Why Modi built Sardar Patel statue?

  

The Statue of Unity, depicting Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, is being championed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, but there is far more to the story of this expensive project. It was Dy PM Sardar Patel  who banned RSS in the aftermath of Gandhi's assasination said "the RSS was not involved... his assassination was welcomed by those of the RSS ...". Golwalkar repeatedly pleaded with Patel, but Patel remained firm. He lifted the ban only after the RSS pledged to stay away from politics, not be secretive and abjure violence and professed "loyalty to the Constitution of India and the National Flag". After removal of ban, RSS hoisted the flag at their headquarters on 26th January 1950. 

• The hope is that this monument to Patel will attract lakhs of tourists, but there is far more going on with this strange and expensive statue.
• The statue was a bold assertion of Gujarati nationalism as it was to give Narendra Modi a political lineage to distinguish him from the parent RSS, which sat out the freedom movement. 
• Why he didn’t build a statue of Guru Golwalkar or Deen Dayal Upadhyaya or V.D. Savarkar. Or even Subhash Chandra Bose, speaks volumes about his designs to snatch Patel's legacy from Congress.
• Patel is a historic Indian figure - crucial to the Indian independence movement and political organisation of postcolonial India. This on its own, though, does not exactly warrant building the ‘world’s tallest statue’ in his honor. Rather, it is the contemporary politics of Modi’s nationalist project and its model of development that explains Patel’s extraordinary memorialization. 
• During his term as Jawaharlal Nehru’s Deputy Prime Minister, Patel negotiated - through diplomatic tact underpinned by the threat of force - the incorporation of the 562 princely states of colonial India into the Union of India. This earned him a reputation as the “Iron man of India” and as the unifier of India.
• Today, the assertion of Indian unity has political meaning beyond the incorporation of the princely states into modern India. Within the Hindutva view of India, unity must be centred around Hinduism and India as a distinctly Hindu civilization.
• Modi’s statue project seeks to emphasise moving away from secular leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru. Patel’s reputation as an ‘Iron man’ and his willingness to use force to unify India is a counter to Nehru’s nonviolent foreign policy.
• The statue is connected to Modi and the BJP’s promise for development and investment. In Modi’s time Gujarat was known for authoritarian leadership, communal tensions, and largely jobless, GDP growth.
• Many believe that BJP has become aware of lack of faces among in the ranks in the list of freedom fighters and that the statue might be a gimmick ahead of elections.

There were so many iconic personalities of independence struggle but the reason why Modi selected Patel for 'Statue' is due to his Hindutva inclinations despite banning and RSS and professing secularism is due to his hatred towards Nehru and Congress and that Gujarati Patel would have become first PM in the absence of Nehru. What he ignores is Patel and Nehru - admiration they had for each other. Patel, in his reply to Nehru on August 3, 1947, wrote "Many thanks for your letter on the first instance. Our attachment and affection for each other and our comradeship for an unbroken period of nearly 30 years admit of no formalities. My services will be at your disposal. I hope for the rest of my life, you will have unquestioned loyalty and devotion from me in the cause for which no man in India has sacrificed as much as you have. Our combination is unbreakable and therein lies our strength. I thank you for the sentiments expressed in your letter." No matter what ever Modi does, Patel remains Congressman and his legacy belongs to Congress. Never to RSS who were hand in hand with British during pre-independence days.

