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© 2006-2017 Kasturi & Sons Ltd. -vijay kumar [email protected] - EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE CHENNAI THE HINDU 10 EDITORIAL TUESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2017 EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE Sardar Patel, a shared inheritance The Congress’s de-option of Patel was an error, Hindutva’s co-option of Patel is an execration which people belonged, not a realism of both leaders has to be place in which people assembled thanked. Their realism, and their for a drill. Its sifat, to use a Persian sense of ‘India rst’. #Makeover word that stands for essence or India rst was part of their idea ethos, was its diversity. And its of India. And ‘India rst’ was integ- Rahul Gandhi displays a new Working Committee embodied ral to their sense of patriotism, that sifat. It had, Gandhi apart, their Congress patriotism. and humorous energy on social media gopalkrishna gandhi Nehru the socialist and agnostic, Four days after Gandhi’s assas- ongress vice president Rahul Gandhi set social Patel the conservative, C. Rajago- sination, in a letter to his senior in media alight last weekend with a tweet stating his allabhbhai Patel (1875-1950), palachari the liberal, Rajendra politics, in the party and in age, Cpet dog Pidi was the author of his suddenly eer- whose birth anniversary it is Prasad the traditionalist, Abul Nehru wrote: “With Bapu’s death vescent posts. The sarcasm had his detractors scram- Vtoday, is sorely missed. He Kalam Azad the scholar, J.B. Kripa- everything is changed… I have bling to portray him, on the one hand, as frivolous, and has been, ever since he died at the lani the scoer. At dierent times it been greatly distressed by the per- none-too-great an age of 75, in had Subhas Chandra Bose the na- sistence of whispers and rumours doing so, on the other, without sounding humourless 1950. He was the keel that the boat tionalist, Sarojini Naidu the poet. about you and me, magnifying out and stodgy. The hashtag #Pidi trended all Sunday, cap- of the freedom struggle needed so Each Congressman and Congress- of all proportion any dierence we ping Mr. Gandhi’s makeover since the summer. The as never to tip over, the ballast that woman was himself or herself rst, may have.” numbers speak for themselves: his followers on Twitter the ship of state required to stay IMAGES POPPERFOTO/GETTY and then a soldier of the party. Patel replied on May 5, 1948: “ I have shot up from about 2.5 million in July to more than steady, move safe. represented and represents on its the Congress, can dispute and Each person was ‘rare’. Which is am deeply touched…We both have four million now. The change is clearly a result of the This is because he was, rst and register a very large number of Mo- much less deny that basic and in- why, describing Acharya Narendra been lifelong comrades in a com- last, a patriot. A Congress patriot. hammedans. Several thousand controvertible fact. No one, how- Deva in his obituary speech in Par- mon cause. The paramount in- Congress’s recently revamped social media team; more And then, a man who knew India. Mohammedans went to jail last soever desperate to annex his leg- liament, Nehru spoke of him being terests of our country and our mu- interestingly, also perhaps its strategy. The playfulness, The India which the Congress was year under the banner of the Con- acy to that of another body, “…a man of rare distinction — dis- tual love and regard, transcending the self-deprecatory humour, the regular-guy under- seeking to dene for itself, for gress… The Congress has Indian cultural or political, like the Hindu tinction in many elds — rare in such dierences of outlook and tone in Mr. Gandhi’s social media messaging are aimed India. Christians also on its register. I do Mahasabha or the Rashtriya spirit, rare in mind and intellect, temperament as existed, have held at creating a new public persona, a plan that was evid- What was that India? Let us have not know that there is a single com- Swayamsevak Sangh or the Bhar- rare in integrity of mind and other- us together.” ent since his tour of American campuses last month. Gandhi answer the question. In munity which is not represented atiya Janata Party, can succeed in wise.” The Congress’s ranking lead- The very previous day, address- What political dividend this will pay is not clear, but it’s 1931, the year that Patel, for the rst on the Congress on its re- staging so ridiculous a trapeze ers, as indeed its countless ‘le’, ing the Congress Party in the Con- time, became Congress president, gister…even landlords and even