A Karnataka government advertisement to mark Independence Day has limited Jawaharlal Nehru to a sketch in a crowd of faces at a corner while prominently featuring a photograph of V.D. Savarkar alongside those of Mahatma Gandhi and others.
The Congress accused the state BJP government of “pettiness” and called chief minister Basavaraj Bommai an RSS “slave”.
The full-page newspaper advertisement carries a panel of photographs of 24 freedom fighters, the bottom 12 from Karnataka and the top 12 widely known nationally.
The top 12 are Mahatma Gandhi, Subhas Chandra Bose, Vallabhbhai Patel, Bhagat Singh, Chandra Shekhar Azad, Savarkar, Lala Lajpat Rai, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Bipin Chandra Pal, B.R. Ambedkar, Lal Bahadur Shastri and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad.
Nehru finds space as one of 13 faces in a sketch placed next to the Har Ghar Tiranga logo over the picture panel. There’s a small colour image of the Rani of Jhansi on horseback to the right.
Pride of place at the top left belongs to Prime Minister Narendra Modi while a slightly smaller picture of Bommai adorns the right top corner.
Below each of the 24 images is a brief description of the person’s contributions to the freedom movement.
The text below Savarkar’s picture describes him as “Revolutionary Savarkar” and says he “published several books which advocated obtaining complete independence through revolutionary means” and that “he was imprisoned in Andaman-Nicobar and subjected to excessive torture”.
The leader of the state Opposition, P.C. Siddaramaiah, said Nehru’s omission from the picture gallery “shows how low a CM can go to save his chair”. “When we thought slavery ended with the British gone… Bommai proved everyone wrong by showing that he is still a slave to @RSSorg,” he tweeted.
Siddaramaiah cited how Nehru “wrote letters and books to inspire people to participate in freedom movement while he was jailed by British for 9 years”.
“Looks like RSS is sad that Nehru did not write apology and mercy petitions to British like Savarkar,” he said, adding that Bommai “has humiliated the entire nation in front of the world” by omitting Nehru.
“Slow claps to Basavaraj Bommai for giving an opportunity to the rest of world to mock India,” Siddaramaiah wrote.
He also highlighted that Savarkar’s image had been placed in the topmost row, above Ambedkar’s.
“Savarkar, who pleaded with British officers to get himself released from jail, gets position in the front row. But, Baba Saheb, who fought for freedom by being the voice of marginalised sections, gets placed in last row. Blatant display of untouchability by @BJP4Karnataka. Sad.”
Congress communications chief Jairam Ramesh, who represents Karnataka in the Rajya Sabha, tweeted: “Nehru will survive such pettiness. CM Karnataka desperate to save his job knows what he has done is an insult to his father S.R. Bommai & his father’s 1st political guru M.N. Roy both great Nehru admirers, the latter being a friend as well. Pathetic this is.”
Janata Dal politician S.R. Bommai, who helmed the state government for eight months until April 1989, was a socialist and an admirer of Nehru.
Although his son was also moored in socialism, he quit the Janata Dal United and joined the BJP in 2008.
The state BJP took refuge in the sketch of Nehru, tweeting: “Is the Congress party so enamoured of its master Nehru that it (the sketch) cannot be recognised? Did the Congress forget Nehru’s face so quickly or is it cleverly blind?”
JNU professor Happymon Jacob cheekily supported Nehru’s exclusion from the picture gallery. “I am with the government of Karnataka on this: Nehru shouldn’t be in the company of Savarkar!” he tweeted.
