The omission of Jawaharlal Nehru from the advertisement issued by the Karnataka government in connection with the 75th anniversary of Independence was a mean and shameful action. The advertisement featured the country’s important freedom fighters at the national level and from Karnataka. The national panel of leaders has Gandhiji, Subhash Bose, Sardar Patel and others but not Nehru. A line drawing of Nehru as part of a group in the top corner does not make up for the exclusion but makes it more glaring. It is not just Nehru that is missing. There is no leader from South India nor a woman on the panel. Was there no leader from the South or a woman freedom fighter who had a national stature? Could neither Rajaji nor Sarojini Naidu find a place there? This was when the controversial Savarkar, who apologised to the British government for his own freedom from jail and had no role in the nation’s struggle post-1924, is there in the gallery.
History of India’s freedom struggle without Nehru in it is Hamlet without the Prince. The history of post-Independence India would also be nothing without Nehru. As the most prominent freedom fighter and the architect of modern India, Nehru’s place is next only to Gandhiji’s, and to exclude him from a gallery of freedom fighters is a travesty. It is an insult to freedom fighters and can be legally proceeded against. Nehru is persona non grata for the Sangh Parivar because the values and ideals that he stood by are at odds with its creed, and perhaps also because his descendants are heading the Congress party. In fact, the values and ideals of none of the leaders in the ad panel, except to some extent Savarkar’s, would agree with the Parivar’s, but it has sought to co-opt them as it had itself no leaders who fought for the country’s freedom.
The omission of Nehru could be a part of the BJP’s policy to blame him for every problem that the country has faced even long after his death. The party has brought out a video that suggests that Nehru was responsible for the country’s Partition in 1947. The two-nation theory had actually originated in the Hindu and Muslim extremist groups and the Congress leadership, including Sardar Patel, accepted it later as they had no other choice. No-one leader can be held responsible for that, and the BJP cannot prove its contention, either. The vilification of Nehru is in line with the rewriting of history that is being done. Taxpayers’ money should not be used for such blatant political propaganda and purpose. The country knows Nehru’s contribution to the freedom struggle and to nation-building as its first and greatest Prime Minister. The exclusion will only remind people of his role in its history and underline it.