking to provide historical linkage to himself and his Government terming it as the continuing injustice to Gujarat at the hands of the Nehru-Gandhi family.To encash the issue in the 2012 Vidhan Sabha elections,he announced the ambitious project to build a statue of the Sardar in Gujarat which would be twice the size of the Statue of Liberty in the US.The move to collect iron for it from every village was a smart poll publicity campaign. It paid rich dividends. Modi swept the State Assembly elections.Simultaneously, as he raised his personal sights to the 2014 general elections, the project was immediately scaled up for a national repeat of the same campaign objectives.
The Indian Prime Minister has gone on record to state that Gandhi would have been incomplete without Sardar. And Gujarat Chief Minister Anandiben Patel who succeeded him has been quick to equate him with Sardar Patel.While performing the ‘bhoomi-pujan’ for the Rs 176 crore ‘Shresth-Bharat’ bhavan slated to come up near the venue of the Rs3000 crore Statue of Unity,She said that”in the form of Narendra Modi we have got Sardar Patel”.
Modi is not the first politician from Gujarat to aspire for the mantle of the ‘iron man of India’. Chief Minister Chimanbhai Patel in his two stints in office was widely feted as the’chotte’sardar for taking on Medha Patkar and pursuing the construction of the Narmada dam. Hardliner L.K.Advani who was the Home Minister and later the Deputy Prime Minister in the NDA Government headed by the soft hearted Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee widely invited comparison with the Nehru-Sardar duo.
For all the scaled up sound and light to mark the event in Gujarat, the run for unity in Ahmedabad was more an official event with policemen leading while the general public participation was considerably whittled down. The lack of popular participation was evident in all the places.Interestingly none of the BJP leaders,ministers or other VIPs participated in the run.
Both Gandhi and Sardar were epitomes of simplicity with high standards of probity in personal life.The irony is that a Rs 3000 crore Statue is being built in the name of a person who would not deign to spend a paise of public money on personal use and always wanted every pie to go for public welfare.Similarly a Rs 500 crore Mahatma Mandir, an international level convention centre carrying the Mahatma’s name has come up in Gujarat’s capital of Gandhinagar.Can an opulent structure built with public money ever be a monument to a simplicity espousing Mahatma? The poverty stricken,slum dwellers whose cause the Mahatma espoused stay cheek-by jowl with the Mahatma mandir but there presence is sought to be negated by a wall which has been constructed to hide the sight. A Rs 400 crore addition to the secretariat was made in the shape of special wing to house the chief minister and other ministerial offices.
The heli-pad less than half a km away was shifted to within the secretariat flanking the CMs office for convenience. Do these two national icons wedded to lifelong simplicity need opulent monuments to showcase the works of their life?Or are these monuments for others who seek immortality through osmotic effect? Many, in Gujarat, would like to know why the Chief Minister who ruled for 13 years never thought of something to commemorate Indulal Yagnik, who led the Mahagujarat Struggle for statehood and had the gall to challenge the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Yagnik was a simple man who never owned a car or even a bicycle but lived in the hearts of the people.A sea of humanity had turned out on the streets when he died but Modi never thought of a fitting memorial to him ,Why?The cruelest lies are often told in silence.EOM
(rkm234@gmail.com)
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