If patriotism means being part of the freedom struggle and making sacrifices, Mookerjee was a party to crush and communally polarise the anti-British liberation movement
CELEBRATING victory at the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) headquarters in New Delhi (May 4), Prime Minister Narendra Modi stated that “the soul of Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee must be at peace today”. Earlier too, Modi had described him as “a statesman, thinker and a patriot who devoted his life towards strengthening national integration”.
Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee (1901-1953) is a prominent Hindutva icon for the RSS/BJP brigade. It was he who, on the advice of MS Golwalkar, the second chief of the RSS and its most prominent ideologue, founded the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS), predecessor of the present BJP, in 1951 and became the first president of the political arm of the RSS.
Modi and the Hindutva brigade are fond of declaring Mookerjee as a great nationalist and patriot who laid down his life for the unity of the nation. The Hindutva rhetoric about Mookerjee’s patriotism needs to be cross-checked with the contemporary documents available in RSS and Hindu Mahasabha archives. A perusal of these documents clearly shows that the claim that Mookerjee was a ‘selfless patriot’ and a statesperson right from his birth is a white lie. Mookerjee never participated in the anti-colonial freedom struggle. If patriotism means being part of the freedom struggle and making sacrifices, Mookerjee not only kept aloof from it but also betrayed it by collaborating with the British rulers and the Muslim League to crush and communally polarise the anti-British liberation movement.
In the pre-Independence period, he was a prominent leader of the Hindu Mahasabha, which was led by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar. In 1942, Congress gave a call to the British rulers to leave India immediately by launching the Quit India Movement (QIM). The British rulers responded to this mass movement by unleashing a reign of terror. Congress was banned, its provincial governments were dismissed, the whole of India was turned into a jail, and thousands died in the repression unleashed by the armed forces of the British and the native rulers. The crime of many of those who were killed was that they dared to carry or unfurl the Tricolour, the flag of the resistance.
Hindu nationalist organisations, namely Hindu Mahasabha and RSS, with the Muslim League (which, since 1940, was ferociously demanding the partition) not only boycotted QIM but also decided to support the British government in its repressive campaign. The Hindu nationalists under the leadership of Savarkar even ran coalition governments with the Muslim League led by Mohammad Ali Jinnah.
The Hindu Mahasabha president ‘Veer’ Savarkar joyously chronicled this ganging up of the Hindu Mahasabha with the Muslim League in his presidential speech to the 24th session of the Hindu Mahasabha at Kanpur in 1942 in the following words:
“In practical politics also, the Mahasabha knows that we must advance through reasonable compromises. Witness the fact that only recently in Sind, the Sind-Hindu-Sabha, on invitation, had taken the responsibility of joining hands with the League itself in running a coalition government. The case of Bengal is well known. Wild Leaguers, who even the Congress with all its submissiveness could not placate, grew quite reasonably compromising and sociable as soon as they came in contact with the Hindu Mahasabha and the coalition government, under the premiership of Mr Fazlul Huq and the able lead of our esteemed Mahasabha leader Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee, functioned successfully for a year or so to the benefit of both the communities.”
[Savarkar, VD., Samagar Savarkar Wangmaya (Collected Works of Savarkar), Hindu Mahasabha, Poona, 1963, pp. 479-480.]
Later, this coalition arrangement was extended to the NWFP (now in Pakistan, known as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) also. Mookerjee was Deputy PM (those days chief minister was designated as the prime minister) and held the home portfolio, which oversaw the crushing of QIM.
Following the Hindu Mahasabha directive to cooperate with the British, the Hindutva icon, Dr Mookerjee assured the British masters through a letter dated July 26, 1942. In an autobiographical work, he confessed:
“Let me now refer to the situation that may be created in the province as a result of any widespread movement launched by the Congress. Anybody who, during the war, plans to stir up mass feeling, resulting in internal disturbances or insecurity, must be resisted by any government that may function for the time being.”
[Mookerjee, Shyama Prasad, Leaves from a Dairy, Oxford University Press, p. 179.]
