A divisive statue of unity

NEARLY seven decades after he passed away, the ‘Iron Man’ of India has received a tribute befitting his status as the unifier of India. The statue of unity is as imposing as the man who ignored advancing age to first battle the British and then set about the exhausting task of cajoling and persuading princely states to accede to the Union of India. A politician from the conservative streak, there was considerable ideological sparring with the progressive lot, right from 1936 when Nehru endorsed socialism as the guiding light of the yet-to-be-born free India.

Patel-Nehru ideological differences have always encouraged the Hindu right wing to appropriate selectively; opting to pick his post-Independence legacy while overlooking his enormous contribution to the freedom struggle. This spawned a partly-correct narrative about the neglect of Patel’s legacy by the Nehru-Gandhi clan. Patel’s children were given Congress tickets for both Houses of Parliament but Indira Gandhi was not enamoured of either the man or his kin. Narasimha Rao’s conferment of Bharat Ratna was in fact an effort to draw a line with the Gandhi school of keeping his memory at a stand-off distance.   

The Congress’ reaction to the whittling of icons in its neglected gallery of greats is understandable. The other purpose behind the BJP’s highly embellished commemoration of his memory is to show the Nehru-Gandhi as overtly occupied with the promotion of its clan to the studied exclusion of other freedom fighters-cum-nation builders. The BJP, however, may be disinclined to dive deep into Patel’s thought process, for he was an unwavering follower of Gandhi, had no love lost for the RSS and was averse to Subhas Chandra Bose, another icon in the process of appropriation by the BJP. Patel’s homily to the RSS would have particularly hurt: ‘To say one thing and to do another is a game which will not do’. BJP’s fragmented assimilation of Patel may or may not bring electoral dividends to the BJP but a united India could not have done without both Nehru and Patel.