RSS, Tricolor flag & Patriotism

• One fact is certain: the organization (RSS), which runs the party (BJP) that runs the regime (Modi led NDA) cannot just appropriate the 'Indian national movement' as its own.
• RSS had refused to participate in the freedom struggle. It has, therefore, no right to claim its glory even though the Congress cannot also monopolize on any 'sole heir status' for various reasons.
• K.B. Hedgewar, who founded the RSS in 1925, did have some initial loose association with the freedom struggle. But from the 1930s, he ensured that his boys in khaki shorts stayed away from this historic movement. He said "Patriotism is not only going to prison. It is not correct to be carried away by such superficial patriotism." 
• The Hindu Mahasabha's V.D. Savarkar, who is another cherished role model of the current dispensation, had been active long before Hedgewar but he was rather mercurial. He did lead strident anti-British agitations and was jailed, but he also signed multiple clemency petitions to the colonial government, promising total cooperation if he was released. The Congress retaliated in 1934 and banned its members from joining communal organizations like the Hindu Mahasabha, the RSS and the Muslim League. 
• In any case, during the critical phase of the Quit India movement and other agitations, not only was the RSS missing but we also have British reports of the 'good conduct' and the law-abiding nature of its members, while thousands of women, children and men all over India braved the onslaught of imperial repression.
• Nana Deshmukh in his book, RSS: Victim of Slander (1979): "One might well ask: why did the RSS not take part in the liberation struggle as an organisation? The question arose for the first time when Gandhiji launched his movement in 1929-30. It was decided that the members of the RSS were free to take part in their individual capacity". Fine. But it may be instructive to know which particular RSS member actually took part and what suffering he went through for it. 
• It is only logical that the RSS and its dedicated cadre that run the government should come clear on this phase of history before attempting to snatch credit in this new version of ultra-nationalism.
• On the eve of Independence, when much of the nation was preparing to celebrate freedom, the RSS's mouthpiece, Organiser, declared that the Indian tricolour will "never be respected and owned by the Hindus. The word three is in itself an evil, and a flag having three colours will certainly produce a very bad psychological effect and is injurious to a country." 
• Second head of the RSS, M.S. Golwalkar lamented that "our leaders have set up a new flag for the country. Why did they do so? It is just a case of drifting and imitating... Ours is an ancient and great nation with a glorious past. Then, had we no flag of our own? Had we no national emblem at all these thousands of years? Undoubtedly we had. Then why this utter void, this utter vacuum in our minds?" 

Gandhi's assassination on January 30, 1948, however, changed the political chessboard of India decisively. The government banned the RSS and the then deputy prime minister, Patel, declared quite unequivocally that though "the RSS was not involved... his assassination was welcomed by those of the RSS and the [Hindu] Mahasabha who were strongly opposed to his way of thinking and to his policy." Golwalkar repeatedly pleaded with Patel, but the leader, whom the current regime seeks to appropriate, remained firm. He lifted the ban on July 11, 1949, only after the RSS pledged to stay away from politics, not be secretive and abjure violence. More important, it had to profess "loyalty to the Constitution of India and the National Flag". After removal of ban, RSS hoisted the flag at their headquarters on 26th January 1950. Sardar Patel died on 15th December that year, and RSS never hoisted the flag in their headquarters after that until 2002.

