A perennial characteristic of our public and political life right this moment is the relentless debate over the devious misreadings of our previous. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and its cohorts in energy are obsessive about a historic insecurity – a fancy of types – arising from the truth that their ideological and organisational ancestors have been mute spectators through the freedom wrestle. They have been, in impact, collaborators and companions of the British, usually even working to weaken the nationalist upsurge. Seventy-five years after freedom dawned in 1947, this advanced continues to hang-out these pseudo-nationalists.

When confronted by their political adversaries over their previous, these so-called nationalists use the time-tested divide-and-rule tactic: they pit one nationalist chief in opposition to one other. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, one of many seniormost leaders of the Congress celebration and India’s first residence minister, is repeatedly set in opposition to Jawaharlal Nehru on a number of imaginary pretexts arising from inside the RSS fold. All those that indulge on this disparaging distortion should be oblivious to the truth that each leaders had severe variations on many points – as all considering persons are anticipated to have – but held one another in immense respect.

Those that hardly have an icon with which to affiliate our historical past haven’t any selection however to use the fautlines inside their rival, the Congress celebration, to discover a foothold among the many nationalist pantheon. On this narrative, Sardar Patel, the ‘Iron Man’ of the Congress, is solid as a sufferer, whereas Jawaharlal Nehru is projected as an usurper of the place of first prime minister – as if chosen by Mahatma Gandhi whereas ignoring the rightful claimant.

However this manufactured victimhood is undone after we learn Patel’s letter to Nehru on August 3, 1947, written a mere 12 days earlier than the latter turned prime minister. Patel writes, “Our attachment and affection for one another and our comradeship for an unbroken interval of practically thirty years admit no formalities. My companies might be at your disposal, I hope, for the remainder of my life and you’ll have unquestioned loyalty and devotion from me within the trigger for which no man in India has sacrificed as a lot as you could have performed. Our mixture is unbreakable and therein lies our energy.”

There’s far more within the historic document to dispel any manufactured untruths concerning the Nehru-Patel relationship, however Patel’s personal evocative strains clearly convey the comforting and caring spirit of their bond.

Earlier than we come to the most recent controversy – Patel’s place on the accession of Kashmir – we should recall the demography of the three princely states that have been to be built-in instantly after Independence. They have been: Hyderabad, a Hindu-majority state dominated by a Muslim ruler; Junagarh, additionally a Hindu-majority state dominated by a Muslim nawab and Kashmir, a Muslim-majority state dominated by a Hindu king.

Now, our prime minister claimed final week that Patel needed “all of Kashmir” to be united with India, however Nehru “didn’t let his want be fulfilled”. However the historic information inform a very totally different story. As historian Rajmohan Gandhi, grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, notes in Patel: A Life, that “Vallabhbhai was not fairly positive that he needed the Kashmir apple” whereas “Kashmir, the attractive land of his forbears, was an apple that Jawaharlal [Nehru] didn’t need to lose.”

The final British governor-general of India, Louis Mountbatten, visited Kashmir between June 18 and 23, the place he informed maharaja Hari Singh, “… if Kashmir joined Pakistan, this might not be considered unfriendly by the Authorities of India.” He additionally categorically informed Hari Singh that he had “… agency assurance on this from Sardar Patel himself”. Discover that Mountbatten was citing Patel, and never Nehru.

Rajmohan Gandhi, citing V. Shankar’s My Reminiscences of Sardar Patel, provides to this, explaining how Patel even stated, “… if the Ruler [Maharaja of Kashmir] felt that his and his state’s curiosity lay in accession to Pakistan, he wouldn’t stand in his manner”.

Different accessible paperwork, together with letters exchanged on the Kashmir concern, reveal that the blame for what adopted must be shared by all of the gamers concerned – politicians in addition to civil servants. Historical past is advanced and collective, and should be understood in its particulars moderately than seen as a collection of particular person failings. The challenges of management in these unprecedented circumstances fell on many shoulders, moderately than anybody individual alone.

This sample of shared duty turns into even clearer after we flip to the partition of India. Right here, too, Nehru is continually painted because the wrongdoer – the person in a rush to develop into prime minister, even at the price of the tragic division of our nation. Nevertheless, those that make these claims about Nehru don’t realise, or refuse to acknowledge, that the partition undertaking was set in movement by the British in 1905, when Bengal was divided on communal strains. It was an occasion that set a precedent for British divide-and-rule, shaping the challenges India confronted each throughout Partition and in its aftermath.

On the time of the liberty wrestle, this politics of divide and rule paid dividends to the British by permitting Muslim and Hindu sectarian nationalisms – each patronised by the imperial rulers – to problem our composite nationalism. It was a collaborative undertaking between the communal forces and the British that continued till 1947, and it turned more and more difficult because the wrestle for independence intensified, with rising communitarian tensions, and the competing agendas of the nationalist management and the communal teams.

Right here once more, nobody particular person must be made to shoulder all the blame. Social-media-driven historical past has performed havoc with our previous, rendering historic information irrelevant. This turns into much more troubling when politicians unfold lies within the title of historical past.

Within the communitarian scheme of historical past, Patel is projected as the only real chief who needed an undivided India and opposed the partition – regardless of all of the proof on the contrary. His personal phrases inform a special story. For example, right here is one occasion of what Patel really believed, as delivered in a speech in [erstwhile state of] Madras on February 23, 1949. In it, he categorically discusses the inevitability of partition, saying it “has come to remain”.

“I actually consider that it’s good for each the brand new nations to be rid of a perpetual supply of hassle and quarrels. In 2 hundred years of slavery, the administration created a scenario wherein we started to float away from one another. It’s good that we now have agreed to partition regardless of all its evils; I’ve by no means repented my agreeing to partition. [italics mine] From the expertise of 1 12 months of joint administration after we had not agreed to partition, I do know we might have erred grievously and repented if we had not agreed. It could have resulted in a partition not into two nations however into a number of bits. Due to this fact, no matter some individuals might say, I’m satisfied and I stay satisfied that our having agreed to partition has been for the great of the nation.” [italics mine]

Patel was not alone in holding this view – the circumstances of these days pressured most Congress leaders to reconcile with the thought of partition on communal strains. Certainly, it was Maulana Azad who was left, ultimately, to rue the tragic division of the nation alone.

All bigots who blatantly name for Hindu rashtra, undermining our secular cloth, must be reminded that Patel, whom they declare to revere, didn’t agree with this concept. In 1949, referring specifically to the RSS, he stated:

“They [the RSS] need that Hindu Rajya or Hindu tradition must be imposed by drive. No authorities can tolerate this. There are nearly as many Muslims on this nation as within the half that has been partitioned away. We’re not going to drive them away. It could be an evil day if we began that sport, regardless of partition and no matter occurs. We should perceive that they will keep right here and it’s our obligation and our duty to make them really feel that that is their nation.”

So, to really comply with Patel, one must surrender the thought of Hindu rashtra, which, based on him, shouldn’t be tolerated by any authorities.

Historical past must not ever be used to settle political scores, notably not when the historic document clearly states in any other case. Our nationalist leaders took many selections in very troublesome and unstable circumstances: we are able to absolutely have a look at them critically, however not by discounting historic information.

[S. Irfan Habib is a well-known historian based in Delhi. He is former Maulana Azad Chair at the National University of Educational Planning and Administration, New Delhi. Courtesy: The Wire, an Indian nonprofit news and opinion website. It was founded in 2015 by Siddharth Varadarajan, Sidharth Bhatia and M. K. Venu.]