Congress can slam Modi for appropriating Netaji. But Modi has effected a political coup
It is an event few in India care to remember.
On Sunday, October 21, the nation witnessed extraordinary visuals, beamed from all major TV channels, of India’s Prime Minister raising the National Flag for the second time within two and a half months of the Independence Day.
From the hallowed and exalted ramparts of the Red Fort in the Capital, Narendra Modi unfurled the Tricolour to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Subhas Chandra Bose’s declaration of Independence and formation of the Azad Hind Government in Singapore in 1943.
Tricolour at Red Fort
It is an event few in India care to remember. The state he formed soon disappeared, but Bose’s words as he inaugurated it can never be forgotten: “In the name of God, I take this sacred oath— that to liberate India and the thirty-eight crores of my countrymen, I, Subhas Chandra Bose, will continue this sacred war of freedom till the last breath of my life.”
It was indeed an unprecedented moment, even for Modi’s much-discussed, sometimes reviled, headgear symbolism.
He gave a rousing peroration donning, for the first time, the INA’s signature khaki field service or garrison wedge cap, akin to the German Schiffchen or Russian pilotka.
Thus, in yet another political masterstroke, PM Modi, in the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, not only claimed Netaji’s legacy for himself and the BJP, but used the opportunity to attack the Opposition’s first family.
The contributions of great national leaders, he quipped, were “forgotten in favour of one family.”
He had made his intentions to remember Netaji clear earlier on the previous Wednesday in a video conference with BJP party workers: “While the Congress neglected the likes of Bhim Rao Ambedkar, Bose and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the BJP believed in remembering everybody who contributed to nation-building.”
Taking full advantage of the location, Modi announced, with the unveiling of a plaque, the setting up of a museum in Barrack No 3 of the Red Fort. This was the site of the famous Azad Hind Fauj trials.
The whole nation had rallied behind Bose’s defeated but patriotic army as its members faced court martial by British authorities.
Mahatma Gandhi, despite his disapproval of Bose’s methods, came out in support of the captured undertrial INA soldiers. Jawaharlal Nehru, who rarely practised his legal profession, himself appeared on their behalf in their defence.
Modi also inaugurated the renovated national police memorial, erected at the northern end of Shanti Path in Chanakyapuri. Nearly 35,000 policemen and women gave their lives for the country since 1947, over 400 of them this year alone.
Modi announced that a new museum for law-enforcement personnel would be set up on the site. He castigated the UPA for its failure to recognise “the supreme sacrifice made by police personnel…such a memorial would have been built several years ago,” he added.
Congress criticism
Finally, Modi announced a new National Award for disaster relief to be given every year on January 23, Netaji’s birthday.
Modi recalled how not merely a government in name, the Azad Hind Fauj actually ran a functioning administration: “It had its own bank, its own currency, its own stamp and its own intelligence system….”
Not to miss a sentimental aside, he added, “I bow down the parents who gave the country a leader like Subhash Chandra Bose Ji.”
The Congress predictably criticised Modi’s appropriation of Netaji, but Modi has stolen a march over them.
He has effected a political coup. Yielding significant electoral advantages in addition to more immediate dividends in optics, sonics, and media attention. Such ideological broad-basing is a considered component of Modi’s inclusive neo-nationalism.
BJP’s inclusive agenda
By taking over the legacy of the Congress along with its political mantle, Modi’s rebranding of nationalism has made BJP India’s main national, rather than oppositional, party.
Towards the end of this month, on another great leader’s birthday, Modi will inaugurate the world’s tallest “Statue of Unity” to celebrate India’s iconic iron man, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.
It matters little that Patel was a Congressman, Gandhi’s trusted acolyte and Nehru’s associate, and India’s first home minister.
Or that he both placed, then lifted, the ban on the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh after Gandhi’s assassination by Nathuram Godse.
Nor does it matter that Bose condemned the Hindu Mahasabha then led by VD Savarkar, and later by Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, the founder of Jana Sangh, BJP’s precursor.
What is far more significant is Modi’s inclusive nationalism has trumped the single-family Raj of today’s Congress.
Old-style Hindutva hardliners may be dismayed at the BJP’s inclusive ideological agenda, but all heroes and leaders, regardless of their political, religious, regional, or caste affiliation, are welcome to India’s new BJP-sponsored hall of fame.
Soon, we may even see figures like Indira Gandhi, if not Nehru himself, partially annexed to such a rainbow nationalism, even its dominant hue is saffron.
To return to Netaji’s historic Indian Independence proclamation issued from Singapore’s Cathay theatre, let us recall his noble and rousing words: “In the name of God, in the name of bygone generations who have welded the Indian people into one nation, and in the name of the dead heroes who have bequeathed to us a tradition of heroism and self- sacrifice— we call upon the Indian people to rally round our banner and strike for India’s freedom.”
(Courtesy of Mail Today)