it is time to get off our lazy backsides
Bengalees
it is time we shrugged off our lethargy and took control of our future.
For too long,
we have let others dictate to us,
we have buried our heads in the sand
hoping someone will come and deliver us from this evil we are in.
It doesn’t happen that way.
Life is not that easy.
Today Gujarat is showing the way,
the way that was paved by one of us, fifty six years ago.
Do you remember Shyama Prasad Mukherjee?
Have you heard about him at all?
You have heard of the road and the college in his name,
but have you ever been curious as to who was, what was his legacy for the Hindus?
Dr. Shyama Prasad Mukherjee
He was a Barrister, the son of
Sir Ashutosh Mukherjee and Jogmaya Devi.
the youngest Vice-Chancellor of Calcutta University.
He was one of the first spokesperson for the Hindus majority.
He was never an anti-Muslim,
but felt it necessary to counteract
the communalist and separatist Muslim League of Muhammad Ali Jinnah,
who were demanding exaggerated Muslim rights or a Muslim state of Pakistan.
He strived to unite Hindu voices,
and protect us Hindus against what he believed to be
the communal propaganda and the divisive agenda of the Muslim League.
In 1951, he founded the Bharatiya Jana Sangh,
the first Hindu nationalist political party
the forerunner of the BJP.
It was SP Mukherjee who created the Hindutva agenda
later to become the wider political expression of India’s Hindu majority.
His party criticized favoritism of India’s Muslims by the Nehru administration,
he promoted free-market economics as opposed to the
socialism of Nehru’s economic and social policies.
His favored a uniform civil code for
both Hindus and Muslims, and wanted to end
the special status of Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir.
The Bharatiya Jana Sangh became home to many conservative members
of the Indian National Congress who were disenchanted with
socialist policies and politics of Jawaharlal Nehru
and the Congress Party.
In the 1952 general elections
SP Mookerjee was elected as an MP, his BJS won 3 seats.
As an MP, he had become a major and a vociferous threat to Nehru’s policies.
In 1953 he went to Kashmir to protest the law prohibiting Indian citizens
from settling in the state of Kashmir, a state in their own country
and the need for Indians to carry ID cards.
On 11th May, he was arrested while crossing border into Kashmir.
On 23rd May he died under mysterious circumstances whilst in detention.
His death in custody raised wide suspicion across the country
and demands were made for an independent enquiry.
His mother herself wrote to Jawaharlal Nehru,
but no enquiry commission was ever set up
the cause of his death was never known.
The legislation for ID cards did get revoked.
He had become a major threat to Nehru’s policies,
how convenient it was for Nehru, that he died in judicial custody.
In Kashmir!
Only the name Nehru has changed to Gandhi in these fifty odd years,
everything else has stayed exactly the same.
Shyama Prosad Mukherjee had seen the grim fate
of the Hindu majority under Nehru, and
he had spoken out against it.
Did he die for it? Did he die in vain?
It is time for us to get off our lazy bengali backsides and start asking questions.
India
hinduism
islam
marxism
negationism
secularism
propaganda