India's Freedom & Liberalisation

• India was at a crossroads 70 years ago when it made choices that were enshrined in the constitution, so that its workers and peasants were freed from class and caste oppression.
• Nehru said at the midnight when India woke up to freedom. “To bring freedom and opportunity to the common man, to the peasants and workers of India; to fight and end poverty and ignorance and disease; to build up a prosperous, democratic and progressive nation, and to create social, economic and political institutions which will ensure justice and fullness of life to every man and woman.”
• The zamindars and landlords finding that open defense of landlord's interest was no longer feasible, switched over to communalism for their class defense.
• Pakistan's falsity of religion-based nationalism and a state was founded on theocracy. It was one area where the Hindu right-wing emulates its sworn enemy and India was sought to be converted into a theocratic state called Hindu Rashtra. 
• M.S. Golwalkar, RSS supreme leader for more than 30 years minced no words: “The non-Hindu peoples in Hindusthan must either adopt the Hindu culture and language, must learn to respect and hold in reverence Hindu religion, must entertain no ideas but those of glorification of the Hindu race and culture…. In one word, they must cease to be foreigners, or may stay in the country, wholly subordinated to the Hindu nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, far less no preferential treatment—not even citizen’s rights.”
• It is no accident that the Hindutva forces had nothing to do with anti-colonial struggle and independence. Infact, the RSS chief M.S. Golwalkar had so little sympathy for the anti-colonial struggle that he thought that the British would have to be invited back shortly after Independence in order to govern India. Today they laud Ambedkar today for sheer opportunistic reasons.
• The first major victim of this narrow cultural nationalism of the Indian right-wing was the Father of the Nation. After being driven to the margins of Indian politics in the wake of Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination, the right wing RSS and its latest political incarnation, the BJP, is at the helm of India, now.
• The slide started post-Nehru and was complete in 1991, when the Congress went back on its promises and ushered in the neoliberal order. The Congress ceased the cause of workers and peasants ostensibly called national interest, but in reality for the material prosperity of the merchants and manufacturers. Now with the BJP unburdened by the legacy of any egalitarian struggle, the free people of India are under the onslaught of neoliberalism and rabid communalism.
• Ambedkar argued that the political equality, guaranteed by the constitution, would get jeopardised if there was no corresponding movement towards social and economic equality. The first setback to independent India's was its inability to carry out any significant land redistribution. The top 15 per cent of landowners continued to hold the same percentage of land area as before. Dalits, the landless class, who had been denied the right to own land under the old system continued to remain landless and therefore both socially and economically disempowered. By the end of the 1950s, Jawaharlal Nehru was worried about growing wealth and income inequality in the country, he has to set up the Mahalanobis Committee to inquire into it.
• The per capita annual foodgrain availability, which had been around 200 kgs at the beginning of the 20th century in “British India” declined to 148.5 kgs during the 1939-44 and even lower to 136.8 kgs in 1945-46, was pushed up close to 180 kgs by the end of the 1980's. It has since declined, over the neoliberal period, reaching 163 kg for the years 2012-14.
• The spontaneity of capitalism was breaking the bounds set by state control. And soon it was to jettison the institute a regime of neoliberalism, under which the domestic corporate-financial oligarchy got closely integrated with globalised finance capital.
• The economic travails of the dirigiste regime arising from the sluggish growth of the home market owing to growing economic inequality, its loss of social support among the people for the same reason, and the big bourgeoisie’s wish to break out of it has contributed towards effecting a transition from dirigisme to neoliberalism.
• Neoliberalism greatly accentuated the increase in economic inequality, though it accelerated the growth rate in the tertiary sector. The acceleration in growth rate was resolved through larger exports of services, larger elite consumption of luxury goods, and the effects of asset price bubbles. The top 1 per cent of households in India currently owns 60 per cent of the country’s total wealth puts India with the fastest increases in asset inequality.
• The process of primitive accumulation of taking over of peasant's land 'for a song' for corporate projects and squeezing the peasants through higher input prices, by withdrawing subsidies and the drying up of institutional credit, but without commensurably higher output prices. These output prices, especially of commercial crops are allowed to fluctuate widely with world market prices. Even phenomena like Demonetisation and the GST are also mechanisms for imposing primitive accumulation upon the petty production sector. 
• A tragic consequence of this primitive accumulation at the expense of peasant agriculture has been the suicides of over three lakh peasants over the last two decades. And large numbers of peasants have left agriculture and migrated to cities in search of jobs, which are not being created to an adequate extent despite the apparently high GDP growth. The net result has been a proliferation of casual employment, intermittent employment, part-time employment and disguised unemployment. The growth in the casualisation of employment and privatisation of public sector units have weakened trade unions. While capital is international, workers are still organised along national lines, making national unions ineffective.
• The middle-class segment that has done well out of globalisation, owing to the outsourcing of services from the metropolis, and owing to the rise in the share of surplus which supports a range of activities from finance to advertising, has expectedly belonged to the upper castes which have been privileged enough to acquire the skills to make use of the opportunities that have been opening up. Since these beneficiaries attribute their own success not to their privilege but to their talent, the inevitable conclusion is drawn that those who are excluded from such jobs are untalented. An impression spreads that children from the oppressed castes do not make it because they lack talent, which boosts casteist prejudice.
• Development in India started on a wrong foot by eschewing land redistribution and the pursuit of capitalist development contributed to growing socio-economic inequality, that got a free run under neoliberalism. The adherents of Hindutva in power this social counter-revolution is being carried forward with a vengeance. India is not a fascist state, but the growing socio-economic inequality is destroying the constitutional provision of political equality.
• Fascism arises when the system besieged by crisis is challenged by a threat from the revolutionary forces whom fascism is used for eliminating. Fascism grows when the system is at a dead end and when the working-class movement is not in a position to mount a challenge. That is when large sections of the people flock to fascist movements, not because it provides a credible way out, but because it projects a messiah, it resorts to flamboyant but meaningless rhetoric, it appeals to unreason, and it holds not the system but the “other” (the Jews or the Muslims or whatever) as responsible for the travails of the people.
• It may seem intriguing that neoliberalism has reached a dead end, Modi promises even greater neoliberal reforms while a Trump rails against neoliberalism. But this contrast between two current manifestations of fascism arises because neither has a coherent programme anyway for overcoming the crisis and the frustration gripping the people. Both are essentially purveyors of unreason for whom the economic agenda as a thought-out rational programme is incidental.
• The corporate-financial oligarchy adopts the fascist movement, finances the fascist movement, and promotes the fascist movement, which exists independently of it. Fascism provides “stability” and also an ideal ideological prop for neoliberal capitalism. Fascists in government represent, in the Indian context, an alliance between corporate capital and Hindutva. The fact that capital is globalised while the state remains a nation state entails that even a fascist nation state must abide by the wishes of globalised capital (to prevent capital flight) and this fact restricts its ability to overcome the crisis.
• At peril are the gains and achievements made by the movements for national independence, socialism and social justice. India is once again is at crossroads where the choices it made 70 years ago are being undermined.

