Kerala Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala has asked the police chief to examine the legal aspects and initiate action against RSS State unit’s organ “Kesari,” which carried an article implying that Jawaharlal Nehru, rather than Mahatma Gandhi, should have been targeted for the partition of the country.
The Home Minister’s move followed a complaint by Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee general secretary Sooranad Rajasekharan. The article, “Those who stabbed Gandhi from behind,” has been written by B. Gopalakrishnan, who was BJP candidate for the Chalakudy Lok Sabha constituency in the recent general election.
The author says: “Actually, Nehru was responsible for the Partition and all other tragedies including Gandhi’s assassination. On the basis of an honest perusal of historical records and Godse’s arguments, it will hardly be possible to rebuff students of history if they were to evaluate that Nathuram Vinayak Godse had erred in his aim.”
The author goes on to claim that Nehru was a selfish leader who concealed important facts from Gandhi on the partition and eventually isolated him from the final round of discussions. “Godse was better than Nehru. He shot Gandhi from the front and like Nehru, did not stab him from the back,” the author says. Kesari is not a widely circulated weekly, but it did touch a raw nerve among Congressmen for whom Gandhi and Nehru are part of the party’s pantheon and legacy. KPCC president V.M. Sudheeran also came out strongly against the article terming it yet another instance of the attempts of the BJP government to tamper with history.
Jatin Gandhi reports from New Delhi:
Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi took a jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Sangh on Twitter in response to the Kesari article. “Wld fellow alumni & ex pracharaks of RSS paathshala-PM, CM and Governors-now applaud Gopal or condemn him or keep quiet? Wl Bhagwat do same?” Mr. Singhvi tweeted on Friday evening.
In a series of tweets critical of the RSS and the BJP, Mr. Singhvi asserted that the article was representative of the Sangh’s ‘hatred’ and represented its true character. “RSS’s visceral nehru hatred (once even of Gandhi) found in such outbursts. Tho carefully concealed bt r the true chaal Charitra chehra of RSS,” he said in another tweet. He added that while it was irrelevant that Mr. Gopalakrishnan had written it, the mindset and the thinking behind the article “is dangerous and fascist.”
CPI national secretary D. Raja told The Hindu that the BJP needed to explain whether the article represented the writer’s personal view or the party’s. “It shows his insanity and the sickening mindset of the BJP. How can the BJP tolerate such a person in its ranks? It needs to explain,” he said.