Falsifying History to Appropriate Ambedkar and Discredit Nehru

 

Falsifying History to Appropriate Ambedkar and Discredit Nehru

The opposition parties managed to extract a commitment from the Mod government to have a debate on the Glorious journey of 75 years of the Constitution of India during the just concluded winter session of the Parliament. It was on 26 November 1949 that the Constituent Assembly adopted the Constitution. The government perhaps agreed for the debate, hoping to extricate itself from the relentless demand by the Opposition for a discussion and probe into the Adani scam that rocked the Parliament. The government was not willing to discuss it, with the Speaker of Lok Sabha Om Birla and the Chairman of Rajya Sabha Jagdeep Dhankhar, acting more like spokespersons of the ruling party rather than as neutral non-partisan presiding officers, not even allowing the name ‘Adani’ to go on the records of the Parliament. This speaks how volatile the Adani scam has become for the government.

 

The debate on the constitution degenerated into slugfest between the treasury benches and the Congress. Opening the debate in Lok Sabha on 13 December 2024, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh alleged that Nehru, the Congress and the Gandhi family subverted the constitution to subserve their interest: “whenever there was a choice, Congress chose power over constitution.”  Priyanka Gandhi in her debut speech, as the first speaker from the Opposition, made a powerful intervention: “We have a proud tradition of debate and discussion for thousands of years, and in our various religions. Our freedom struggle sprang from this.” Calling the Constitution a Suraksha Kavach, she said that this Suraksha Kavach is breaking under the present regime.

 

And referring to the atmosphere of fear spread by the government, she said: “People of the country protested openly for 75 years when they were angered. Never did debate stop. Today, people are made to fear speaking the truth.  Be it journalists, opposition leaders, professors or students, they are not spared. ED, CBI and IT are used against people. They have filled the country with fear… such fear was rampant during the British rule. When people of the ideology of Gandhi sitting on this side were fighting for independence, those on the side of the other ideology were afraid and colluding with the British. The Prime Minister holds the Constitution to his head, but is not bothered about Manipur or Hathras. Perhaps, he does not understand that the Samvidhan is not Sangh Ka Vidhan.”  She took potshots at the BJP for its recurrent attacks on Nehru: “You talk about the past, what Nehru did or did not do. Talk about the present. What are you doing?  What is your responsibility? Does all the responsibility lie with Nehruji? His name can be erased from the books, but his role in the independence struggle and nation- building can never be erased from this country.”

 

What followed was an intense debate between the Ministers and the ruling party MPs and   the Opposition MPs, making charges and counter charges.  On the second day of the debate - 14 December – the Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, holding copies of the Constitution and the Manusmriti, quoted Savarkar- the Hindutva ideologue - who never accepted the Constitution: “The worst thing about the constitution of India is that there is nothing Indian about it.  Manusmriti is that scripture which is most worshipable after Vedas for our Hindu nation and which, from ancient times, has become the basis of our culture, thought and practice.”  And he recalled what his grandmother Indira Gandhi told him that “while Gandhi and Nehru went to jail, Savarkar wrote letters and asked for forgiveness and compromised with the British.” He said, there is a battle taking place in India today - Constitution vs Manusmriiti. Then he invoked the story of Eklavya in Mahabharat as a metaphor for the government assault on various sections of society: “The way Dronacharya chopped the thumb of Eklavya, you chopped-off the thumb of the country – youth, entrepreneurs, SCs, STs, OBCs, farmers, and minorities.”

 

In his long speech that lasted 110 minutes, Narendra Modi   spent most of the time accusing Nehru, the Congress and the Gandhi family for allegedly inflicting damage to the constitution - the speech that lacked grace, dignity and civility expected of him. He doesn’t respect his position. He didn’t answer the issues highlighted by the opposition. He accused Nehru of heading a ‘selected government’, and not an ‘elected government’, and bringing the first amendment to the constitution in 1951, without authority. It demonstrates not only ignorance of history, but also a deliberate attempt to blame the Congress for everything that is wrong in his regime; the same repetitive defamatory language and bashing the Nehru-Gandhi family, that he does routinely at election rallies and in parliament. Modi attacks Nehru to distract nation’s attention from his own failures and the challenges confronting the country. Jairam Ramesh, quoting the Frech Philosopher Voltaire, made an apt remark: “if God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him. For our self-anointed divinity, if Nehru had not existed, it would have been necessary to invent him.”

 

The Opposition accused the Modi government of systematically weakening and undermining the Constitution and the BJP for constantly criticising the first Prime Minister. The RJD member in Rajya Sabha Manoj Kumar Jha said that those criticising Nehru should keep in mind the situation in 1946 and 1947 and questioned why he was projected as a villain: “You may win elections for another 100 years but you will find Nehru still standing because he is a symbol of parliamentary democracy against authoritarianism. He is a shield – Dhaal, Raksha Kavach.”

