Any Attempt to Kill the Spirit Behind the Slogan Bharat Mata ki Jai is Anti-national
India’s first PM Jawahar Lal Nehru discovered real India when he
wrote his 595-page book Discovery of India in 1946. Written during his
four-year stay in Ahmed Nagar Fort Jail, Nehru spoke about India’s
ancient civilisation, culture and the greatness that was polluted by
invaders from outside. Four decades later, Shyam Benegal, a genuine
liberal, wrote and directed the historical drama Bharat Ek Khoj based on
Nehru’s book in which Roshan Seth, a Nehruvian and Doon school alumnus,
played the role of the former PM. The first episode was titled Bharat
Mata ki Jai (BMKJ). The first scene showed a group of villagers
welcoming Nehru to a public gathering with chants of BMKJ. When Nehru
asked his audience if they knew the meaning of the slogan and whose
victory they were aspiring for, initially no one had an answer. Finally,
one of the young farmers said Bharat Mata meant the dharati (land),
which was their mother. But Nehru refused to accept that it was just the
earth beneath their feet; he said Bharat Mata referred to the whole
country, to its mountains, rivers, sky and seas and, most importantly,
to its people. It was the only in the victory of its people that Bharat
could find its victory, he said.
But having said that, he chose
to end his famous Tryst with Destiny speech at Red Fort in August 1947
with Jai Hind, not Bharat Mata ki Jai. Despite being one of India’s
leading freedom fighters, Nehru chose to ignore the fact that the slogan
had been coined by those seeking freedom from British rule under the
leadership of the Indian National Congress, and that people of all
faiths proudly chanted it during protests against the British. Powerful
freedom fighters like Liaquat Ali had to face the wrath of brutal
British controlled police for shouting BMKJ and Vande Matram.
That
was then. Seventy years after Nehru wrote his book, his disciples and
progeny are still engaged in an exercise to discover the idea of India
and define the space and importance of BMKJ. Not only political parties,
even civil society leaders, Bollywood icons, writers, social
media-savvy religious gurus and organisations are fiercely fighting to
either own or disown BMKJ. For every champion of Bharat Mata, there is
one who feels pride in declaring himself or herself anti-national by
refusing to chant the slogan. Indeed, it has become the biggest issue
dividing the country along communal and political lines.
With
elections becoming a permanent feature of every calendar year, India’s
idea- and issue-starved political parties have made nationalism (ours vs
theirs) the main plank for the coming polls. While the Sangh Parivar
led by PM Narendra Modi has made the chanting of BMKJ the only credible
test of one’s loyalty to India, its adversaries insist that undiluted
faith in the Constitution of India is the solitary symbol of patriotism.
Perhaps, it is the over-enthusiastic imposition of BMKJ by the Sangh
Parivar that has contributed to the equally-aggressive opposition of its
detractors.
The battle for grabbing a nationalist trophy acquired
religious overtones last week when leading Islamic seminary Darul Uloom
Deoband issued a fatwa asking Muslims not to chant Bharat Mata ki Jai,
calling it un-Islamic. The same seminary also advised madrasas across
the country “to hoist the Tricolour and celebrate Independence Day and
teach students about the Indian freedom struggle and the country’s
original spirit of unity in diversity”. Earlier, sensing growing
resistance to BMKJ, the RSS had clarified that people should not be
forced to participate to chant the slogan. But now, with the anti-BMKJ
missive emanating from the Islamist organisation, hard-core Hindu
outfits have been quick to question the nationalism of the minorities.
It’s
ironic that a slogan like BMKJ, which was created to unite the nation,
is now polarising the country. Ever since Independence, political
parties, social organisations, NGOs and RSS-affiliated outfits have
chanted Bharat Mata Ki Jai at their functions, without any interference
or protests from any quarters. Over a decade ago, there was some
brouhaha over the singing of Vande Mataram, which was met with
recriminatory (and what some would call threatening) responses like
“Agar is desh mein rahna hoga, Vande Matram kehna hoga (If you want to
live in this country, you shall sing Vande Mataram)”. But never have we
seen such a confrontationist atmosphere in the country as we see today.
Indeed, Vande Mataram is sung at many official functions without any
protest from the audience.
This leads one to believe that the
current opposition to BMKJ is aimed at bringing all Sangh Parivar forces
to one platform and converting the debate into an issue of threat to
freedom of expression. Those who oppose the slogan claim that nowhere
does the Constitution provide for the invocation of BMKJ. A coalition of
liberals, neo-communalists and Leftists has been formed to defeat any
attempt by the ruling political dispensation to dismantle the current
eco-system which hardly recognises the importance of national flag,
national geographical identity and judiciary. This group invokes
selective and subjective use of the Constitution to protect its
political perks and imposes its personal choices on the rest of the
country. It swears by the Constitution when it serves its ideological
convictions. It has no problem if the National Anthem is sung at every
function attended by the President of India, or at the beginning and end
of the Parliament session.
But when the Constitution talks about
prohibition, the same people see it as a threat to their fundamental
right to consume what they will. They support a judicial verdict that’s
aligned to their choices but hit the streets if the courts deliver
judgments based on constitutional provisions that disrupt their
lifestyle. Undoubtedly, the foreign-educated current crop of
intellectuals, media stars, political leaders and elitist business
leaders have brilliant minds. But they are only half educated when it
comes to the idea of the motherland. BMKJ was not a gift from any
narrow-minded sectarian Hindu leader or organisation. Bharat Mata ki Jai
was the most successful non-violent verbal weapon forged by a
freedom-starved crowd which helped end the 200-year-old British rule and
sent the English packing. Any attempt to kill the spirit behind the
slogan runs the risk of being labelled anti-national. BMKJ is just an
assertion of independence from slavery of every colour and nothing more.
prabhuchawla@newindianexpress.com; Follow me on Twitter @PrabhuChawla
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