![]() ![]() Could you ever dream of the Indian State – the ICS cadres who you were treated as the ‘Patron Saint’ of, and the cabinet members, you warned against ‘partiality and corruptibility’ and incited against a path of rectitude in your speech on April 21, 1947 – assuming itself to be powerful enough to not only tax farmers but also exploit them through low prices for the produce and extract GST from small traders and evict the market infrastructure of the poor, the hawkers, in the name of huge, gigantic infrastructure? Is your legacy at stake, Sardar? How could they tolerate suicides by lakhs of farmers?ĭo please have a look on your left and you will find the six-lane highway running up to 120 km in length parallel to Narmada. They take over the very life line: land, water, river, forest and fish of the weak and the marginalised. They do not bring in the horses or the Sepoys or take over properties of the rich and the mighty. ![]() The same tool is now a weapon in the hands of the Indian rulers, practising neo-colonial ideals. Non-cooperation was the non-violent tool you exercised, under the guidance of Bapu then.Īlso read: Reconfiguring India’s Nationalism, One Grand Statue at a Time But the most shocking for you, who acquired royal properties, dealt with transfers, created ‘privy purses,’ would be to know the ways and means of transferring today the life supporting resources of the very brethren you fought for, receiving acclaim for the social movement you built. Today, if only you know the reasons behind their laying life and cuddling death, you would have taken to the same task and struggle, combing villages and fields as in August 1942. Sardar, these Adivasis also belong to the farming community you recognised as the contributors who feed and need to lead. Would you ever think of using ‘force’ against these simple and least monetised, self-reliant people, as had to be done against the princely state of Junagadh then? By the way, your avatar is also claimed to be for the same goal, unity…yet with the insanity of impinging upon not just their land but also their rights. Do remember the days when you carried out the operation to integrate the princely states with delicacy and democracy, to make most of them sacrifice voluntarily for unity. Your vision will find their huts and hamlets in the hills and hillocks one of which was Varata Bawa Tekri under your feet. You would surely watch from the highland, the scene down into the River Narmada and its banks to the basin wide and far. The forefathers of the Indian Constitution, with Babasaheb at the helm, also granted them right to peace and good government, through the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution and later, the PESA Act towards self-reliance. The very same people your government and then leaders, Mahatma to Pandit Nehru recognised as villagers with rights, as republics and offered security through Panchsheel. ![]() You would surely ask, on whose land would this statue stand? Whose plan was this? This land, river, forest that your avatar is going to stand on, belongs to Adivasis. But you know, while throwing your legacy by the way side, a 182 meter-high statue of yours is being unveiled in a few days to be the tallest in the world! Can you imagine who has built your new avatar? Many Chinese and some local Adivasi and national labourers have worked overnight on the ‘Sadhu Bet’, a hillock with Adivasi deity of their faith. ![]() You stood tall in the historical freedom struggle of India as Sardar. As the first home minister of the first government of Independent India, your firm, non-communal and social approach to the unparalleled violence and the relief work thereafter, was appreciated by none else than Mahatmaji as unique, despite the controversy created by some. Your act of freeing India from the shackles of royal states and estates and of freeing the farmers from the oppressive tax laws of the British regime is unprecedented even to this day. Wherever you may be, as our leader of the Freedom Movement, your soul, I know, rests here on the motherland whose beloved son you have always been. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |