 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. I am Neelanjan Mukhopadhyay and you are watching the Present, Past and the Future. In this program we talk about something very important which is happening in the present times. It obviously would have a past, we discussed the past length and then we look at that the present and the past, what effect will it have on the future. In today's episode we are specifically going to talk about the politics of appropriation. Now when I was discussing this with a friend as to that this is the program which I am doing and it is going to be called the politics of appropriation, I was asked that what was I really trying to do. I said that look in very layman's term it is basically a story of somebody else making someone else's history their own. Now to simplify it you know as you are watching and probably just a day or two before that you would have seen on television these visuals of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurating the world's largest statue of Siddharth Patel on the banks of Narmada. Build as a huge project of this government, a monument of unity of this country. About a week ago the Prime Minister was there at the Red Fort where he talked very highly about Netaji Subash Chandra Bose and said you know this is the 75th anniversary of the formation of the provisional government which was announced by Netaji as part of the Indian National Army. Now the ironic fact is that none of this that we are talking about was actually part of the political process through which Mr. Narendra Modi has evolved politically. I am talking about the Sangh Parivar. If you look at Siddharth Patel's politics or if you look at Netaji Subash Chandra Bose's politics you will find that none of this had any resonance with the RSS or with the BJP at the time when it was happening in fact they were very strong antagonists to these important people. Now to discuss today's program with me I have two very eminent guests. I have S Irfan Habib, a very noted historian and I have Satya Narayan Sahu who has a person of multiple talents who has also been the press secretary of President K. R. Narayanan served in the civil service at a very important period of time. Irfan Habib has of course done very commendable work on various aspects of modern history you know his work on Bhagat Singh is very well noted. His new book is also going to be out in a short period from now. Now the two of you I wanted to begin by showing you a cartoon you know I am sure that you would have seen this cartoon. Now let me try to explain to the viewers as to what this cartoon is. It has a demonic Ravan like figure of Mahatma Gandhi in the center with his ten heads. One of the ten heads includes Jawaharlal Nehru, Sadaar Patel, Maulana Azad and Netaji Subhash Shantar Bose and he is being slayed by two people. They are caricatures but they resemble Shyama Prashad Mukhaji and Vinayak Damodar Savarkar. There is a caption to it, yato dharma tato jaya which means that wherever there is dharma there is justice, there is victory. Now this is very highly ironical you know that you have a situation where on the one hand this cartoon was there it was published in a magazine called Aghrani whose editor at that point was Nathuram Goodsay. Now a person who grew up from within the factory of the Sangh Parivaar you know who edited a magazine like this does a, publishes a cartoon here and then few decades after that these same people who are being slayed in here are being felt. Isn't this a real paradox Irfan Havi? You see I don't think it's a paradox, it's a sheer politics, it's a politics of convenience, it's a politics with which you can re-benefit today. You're not bothered about past and I say it again and again that they are not bothered about past, they are not bothered about religion, they are not bothered about history, they are only bothered about the present politics that's all. They want to use everything from the past whether religion or history to their advantage which actually gives them some mileage in their political march that's all. So there is no sincerity in anything so we should not see anything very serious in whatever they say, whether they fate Bose or they celebrate Patel etc. There is nothing serious in it, they just want to sweep across people's emotions, sentiments and just run roughshod over the past. Now in this particular program I also present certain thesis or what I call also premise. Now the first premise which I have which actually takes off from what we have already talked about is that the BJP is appropriating these national icons, whether we are talking about Patel or whether they are talking about Netaji or we have talked about various other people, we will talk about others also who have done through the entire last four and a half years and even before that is because they have no icon of their own who can really match any of these nationalists. Sahu coming to you, when we talk about the statue of unity, when we talk about this entire look at what they say in terms of the Rashtri Ekta Divas that was among the first things which was decided by the Modi government when it came to power in 2014. There is also a Rashtri Ekta pledge that you take where there is a certain way of reductionist approach that we take this pledge because it is Sadar Patel who has actually unified this country is putting everything into the Sadar Patel narrative and then saying that Sadar Patel is somebody who did so much for the unity of this country yet he was neglected by the Congress. It was only Nehru's dynasty which has been promoted and we are the real upholders and custodians of Sadar Patel. We are the ones who have resurrected Sadar Patel, his memory and his imagery in the country. You know a question is there is no question of resurrection, I mean Sadar Patel's legacy is there, it was there and Sadar Patel's contributions are well known, you know students study, researchers they do research, it's already there, question is in a different manner they are trying to project Sadar Patel which is very very objectionable even though what you know Mr. Habib says we should not take that seriously, agree with him while agreeing with him but I must also caution that the kind of projection, kind of interpretation which they want to give to Sadar Patel's legacy that should be