Wednesday, 15 January 2025
Wednesday, 15 January 2025
Bharat – that is India – got “true independence” the day last year when the Ram temple was consecrated in Ayodhya, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat was on Monday quoted as saying.
After India got political independence from the British on August 15, 1947, a written Constitution was made according to the path shown by that specific vision, which comes out of the "self" of the country, but the document was not run according to the spirit of the vision at that time, the Sangh chief declared.
According to the Hindu calendar, the consecration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya took place on Dwadashi of 'Shukla Paksha' of Paush month last year. The date in the Gregorian calendar was January 22, 2024.
This year, the Paush Shukla Paksha Dwadashi was on January 11.
RSS and India’s freedom movement
Bhagwat was speaking after presenting the National Devi Ahilya Award to Champat Rai, general secretary of the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust, in Indore.
The RSS’s relation with the Indian freedom movement defies straight descriptions. After the first Republic Day in 1950, the Sangh never hoisted the Tricolour at its Nagpur headquarters, sticking to its Bhagwa Dhwaj (saffron flag), inscribed with an "Om", even on R-Day and I-Day. It changed the practice in 2002 when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was Prime Minister.
Mohan Bhagwat vs INDIA bloc
Mohan Bhagwat’s comments invited criticism from the leaders of the INDIA bloc Opposition alliance.
'He should not do politics in the name of Ram Lalla, only then will the nation be independent in its true self,' Sanjay Raut, MP from the Shiv Sena (UBT), retorted.
The Sangh chief is no stranger to controversies. In 2018, he was quoted as saying that the RSS can prepare an army faster than the Indian Army.
In 2017, Bhagwat was quoted as saying that everyone born in India is a Hindu.
“Everyone born in the country is a Hindu – of these some are idol-worshipers and some are not. Even Muslims are Hindus by nationality, they are Muslims by faith only. Just as the English live in England, Americans in America and Germans in Germany, Hindus live in Hindustan,” he was quoted as saying.
In June, 2013 he said, “A husband and wife are involved in a contract under which the husband has said that you should take care of my house and I will take care of all your needs. I will keep you safe. So, the husband follows the contract terms. Till the time the wife follows the contract, the husband stays with her, if the wife violates the contract, he can disown her.”
In January 2013, he said about rapes that, “Such crimes hardly take place in ‘Bharat’, but they occur frequently in ‘India’.”
The Kanagan Ranaut theory
Bhagwat, however, is not the first one to propound the New Theory of Independence.
In recent years there have been other, prominent people who have suddenly become naysayers of August 15, 1947.
In November 2021, Bollywood star Kangana Ranaut had ranted against August 15, 1947.
At an event organised by a news channel, she had said: “…azaadi nahi thi vo bheekh thi. Aur jo azaadi mili hai vo 2014 me mili hai [that was not Independence but alms; Independence is what we got in 2014].”
The year 2014 was when Narendra Modi became India’s prime minister for the first time,
An unabashed supporter of Modi, Ranaut became a BJP Lok Sabha member from her home state Himachal Pradesh’s Mandi constituency last year.
When her remarks about Independence created a row – including a court notice – the star of films such as Queen had doubled down, declaring that she would “return” her Padma Shri if anyone could prove that she had disrespected freedom fighters with her statement.
Vikrant Massey’s ‘Hindu’ corollary
Last year in November, another actor, Vikrant Massey, had called the freedom of 1947 “so-called” Independence.
“After hundreds and hundreds of years of oppression – from the Mughals, the Dutch, the French, and the British – we got one so-called azadi . But was it really independence? The colonial hangover that they left, we stayed in it. I feel that the Hindus have finally got that opportunity to ask for their identity in their own country,” Massey had said during the promotion of his film, The Sabarmati Report.
The movie, which by all accounts is a box-office dud, claims to be the true story of February 27, 2002, when 59 karsevaks returning from Ayodhya were killed in a fire in the Sabarmati Express near Godhra station in Gujarat.
When Godhra happened, Narendra Modi was a first-time chief minister, barely months into his term.
The Gujarat riots erupted after Godhra. When the fires of that communal conflagration died down, Modi emerged as a strong leader in the eyes of Gujarat.