The left and democratic forces can have an alternative agenda that promotes equality, that strengthens democracy, and is willing to withdraw from the neoliberal regime. They should for instance have an agenda of introducing a set of universal, justiciable economic rights, to supplement the political rights that the constitution guarantees. These can include the right to food, the right to employment, the right to publicly-funded free and universal quality health care, the right to publicly funded free and universal quality education up to a certain level, and a right to adequate old-age pension and disability benefits. The implementation of these rights together would cost less than 10 per cent of the GDP annually, which the country can easily afford. 

There comes a time in the life of every nation when it stands at the 

crossroads of history and must choose which way to go ... Lal Bahadur Shastri

Globalization benefits just minuscule percent of population to prosper, who are rich, educated and with access to power & resources. Trickle-down theory that says benefits for the wealthy trickle down to everyone else is unacceptable nonsense. In a large populous country like India, where most people are illiterate & poor, governments ignoring their welfare and chasing money making machines is nothing but abuse of principles of democracy and Constitution of India. Globalization is a concept propounded by developed & educated western countries to expand their reach for marketing their products and services rather than extending helping hand for upliftment of suffering masses in the world. India blindly embracing it for monetary gains, is not only height of insanity but also detrimental to its large segments of population. Development is not facilitating educated and/or rich people to prosper but enhancement of living standards of all classes of people simultaneously.

Quit India Movement 1942: Remembering after 75 years.