show. diered, debated, wrangled and stituent Assembly, Patel described unsettling the ocial narrative. From being mocked as Gandhi went as the Congress’s sole mill-owners and millionaires are Sardar Patel was the Congress’s even warred, but stayed true to the Nehru as “my leader” and said: “I a princeling of Lutyens’ Delhi, Mr. Gandhi is trying to re- representative to the second represented there…” spine. The Congress was Sardar Pa- party’s sifat, because the party am one with the Prime Minister on cast himself as a humorous, almost subversive, insur- Round Table Conference in Lon- Serving the nation through that tel’s life. gave them that ‘play’, not as a all national issues. For over a gent taking on the formidable powers-that-be. Refer- don. He dened at that Confer- party representing ‘the whole na- Does that mean that the Sardar’s policy but as an inherent personal- quarter of a century, both of us sat ring to the GST as the “Gabbar Singh Tax”, he harnessed ence, the nature of the party, and tion’ and its various communities, membership, leadership and stew- ity trait, India’s trait. at the feet of our master and the lm Sholay’s capacity to myth-make, and to project explained to that gathering how strengthening that party at its ardship of the Congress was free of The mutual dierences between struggled together for the freedom the indirect taxes overhaul as an extractive, arbitrary the Congress represented the en- plural grassroots, shaping the res- tensions? Of course not, because Nehru and Patel are no secret. The of India. It is unthinkable today, tire country. He explained, in fact, olutions and decisions of its Work- he was human and his party was Congress did not believe in when the Mahatma is no more, that reign reminiscent of Hindi cinema’s memorable villain. their inextricable oneness. ing Committee and helping it form led and peopled by other humans, secrecy. Their mutual trust was no we should quarrel.” Mr. Gandhi and his social media team are still a light ministries in eight of the 11 each with tempers and tempera- secret. The Congress believed in The Congress’s rank and le presence in the Indian social media space — Mr. Modi Under a big tent provinces in the elections of 1936- ments that were distinct. Despite trust. should ponder these observations has 36 million followers, and this machine’s drive to In Gandhi’s words: “In as much… 37, Patel then guided it as it took Gandhi’s pre-eminent position in it Their dierences are not to be of Nehru and Patel and rectify take the battle to every post is the stu of case studies in as I represent the Indian National over the reins of the Government and in the hearts of the people of exaggerated. They are not to be years of neglect, post-Nehru, of the political campaign. But perhaps it is this mismatch that Congress, I must clearly set forth of India in 1947. Working for and India, the Congress was not a hege- minimised. They are to be contex- Sardar’s legacy at the false altar of has given Mr. Gandhi’s campaign the oxygen it seeks. its position. In spite of appearances through the Congress was the Al- monic party and its most charis- tualised. In the democratic spirit of political cronyism. That neglect to the contrary, especially in Eng- pha and Omega of Patel’s political matic leader, Jawaharlal Nehru, that plural party. has lubricated the crassly oppor- During the second UPA government, as an anti-estab- land, the Congress claims to rep- career. was, by instinct, self-training and Sardar Patel led a party as its tunistic co-option of Patel by the lishment mood swept the streets, Mr. Gandhi appeared resent the whole nation and most That made him what he was, the practice, its most natural demo- Ursa Major that was anything but a Hindu Right which has no right, lo- equally keen to be seen as a dissenter — for instance, in decidedly the dumb millions ‘indomitable’ iron man of India. crat. Nehru’s was a lunar luminos- homogenising factory. It was as gical, political or moral, to that leg- 2013, when he angrily tore into the UPA’s ordinance to among whom are included the That also made the Congress, in ity in Gandhi’s Congress. Nehru’s plural as it was because it saw itself acy. What the Congress invalidate a Supreme Court curb on convicted legislat- numberless untouchables who are very great part, what it was — an all- glow could brighten and lessen, in the words Gandhi used to de- squandered, Hindutva is shovel- ors. Then, his assertion of power over his party’s Prime more suppressed than depressed, India organisation. and on a moonless light plunge the scribe its eclectic rolls in London in ling in.

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