 

Mallikarjun Khadga, the Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha and the Congress President, in his speech on 16 December refuted Modi’s allegation against Nehru and demanded his apology for ‘twisting facts’ and misleading the nation. He said, it was Sardar Patel, Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister, who in his letter dated 3 July 1950 to Nehru suggested that a constitutional amendment was the only solution to the problems the country then facing. Considering the lawlessness created by the RSS and the Hindu outfits and communal organisations posing serious threat to unity and integrity of India, when it just gained the independence, Patel wrote: “As you say, we have involved ourselves in so many legal and constitutional difficulties that we do not know how to overcome them. My own feeling is that very soon we shall have to sit down and consider constitutional amendment.” Earlier, the land reforms and the abolition of Zamindari system were struck down by the supreme court.

 

On 12 December 1949, the RSS burnt the effigies of Nehru and Ambedkar at Ramlila Maidan, Delhi, protesting against the Hindu Code Bil on the ground that it went against the traditions and customs of Hindus. The RSS opposed the constitution and refused to accept the tricolor Indian flag. The first amendment to the constitution was made in 1951, endorsed by Sardar Patel and Syama Prasad Mukerjee, founder of Jan Sangh. While it imposed some “reasonable restrictions” on the right to freedom of speech and expression, due to gross abuse of that right, it protected reservation for socially and educationally backward classes and ensured affirmative action to secure them social and economic justice; paved the way for abolition of the oppressive, feudal zamindari system to emancipate millions of farmers and farm workers and facilitated land reforms, besides laying strong foundation for PSUs that contributed to economic growth and provided millions of jobs. That Narendra Modi and Nirmla Sitharaman, Finance Minister, should ignore these historical facts and manufacture a false narrative shows a vengeful and deceptive mindset.

 

So much is said about Nehru and the Congress insulting Ambedkar by speakers from the treasury benches, particularly by the Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Kiren Rijiju, virtually spreading venom against the first Prime Minister. It is a willful falsification of history to appropriate Ambedkar and discredit Nehru for political expediency. The truth is different. In fact, the Congress went out of its way to get Ambedkar elected to the Constituent Assembly from a general constituency from Bombay Province in 1947, ignoring the legitimate claim of G.V. Mavalankar, when Ambedkar ceased to be a member of the Constituent Assembly, following the partition of Bengal. My article What if Ambedkar not made Law Minister by Nehru in his first Cabinet! (14/07/2023) throws up many unpleasant facts about Ambedkar, not in the public domain.

 

In spite of his being a bitter critic of Gandhi, Nehru and the Congress, the Congress recognized Ambedkar’s academic achievements and his standing among the depressed classes, and made him the first Law Minister and the Chairman of the Constitution Drafting Committee.  He resigned from Nehru’s Cabinet in 1951, just before the commence of the first general election, dejected by the failure to get the Hindu Code Bill passed in the parliament. The Bill could not get passed due to relentless opposition from the RSS, the Hindu Mahasabha and the extreme right-wing Hindu organisations.

 

However, Nehru made the Hindu Code Bill the main issue during his campaign in the first general election 1952, with all the communal forces and the Hindu outfits uniting and campaigning against him opposing the Hindu Code Bill tooth and nail. They jointly fielded Prabhu Dutt Brahmachari – an orthodox religious leader known for the movement against cow-slaughter - against him. At one of his election speeches Nehru declared: "I will get the Hindu Code Bill passed, whether I win or lose the elction. I am prepared to fight the election on the issue of the Hindu Code." It was a highly communally charged atmospher. And the Congress won a landslide victory securing 364 seats,out of 489,in Lok Sabha,while the communal organisations got a severe thrashing, with the Jan Sangh, the Hindu Mahasabha and other religious outfits together not crossing a single digit. The people of India voted overwhelmingly for Nehru’s secular India. The Hindu Code Bill subsequently was split into four bills which got passed in the Parliament. And when Ambedkar contested for a Lok Sabha seat in the 1952 election, he was defeated; his own people voted against him. It was the Congress again which helped him to get elected as a Rajya Sabha member in 1953. The nation should be grateful to Nehru and the Congress for elevating Ambedkar to an exalted position and making him a national icon.  Where he would have been if he wasn’t made the Law Minister by Nehru!

 

Modi and the BJP are now trying to appropriate Ambedkar for electoral gain. It is not that they developed love and respect for him. It is a mere posturing. They have never forgiven him for burning the Manusmiriti and opposing the caste system which is central to Hinduism. They speak of him as the ‘architect of the Constitution’, but Modi hardly respects the constitution. He doesn’t attend Parliament sessions, showing contempt for Parliament. He didn’t bother to attend the four days special debate in the Parliament, held between 13^th and 17^th December, on the glorious journey of the constitution. The Sangh Parivar members, the extreme right-wing elements and the rabble-rousers continue to target and discriminate and commit atrocities against the Dalits and the downtrodden, making a mockery of social and economic equality that Ambedkar valued.

 

And on 17 December, substituting Modi for a reply to the debate on the Constitution in Rajya Sabha, the country’s Home Minister Amit Shah, in his eager to castigate the Congress, had said the unspeakable: “These days, it is a fashion to take the name of Ambedkar – Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar… If God’s name is taken so many times, they would have gone to heaven for seven births”, showing the true intent of the BJP.  It is an affront to Ambedkar, who is a god to millions of Dalits, Buddhists and marginalised. The opposition INDIA bloc strongly protested against the insult of Ambedkar, demanding Amit Shah’s apology and his resignation from the Modi government.