• The Quit India Movement was launched at the Bombay session of the All-India Congress Committee by Mahatma Gandhi on 8 August 1942, during World War II, demanding an end to British Rule of India.
• The Cripps Mission had failed, and on 8 August 1942, Gandhi made a call to Do or Die in his Quit India speech delivered in Bombay.
• The All-India Congress Committee launched a mass protest demanding what Gandhi called "An Orderly British Withdrawal" from India. Even though it was wartime, the British were prepared to act. Almost the entire leadership of the INC was imprisoned without trial within hours of Gandhi's speech. Most spent the rest of the war in prison and out of contact with the masses. 
• The British had the support of the Viceroy's Council (which had a majority of Indians), the Muslim League, the princely states, the Indian Imperial Police, the British Indian Army and the Indian Civil Service. Many Indian businessmen profiting from heavy wartime spending did not support Quit India Movement. Many students paid more attention to Subhas Chandra Bose, who was in exile and supporting the Axis Powers. 
• The only outside support came from the Americans, as President Franklin D. Roosevelt pressured Prime Minister Winston Churchill to give in to some of the Indian demands. 
• The Quit India campaign was effectively crushed. The British refused to grant immediate independence, saying it could happen only after the war had ended.
• Quit India failed because of heavy-handed suppression, weak co-ordination and the lack of a clear-cut programme of action. However, the British government realized that India was ungovernable in the long run due to the cost of World War II, and the question for postwar became how to exit gracefully and peacefully.
• At the outbreak of war, the Congress Party had passed a resolution during the Wardha meeting of the working-committee in September 1939, conditionally supporting the fight against fascism, but were rebuffed when they asked for independence in return. Gandhi had not supported this initiative, as he could not reconcile an endorsement for war.
• At the height of the Battle of Britain, Gandhi had stated that he did not seek to raise an independent India from the ashes of Britain.
• Cripps draft declaration of 22 March 1942 included terms like establishment of Dominion, establishment of a Constituent Assembly and right of the Provinces to make separate constitutions to be granted after the cessation of the Second World War. Congress felt this Declaration only offered India a promise to be fulfilled in future. Gandhi remarked "It is a post dated cheque on a crashing bank." There was growing realization of the incapacity of the British to defend India.
• Several political groups active during the Indian Independence Movement were opposed to the Quit India Movement. These included the Muslim League, the Hindu Mahasabha, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the Communist Party of India and the princely states.
• The Indian nationalists knew that the United States strongly supported Indian independence. After Churchill threatened to resign if pushed too hard, the U.S. quietly supported him. The American operation annoyed both the British and the Indians.
• In 1942, the RSS, under M.S. Golwalkar refused to join in the Quit India Movement. The Bombay government appreciated the RSS position. RSS, in turn, had assured the British authorities that "it had no intentions of offending against the orders of the Government".
• The British, alarmed by the advance of the Japanese army to the India-Burma border, responded by imprisoning Gandhi. All the members of the Party's Working Committee (national leadership) were imprisoned as well. Later the Congress party was banned. Despite lack of direct leadership, large protests and demonstrations were held all over the country. Workers remained absent en masse and strikes were called. Not all demonstrations were peaceful, at some places bombs exploded, government buildings were set on fire, electricity was cut and transport and communication lines were severed.
• Although the British released Gandhi on account of his health in 1944, Gandhi kept up the resistance, demanding the release of the Congress leadership.
• By early 1944, India was mostly peaceful again, while the Congress leadership was still incarcerated. A sense that the movement had failed depressed many nationalists, while Jinnah and the Muslim League and Congress opponents like the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Hindu Mahasabha sought to gain political mileage, criticizing Gandhi and the Congress Party.

RSS under Golwalkar, Communists etc opposed Gandhi's quit India movement and cooperated with British. Modi stating in Lok Sabha that "...everyone had worked for the common goal of Independence" is pale and a blatant lie. Modi & Co have no right to talk about Gandhi & independence movement which RSS etc opposed and cooperated British. The only exception was that RSS founder Hedgewar participated in the Civil Disobedience movement of 1930s in individual capacity without involving RSS fearing it could be construed as being anti-British. Sonia Gandhi stating “...there were people and organisations which had opposed the Quit India movement and had played no role in getting our country freedom” is factually correct and directly refers to RSS, BJP and Communists. Now Modi should have courage to talk to people of India - truth as truth. If not, he should avoid talking truth rather than than talking lies.