challenged. See for instance I have gone through his writings, Sadar Patel's writings slightly familiar with his writings. He says you know in the context of let's say RSS he says it's one thing to serve the cause of Hindus and Hinduism but another thing to use Hindus and Hinduism to hate others. So that part of hatred which you know which was being carried forward by these organizations was flagged by Sadar Patel and he cautioned them not to do it and in so many words he has written that RSS is a secret organization. He wrote in a letter to the RSS functionaries and when that letter was received by RSS functionaries they said if RSS is functionary then every Hindu if RSS is secret then every Hindu is a secret in this country. From what you are saying and you know what Irfan Habib was saying previously it brings us to the second premise of this that the entire appropriation of the politics of appropriation which has been promoted by the BJP is actually built on very flimsy grounds in terms of history. Now you know we are talking about repeated appropriation you know we are talking about not just Sadar Patel we are not only talking about Netaji but even Gandhi for instance you know don't you you know what do you really make out of the fact that they have tried to own Gandhi as if Gandhi is there you know their heart bleeds for Gandhi. In 2017 not just Gandhi the entire national movement recently Mohan Bhagwat gave a lecture where he talked very highly about the national movement. In 2017 Modi had a day long session of parliament to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Quit India movement. I want to understand that why do you think is this repeatedly they are falling back on icons you know we keep saying they do not have any of their own but what are they trying to gain by leaning on Gandhi Patel Netaji and various of the people even Jayaprakash Narayan even PV Narasimha Rao. I see it very very clearly and people actually should see it very clearly because the point is they know what what status Gandhi holds among the people what is the position of Jawaharlal Nehru in the hearts of the people what Nehru what both stands for the people of India what all these icons of our freedom struggle together stand for the people of India despite 70 years of freedom we still go back to them we still when rate them we still remember them we actually sometimes and I say this in I say this in the last book also which I did on nationalism that we actually go back to Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose and Modi actually talks about Subhash Chandra Bose from the Red Fort but he will not talk about his hardly talked about Netaji he talked more about how Netaji has been neglected by the Congress by the Congress and by Nehru that the point is this this Nehru versus this binary we did I try to create this binary is a problem and this binary is actually comes out of some sort of a complex which these people have the complex is that they don't see themselves anywhere some kind of a complex I think a very serious complex which Irfan Habib has used now you have Sahu you have done a lot of work on Ambedkar and you have particularly tracked as to how the entire memory and the work of Ambedkar has been you know appropriated by the Sangh Parivar by the BJP how they are trying to post themselves as real custodians of you know Ambedkar's legacy you know I think really the way in which they are trying to endear themselves towards Ambedkar I would put it that way they are trying to endear themselves to Ambedkar and Ambedkar's legacy and to the Dalits of India by reducing Ambedkar to an icon who can be fitted into their event management strategy you know they way they do it you know in a absolutely you know in a manner which would it's like a high decibel programs music programs the constitution day in two days in parliament you know they were celebrated and then Ambedkar another program you know this you know they they try to they purchase that house in London and so and so forth it's all event management programs there is no serious reflection on Ambedkar's legacy see for instance Ambedkar has clearly written that Hindu rastra is a arant nonsense this is a these are the words of Ambedkar now how does Ambedkar fit into their entire program and Ambedkar who said I was a born Hindu a born untouchable I would never die a Hindu and never die untouchable he said Hinduism is a based on graded social inequality and this is true even Gandhi also said the same thing in much later after 1920s he started very very strongly indicting the caste system and he said there is you know caste erosion crime of caste and so and so forth all these things you know they just do not fit into their entire world view the the world view which wants to appropriate it so Ambedkar's legacy is conveniently or strategically been reduced to event management program and so therefore we need to understand in that context only right you know whenever we talk about reducing everything to an event management program or appropriating a part of it you know that we always have to talk about what I say is the third premise of this program that is the Sangh Pariva repeatedly has to appropriate others because their icons the icons of the Sangh Pariva do not resonate nationally you know when we talk about you know the icons of Sangh Pariva the first icon that we talk about that whether they like it or not the fact is that they have very uncomfortable icons also Savarkar for instance Savarkar was never part of the RSS though his book Hindutva who is a Hindu you know inspired headgear to form the RSS yet he he he did not join the RSS yet Mr. Modi after becoming the Prime Minister the first thing he did was he went to parliament and you know very well the circumstances in which that entire portrait of Savarkar you know you were very much there when President Narayanan was there so you would have seen through it you know you saw the first attempt at appropriation when Mr. Vajpayee was Prime Minister you know that is some one chapter which we really need to recall that how they try to install Savarkar as a national icon but failed you know first thing Mr. during Mr. Narayanan's time when Mr. Narayanan proposed that Bismillah Khan should be conferred with Bharat Ratna Vajpayee accepted the proposal of Mr. President Narayanan but while