NEUTRAL CITIZENS

Justifying her rant against Gandhi with her bheekh remarks, Kangana Ranaut says you are either with Gandhi or with Bose. And she is not alone. The right-wing nationalists are clear in their proclamations. It's Bose, not Gandhi. It's Patel, not Nehru. And their cult? Savarkar, Golwalkar and Mookerjee. But then there is a contradiction here. In a note to Syama Prasad Mookerjee, Patel talks about the Hindu Right Wing as "anti-national forces of hate and violence" while accusing them of "indulging in arson, robbery, dacoity and murder." He wrote a separate letter to Golwalkar and remarked, "All your speeches are full of communal poison, it was not necessary to spread poison to enthuse Hindus and organise for their protection". If that was Patel, Bose who was himself a fan of Gandhi had remarked, "By taking advantage of religion and desecrating it, the Hindu Mahasabha has entered the arena of politics. It is the duty of all Hindus to condemn it. Ba...

‘Only I Know…’: Sardar Patel Wrote This Letter On Nehru’s 60th Birthday   "Contrary to the impression created by some interested persons, we have worked together as lifelong friends and colleagues, adjusting ourselves to each other’s point of view as the occasion demanded, and valuing each other’s advice as only those who have confidence in each other can." Sadly, the "interested persons" that Patel mentioned in a letter to Nehru on his birthday in 1949 still live on. Coincidentally, many of those interested persons believe in the ideologies of hatred that Patel stood against. In his letters to Hindu right wing organizations post Gandhi's assassination, he noted that "it was not necessary to spread poison in order to enthuse the Hindus and organise for their protection." Ironically he went on to call them "anti-national". In spite of the commendable job that they did or continue to do otherwise, it was not just the Hindu right wing organizati...