Shiban Khaibri
Quite prosaic , if not unfortunate, for this country that day in and day out most of the leaders and spokespersons of Congress Party keep on boasting and rather exulting ”We have given independence to this country and offered sacrifices” . The word ”Given” in literal sense denotes the quantum of thrust and a mountain of obligation on the countrymen that had Congress not been around and Gandhi Ji and Mr. Nehru not being there , we would have been still under the British rule. This rhetoric repeatedly taken refuge under not known for what purposes, has ,however, now become out dated, boring and worn out. What in fact is sought to be conveyed by this chanting of ”AazadiDilwai” and to inflict the feelings in the countrymen of being under debt to the Congress Party for this Aazadi, is beyond comprehension especially when we the countrymen have not only ”repaid” the debt by giving our acquiesce to it to rule for nearly five decades but paid the cost of such debt too in many of the omissions and commissions during its rule . By repetition of this ”AazadiDilwai” , it, in other words, also perhaps means that a total of 65 other countries who also were under the rule of the United Kingdom or the British Empire and got independence before or after India got, could have not got it had there too been not a Party like Congress and not having ”fought” for the same and given sacrifices like Congress claims . In none of these 65 countries,no political party, parrots day in and day out that had they not been there, those countries would still have been slave countries. Sounds quite amazing.
In this sense, we the countrymen, still ”owe a debt” to Congress Party which despite being repaid is still declared as outstanding because Congress is out of power. How we have fully repaid the debt is that the people as a consideration voted the party to rule for a long time and still in some states in the country it rules. Since the rule of the debt is that it has got to be repaid despite knowing what Shakespeare had told about borrowing and lending as “Neither a borrower nor a lender be- –” but in this case of attaining freedom from the British , we had to be ”borrowers” but our choice of the lender was not mainly that of the Congress since it entered the ”lending market” without any pleadings and cajoling by the people as we had other organisations, parties and great individuals who selflessly entered the arena risking their everything even offering their lives heroically and without a murmur but never made us their borrowers not to speak of the repayment of the debt in any form .
It , therefore, needs to be recorded properly in Indian History books that India got freedom through sweat , blood and sacrifices of our freedom struggle revolutionaries and not only by advocating the questionable ”binakhadakbinadhaal” and on account of PudYatras and Satyagrahs and the like . It is also a fact which cannot be side lined that Gandhi Ji did play a notable part in this struggle but how much his role resulted in bringing the British to knees was revealed by no less than the then British Prime Minister Clement Attleeby acknowledging the tremendous part played by NetajiSubhash Bose and his Army the INA in India being granted independence and the role played by the non-violent movement of Gandhi Jiwas dismissed as ”minimal” . These words were spoken in 1956 in a conversation by Atlee to Justice P .B. Mukherjee the West Bengal Governor during his visit to India. It needs to be reiterated that Clement Atlee was leader of the Labour Party and the British Prime Minister having signed off on the decision to grant independence to India.In fact,Netaji’s INA created so much scare and panic in the British that fearing large scale disloyalty to the British Crown among the Indian Army and Navy personnel , it resulted in a hastened departure of the British from India.
Congress, therefore, has got a very dismal and insignificant score on that count and, therefore, their theory on virtually monopolistic claim stands proved otherwise when we see the sacrifices like that of Khudi Ram Bose the youngest revolutionaryof the period who was hanged by the British. Are there any instances from the family of that great martyr to demand anything in turn from the countrymen, least keep the people under perpetual obligation. Chander Shekhar Azad did not belong to Congress Party who gave his life just at prime 25 years of age for the country. Bhagat Singh the revolutionaryfreedom fighter did not belong to Congress party nor the other associate revolutionaries SukhdevThaper and ShivramRajguru who were hanged by the British . Ram Prasad Bismil , Ashfaqullah Khan and Thakur Roshan Singh the revolutionary freedom fighters too were not from Congress Party . RajindraNathLahri another freedom fighter neither a Congress supporter nor its activist, was hanged by the British but was an active member of Hindustan Republican Association – a revolutionary organisation established by Bhagat Singh , ChanderShekhar Azad and others. Lahri was hanged two days ahead of the scheduled date likeBhagat Singh and associates a day earlier by the British. All of them were in their early twenties. MadanLalDingra another revolutionary and freedom activist who at the age of 26 was hanged in the year 1909 by the British, is more or less gone into an oblivion for reasons not known.
There were not scores but hundreds ofother revolutionaries who offered their youth, pleasures of the life, properties , future career , and even life itself for the country’s freedom , many among them are not even remembered let alone made known to the younger generations to have a feel of their zeal , pledge, patriotism and utmost commitment towards freeing the country from foreign rule . Even a passing reference about such great freedom heroes herein would be simply not possible as the list being long and role of each one being a heroic deed in itself, would require pages of space .The role of iconic SubashChander Bose is both unique , much effective , wide and all-encompassing, involvement of all sections especially in the Indian National Army (INA) with a woman brigade as well as he firmly believed that women were vanguard of the freedom struggle of India . Who is not familiar about the Rani of JhansiRegiment in the INA ?Netaji sought help ofand support from other countries too for the great cause. Though he was humbled and virtually rendered as ”not required” in Congress Party chiefly for his opinion and urging Gandhi Ji to review the sole tool of non- violence to dislodge a mighty empire to impel and pressurise it to leave India , yet the great iconic leader named all the four brigades of INA after Gandhi Ji, Jawaharlal Nehru, Chandershekhar Azad and SubhashChander Bose himself. Why did the Congressand its governments not recall and widely credit him with being the foremost and quite effective force in increasingly compelling the British to grant independence to India at the earliest. The present dispensation in the country, however, has compensated for this grave intentional goof of all the seven long decades and reversed to some extent the great deal of injustice and neglect of the great leader whose clarion call to the countrymen was ”Tum mujhekhoon do , main tumheAazadidoonga”.
It dawned upon the countrymen only recently that in fact, the first Prime Minister of provisional government of ”free” India was Congressman turned anti British warrior NetajiSubashChannder Bose who on October 21, 1943 established the provisional government of free India . Andaman and Nicobar islands have, therefore, historical significance in this respect. Recently, 21 islands were renamed on Netaji’s birthday.
Not only this, time and again most of the leaders in an attempt to show the present dispensation at the centre in quite poor light pooh pooh and ridicule them for not ”even a dog” from any one’s house from them having laid down its life for independence. This narrative is peddled side by side now more frequently including the one about “Mehangai, Berozgaari … ” However, it is beyond comprehension as to why the freedom giving syndrome is now more manifest than before and what benefit or brownie points the Congress Party is aiming to derive except perhaps trying to assert its irrevocable right to rule as recovering the cost of being monopolistic in causing freedom from the British to be granted to the countrymen . It has now become so rampant, free for all and cheap that a spokesperson of a political party on a TV Channel legitimised raising in uniform religious slogans in Aligarh Muslim University in reply to Jai Hind raised by other NCC cadets by saying that ”with this very religious slogan was the freedom struggle started and carried forward in this country.” Go on and keep it repeating in whatever way and soon it will perhaps become an established fact as it provides an easy alibi to pseudo secularists to proceed with their agenda . Hence, it is again all in fairness that the portrait of the fanatic and responsible for killing of hundreds of thousands of people in this country for , during and after partition – Ali Mohamed Jinnah in AMU should be displayed but Veer Savarkar’s portrait in the parliament is opposed. India is moving forward at a rapid pace going to be third largest economy of the world , let , therefore, the credit of who ”gave” independence to this country be now stopped . It has , indeed become redundant.
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