accepting Bismillah Khan's proposal he also suggested that Savarkar should also be conferred with Bharat Narayanan along with Bismillah Khan right so Mr. Narayanan set over that file for considerably long time and when on the occasion of his birthday Prime Minister Vajpayee's birthday on December 25th when he went to call you know see him and greet him Mr. Vajpayee he is you know in a manner of a statesman he said sir I sent that proposal concerning Savarkar and I have not heard anything from you and I feel you are not happy about it so I withdraw that proposal so Mr. Vajpayee withdrew it and as a result so what happened Mr. Narayanan in a very very diplomatic manner he actually you know set over that particular proposal concerning Savarkar and therefore he could not get Savarkar Bharat Ratna whereas when Mr. Kalam succeeded Mr. Narayanan so it was Mr. Murli Manohar Joshi a speaker of Lok Sabha he suggested you know Savarkar's name it was approved by General Proposers Committee of Lok Sabha and then Mr. Kalam went and unveiled it in spite of the fact that he was persuaded not to do so and his that persuasion was based on Sadar Patel's writings because Sadar Patel wrote that a fanatical wing of Hindu Mahasava led by Vinayak Namada Savarkar conspired to kill Gandhi and then the Kapoor commission report which raises very important question which was established but still remain unanswered yes you know that very severely indicted Savarkar to borrow a phrase from the famous Thakkar commission which was appointed after Indira Gandhi's assassination the needle of suspicion needle of suspicion yes so I mean much after you know recently I think it may be a year back somebody after so many years decades of Mahatma Gandhi's assassination somebody went to Supreme Court you know asking him to delete all those indicting remarks on Savarkar and Marathi or something like that so Supreme Court didn't agree with that you know Irfan Habib when we talk about politics of appropriation when we talk about you know the way they are going to trying to own Sadar Patel as their own or whether it is Nehru or various other people. Let me post put it this way there have been two clear definitions of what is nationalism in India you have had the sung driven definition which is basically based on the tenet of cultural nationalism and you have a parallel more inclusive nationalism which has been promoted and which was you know for which the entire freedom struggle was fought. We can also call it a more you know inclusive or a more territorial kind of nationalism. Now when they say that you know all the nice things about Sadar Patel or about Netaji Bose or various other leaders of the freedom struggle are they somehow the other trying to say that our definition of nationalism is wrong or are they trying to drag them into their interpretation or their version of nationalism what are they trying to do are they actually you know Mohan Bhagwan you know said that the national movement was very important so are they actually converting or actually or are they it's a reverse way around are they trying to co-opt them into their fault. Actually they are trying to co-opt so that's a different thing let us go back to the whole evolution of nationalism which what we have today when we were talking about nationalism we were defining nationalism during the freedom struggle because nationalism for us the modern nationalism for us is actually a product of our freedom struggle nothing like this happened existed before while this exercise was going on even during the process of this evolution of nationalism there were there were voices like the RSS like the muslim league during the freedom struggle itself who questioned this brand of nationalism which congress was trying to espouse now congress was espousing nationalism which was debated there was a churning which went through and that churning took place between leaders debated around on several issues finally it was agreed upon which we call Naruvian idea of India but it was actually not just Naruvian it was an idea which was agreed upon by Sardar Patel by Azhar by Gandhi by so many others all together over decades of debate and discussion and that idea was to have a cosmopolitan vision inclusive nationalism composite nationalism like eclectic nationalism you can give different names to it and I have given that in my in my book also different names to this nationalism now this brand of nationalism was an anathema to organizations like RSS they kept questioning it Akshay Mukul has beautifully brought this out in his book so at the core of the disagreement with Nehru is actually the idea of secularism exactly that is the idea idea of togetherness idea of happily living together that that is an anathema to them that is what they are trying to question today they had been doing it all these years but they couldn't do it from the center today they are going they are they have been center-staged they have power now they can use all that which they believed all these years from the sides as something very very central to the idea of India you know this is their India which they have imagined all these years it is actually all for all those who who don't know RSS may find it something very new but this is not something new this is what they had believed all these years but they believed it only in their shakhas in their little circle you know because nobody accepted them like PN Oak PN Oak was not a historian to be respected now today it is his idea a great historian yeah they cite him yeah in TV debates with me many times now somebody whom whom you actually loved at mocked at is a respect respectable story you know they mock you and then they put it into the tutorials of the university of WhatsApp and that is how it actually goes so this is and then an untruth becomes the actual truth so that is the idea you know sahu you know there are lots of ironies now for the last four and a half years that we have seen this government this is possibly one of the most centralized governments that we've ever seen at the central level this government has also co-opted Jayaprakash Narayan in a very big way you know the entire anti-emergency struggle you know in fact today the RSS and the PJP claim that there's a sole custodians of the anti-emergency struggle because the others who were there are actually