The Kolkata Raj Bhavan wore a festive look on July 6, despite the crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar hosted the celebrations to mark the birth anniversary of Syama Prasad Mookerjee, the founder of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, the BJP’s predecessor. It was for the first time that Mookerjee’s memory was honoured at the Raj Bhavan. For decades, he had remained largely forgotten in his hometown.
Dhankhar has also installed Mookerjee’s portrait at the Raj Bhavan. Although his portrait was unveiled in the Parliament’s Central Hall way back in 1991, no such honour was bestowed on him by the West Bengal government. “I need to recognise the monumental contributions of this great man, who is in a league of three greats with Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Dr B.R. Ambedkar,” said Dhankhar. With only months left for assembly elections in West Bengal, it is hard to miss the political undertones of the move. Dhankhar, however, said he was only acknowledging Mookerjee’s contributions just like the Union government did with its decision to revoke Kashmir’s special status, which was one of Mookerjee’s life’s missions.
“I went to the National Library and saw a video presentation on 100 years of Indian nationalism. Four nationalists of Bengal—Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore and Bankim Chandra Chatterjee—were part of it,” said Dhankhar. But there was nothing in the Raj Bhavan—a building frequented by Mookerjee, often to lock horns with the British governors over his pet causes. “A full-size portrait befitting Dr Mookerjee’s stature will soon be installed at the Raj Bhavan,” he said.
But opinion is divided in Bengal about reviving Mookerjee’s legacy. The Forward Bloc, the political outfit launched by Subhas Bose, has approached the Calcutta High Court against the Narendra Modi government’s decision to rename the Kolkata port after Mookerjee. The party, which is part of the left front, pointed out that there was already a dock in the Kolkata port named after Bose. “The Central government is blind. It did not mind belittling Subhas Bose by renaming the Kolkata port as Syama Prasad Mookerjee port. It has no idea that a dock inside the port is named after Bose. How could Bose live under Mookerjee even after death? This is rubbish,” said Naren Chatterjee, state secretary of the Forward Bloc.
Chatterjee said the people of Bengal would never accept Mookerjee as a legend. “Why should we call him a patriot?” he asked. “Was he jailed during the freedom struggle? He sided with the British government. If the prime minister wants to keep Mookerjee’s name for the port, he must withdraw Bose’s name from the dock.”
Chatterjee was quick to find support from the CPI(M). Sujan Chakraborty, CPI(M) central committee member, said Bengal thought of Mookerjee as a traitor, rather than a freedom fighter like Bose. “He has no place in the history of our state. Naming the port after him is nothing but recognising a Hindu nationalist who compromised with the British,” he said.
Historical facts, however, show that Bengal never really turned its back on Mookerjee. His death in 1953 shocked the state. When his dead body was brought to Kolkata from Srinagar, people across party lines paid their respects. Jyoti Basu, who was then the leader of the undivided Communist Party of India, too, was among them. Basu—who was a member of the provincial assembly in British Bengal, along with Mookerjee—never went hammer and tongs against the Jana Sangh leader.
Senior Congress leader B.C. Roy, the second chief minister of West Bengal and Mookerjee’s personal physician, demanded a probe into Mookerjee’s death by a Supreme Court judge. But the request was turned down as it would have brought Kashmir under the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, which was politically not possible at the time. A frustrated Roy then travelled to Kashmir and visited the place where Mookerjee was lodged after his arrest and the hospital where he died. He also spoke to Dr Ali Jan, who had treated Mookerjee.
West Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh said Roy’s relations with Jawaharlal Nehru went downhill after his Kashmir visit. Back in Calcutta, Roy erected two statues in Mookerjee’s memory and named one of the longest roads in the city and also a college after him.
But after the left front came to power, Mookerjee’s name started fading in the city. “The communists taught foreign history and erased the episode of Bengal’s partition from the syllabus. And they did everything possible to delete the name of Syama Prasad Mookerjee from the Bengali intellect,” said Anirban Ganguly, director of the Syama Prasad Mookerjee Research Foundation, New Delhi.
Ganguly, who is a member of the Central Advisory Board of Education, said the Modi government would soon include Mookerjee’s contributions in the syllabus of Central education boards. “But what is causing deep anguish is that the man who created the state of West Bengal has not yet found a place in the textbooks of his own state,” he said. He said the left front governments and the Mamata Banerjee regime were equally responsible for ignoring Mookerjee’s contributions.
Dhankhar said Mookerjee’s life, nationalistic convictions and thoughts deserved to be a part of the academic syllabus at the Central and state levels. “His life story and undaunted nationalistic spirit would infuse our young, impressionable minds with inspiration and motivation,” he said. “Convincing Rabindranath Tagore to give a convocation address in Bengali in an English-oriented institution like Calcutta University was such a feat and because of him the vernacular language was introduced as a subject for the highest examination of the university. Significantly, this facet is reflected in the National Education Policy 2020.”
Ghosh said if the BJP came to power in the state in 2021, Mookerjee’s contributions would make its way into the syllabus in a big way. “His contribution would be told to everyone across the urban and rural belts of Bengal. We will ensure that. The idea of leftism in textbooks will be a thing of the past,” he said.
Ghosh, a former RSS pracharak, said he grew up learning about the fiery movement led by Mookerjee in Bengal before partition. He said it was M.S. Golwalkar, the second sarsanghchalak of the RSS, who inspired Mookerjee to start the Jana Sangh. “Mookerjee wanted efficient and honest human resource which the RSS gave him once he floated the party. That tradition still goes on,” said Ghosh.
The memory and legacy of Mookerjee is a critical element in the BJP’s strategy to win the 2021 assembly polls. Said Ghosh at a rally commemorating Mookerjee’s birth anniversary, “A slap would now be met with a slap, a brick would be met with a brick and a fight would be met with a bigger fight. This is what Syama Prasad Mookerjee taught us.”
The BJP hopes to educate the young generation about the role played by Mookerjee in facilitating the partition of Bengal and on the issue of refugees. “We are working to infuse young minds with Mookerjee’s ideology,” he said. “We tell them that without him, we would have been part of East Pakistan and Bangladesh and would have been subject to forced religious conversion. We also tell them the story of how Hindu women were raped there. You may find it communal, but it is the reality.”
As outlined by Ghosh, the BJP’s key campaign theme for next year’s elections is Mookerjee’s work for persecuted Hindu refugees and linking the issue with the Citizenship Amendment Act. The party is filling up Kolkata and the countryside with pictures and posters of Mookerjee, equating him with Swami Vivekananda, Tagore and other Bengali renaissance men.
And, right in time for the elections, the party is demanding the Bharat Ratna for Mookerjee. “We are asking the Central government to award Mookerjee the Bharat Ratna,” said Ghosh. “He is one of the greatest Bengalis in independent India who was not honoured with the award. We have appealed to our government and will continue to do that till we achieve our goal.”