His letter to the Bengal governor that Fazlul Haq-led Bengal government, along with its alliance partner Hindu Mahasabha, had made a concrete plan for suppressing QIM is to be read and believed:
“The question is how to combat this movement (Quit India) in Bengal? The administration of the province should be carried on in such a manner that in spite of the best efforts of the Congress, this movement will fail to take root in the province. It should be possible for us, especially responsible ministers, to be able to tell the public that the freedom for which the Congress has started the movement already belongs to the representatives of the people. In some spheres, it might be limited during the emergency. Indians have to trust the British, not for the sake of Britain, not for any advantage that the British might gain, but for the maintenance of the defence and freedom of the province itself. You, as governor, will function as the constitutional head of the province and will be guided entirely by the advice of your ministers.
[Cited in A G Noorani’s The RSS and the BJP: A Division of Labour, LeftWord Books, pp. 56–57.]
It was an abashed glorification of the foreign rule when he stated that freedom “already belongs to the representatives of the people…Indians have to trust the British, not for the sake of Britain, not for any advantage that the British might gain, but for the maintenance of the defence and freedom of the province itself”.
Prominent historian RC Majumdar, who is also regarded as a true ‘Bhartiya’ historian by the Hindutva brigade, commenting on this letter, wrote:
“Shyama Prasad ended the letter with a discussion of the mass movement organised by the Congress. He expressed the apprehension that the movement would create internal disorder and will endanger internal security during the war by exciting popular feeling and he opined that any government in power has to suppress it, but that, according to him, could not be done only by persecution…. In that letter, he mentioned item-wise the steps to be taken for dealing with the situation…”
[RC Majumdar, History of Modern Bengal, vol. 2, G. Bharadwaj & Co, Calcutta, p. 350.]
The Hindu Mahasabha’s decision to betray the Quit India Movement resonated with the RSS also. Golwalkar, the then chief of RSS, admitted:
“In 1942 also there was a strong sentiment in the hearts of many. At that time, too the routine work of Sangh continued. Sangh vowed not to do anything directly. However, upheaval (uthal-puthal) in the minds of Sangh volunteers continued. Sangh is an organisation of inactive persons, their talks are useless, not only outsiders but also many of our volunteers did talk like this. They were greatly disgusted too.”
[Shri Guruji Samagar Darshan (Collected Works of Golwalkar in Hindi), vol. IV, Bhartiya Vichar Sadhna, Nagpur, p 40.]
Nowhere in pre-Partition RSS literature do we find references to any work which the workers of the organisation might have done ‘indirectly’ for the Quit India Movement.
In a more shocking development, the Hindu Mahasabha of Dr Mookerjee decided to help the British rulers in World War II. It was the time when Subhash Chandra Bose, known as Netaji, was organising the INA (Azad Hind Fauj) in a military campaign to force the British out. The extent to which the Hindu Mahasabha was willing to help the British masters is clear from the following directive issued by Savarkar as Mahasabha chief:
“So far as India’s defence is concerned, Hindudom must ally unhesitatingly, in a spirit of responsive co-operation, with the war effort of the Indian government in so far as it is consistent with the Hindu interests, by joining the Army, Navy and the Aerial forces in as large a number as possible and by securing an entry into all ordnance, ammunition and war craft factories…. Again, it must be noted that Japan’s entry into the war has exposed us directly and immediately to the attack by Britain’s enemies. Consequently, whether we like it or not, we shall have to defend our own hearth and home against the ravages of the war and this can only be done by intensifying the government’s war effort to defend India. Hindu Mahasabhaites must, therefore, rouse Hindus especially in the provinces of Bengal and Assam as effectively as possible to enter the military forces of all arms without losing a single minute.”
[V.D. Savarkar, Samagra Savarkar Wangmaya: Hindu Rashtra Darshan, vol. 6, Maharashtra Prantik Hindusabha, Poona, 1963, p. 460.]
Thus, according to Prime Minister Modi and Hindutva gang, a ‘Patriot’ and ‘Selfless’ freedom fighter must be a stooge of the British, a collaborator of Jinnah-led Muslim League and an organiser of mass murders of brave participants of the Quit India Movement. All those who fought and laid down their lives against the colonial masters for the freedom of an all-inclusive democratic-secular must have been fools!
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Shamsul Islam is a retired Delhi University professor. The views expressed here are personal and Clarion Indiadoes not necessarily share or subscribe to them.