frittered away they're just not to be found maybe the couple of them like Lalu Yadav and he are there but others you know this is part of it which is in the Janta Dal you they are not you know to be found anywhere now don't you find this extremely ironical that a person like Jayaprakash Narayan who fought against any kind of centralized politics any kind of centralization is being considered as a big icon by this government no absolutely because mrs. Jayaprakash Narayan after all he was a freedom fighter as well right it's not just that he's he played a big role in the post independence india right so that he is a product of the freedom struggle which celebrated inclusive nationalism liberal nationalism and nationalism which was co-extensive with a planetary identity ok so to co-opt him you know in other words he is to absolutely embrace something else which is contrary to their own vision so there is a desperate attempt to legitimize their you know identity the identity of the sangha parivara whatever it is so therefore they are falling they are trying to desperately locate somebody who would affirm their place in you know the india of 21st century so that is the whole point my point is even while Jayaprakash Narayan i mean part of the whole struggle against emergency she finds a whole socialist a whole lot of socialist leaders be it madhu dandabhate mr rabhi re madhu lima and all that so you know they they have been completely i mean the their legacy is nobody nobody is talking about so this kind of appropriation which they are trying to do is very selective anyway it's not only selective it's just because they are in power they are doing it right once they are out of power i think they will never remember them see it is because i think it's a power centric approach to appropriate somebody now when he says that it's a power centric approach to appropriate it why i think my final premise is that this politics of appropriation has been pursued because there's realization that until and unless you own up these national psychons you cannot ever be popular now we are talking about essential about popularity so essentially there is no belief actually but it's all a question of that how do you become more popular so how if you remember that you know when this government came into power there were imaginations that this government is going to be this prime minister is going to be a great reformer but then suddenly after coming to power that suddenly remembered that no they must do something for the poor of this country they resurrected the idea of the dindal upadhyay and his integral humanism which till today is the official position official philosophy of the bjp but nobody really talks about philosophies in these days it's all about showmanship as you said it is really doesn't fit into an event so dindial became an event because it was his birth centenary so it continued for three long years one year prior one year during the actual centenary and then one year after that so that's the way things are done now don't you find so very contradictory thing that you are actually leaning on something you know which you really don't believe in you know you see one's one when one talks of dindial upadhyay one must be mindful of his opposition to the constitution so when his name is invoked in the context of social justice or for any major oriented to reach out to the poor i think that's a contradiction in a it actually contradicts because mr dindial upadhyay believed in exclusive nationalism a nationalism which is rooted in the identity of hindus alone and therefore his stand very strong stand against the constitution and then you just oppose that strong stand against constitution with his pro-poor approach it completely nuggets so therefore they are in a almost forcibly trying to bring in dindial upadhyay and imposing on the people of India or in a way they are trying to you know completely coercing others to accept his name they are putting it in president speeches and he has no option but to read out so therefore it's a kind of a very strange kind of a muscular approach to rewrite history if i'm how we you know we must always be optimistic let's look at it you know a possible good that can happen by constantly chanting the names of patel netaji kandhi various other iconic leaders you know even jai prakash narayan or various other leaders of the country who have done very good for the the people is there no chance that actually coming generations of people from the sangh pariyava will actually start believing that they weren't actually so bad as our political ancestors you know really put them out to be no no because no no no no no no at all because i i have no illusions of that sort because they because these names are not being chanted in the way in an honest way the way they should be because when they talk about boz they don't talk about his is is is socialist ideas you know his he's actually hatred for for philatism he has written so much right talk about that also what what is the legacy intellectual legacy he has left behind what is the intellectual legacy baghastri has left behind mere merely celebrating him as a martyr is not enough no that is incomplete it's true but incomplete go back to what he left behind the idea is the vision of india boz as well as baghastri as well as sadha patel go back to 1949 what sadha patel spoke in chennai in madras those times about the rss about the right way don't be selective in what you want to go back to i think that is the message which both of you are saying i think we are covered quite a bit of ground in this discussion thank you very much for coming and you know being part of this discussion well we were talking about the politics of appropriation and what we are seeing is that it is being appropriated because it is obviously good otherwise why should anybody try to appropriate a history which was not theirs on that note that at least the history that happened in this country was actually the right history but not accepting it previously was was the wrong way of actually looking at it let's look at it on a positive note that at least in the politics of the contemporary the past is being is being honored by the people who fought against it when it was when they were living at that time thank you very much for coming and watching this program