DR S P MUKHERJEE,

THE RESPLENDENT LAMP OF FEARLESS HINDU NATIONALISM-I

V SUNDARAM I.A.S.

DR SHYAMA PRASAD MUKHERJEE
(1901-1953)

Today (23-6-2011) happens to be the 47^th Death anniversary of Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee (1901-1953) who was murdered in Kashmir on 23^rd June 1953. He was a great scholar, an ardent Hindu nationalist and an outspoken Parliamentarian. He was born on 6 July, 1901 in a Brahmin family with a very high social standing in Bengal. From his parents Sri Ashutosh Mukerjee and Jogmaya Devi, Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee inherited a splendid tradition of erudite scholarship and fervent nationalism. Both of them inspired him to live a pure, dedicated, selfless, totally fearless and manly life. His father who was perhaps the most distinguished Vice-Chancellor of Calcutta University gave him the following message early in his life: 'To have lived long does not necessarily imply the gathering of much wisdom and experience. A man who has pedalled 25,000 miles on a stationary bi-cycle has not circled the globe. He has only garnered weariness'. No wonder Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee packed into his short life of 52 years unsurpassed exertions and unremitting toil of several life times.

Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee had a brilliant academic career in Calcutta University, taking his Honours Degree in English and securing the first position in the first class from the Presidency College in 1921. He also took his M A degree in Indian Languaes. In 1924 he took his B L degree from Calcutta University again topping the list. He went to England to pursue further legal studies and was called to the Bar in 1927 from Lincoln's Inn. Though he was fully qualified for it, he never practiced law as a profession. HE BECAME THE YOUNGEST VICE-CHANCELLOR OF CALCUTTA UNIVERSITY IN 1934 AT THE AGE OF 33 AND CONTINUED IN THAT POSITION TILL 1938. CALCUTTA UNIVERSITY CONFERRED ON HIM D LITT AND BENARES HINDU UNIVERSITY HONOURED HIM WITH LLD IN 1938.

Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee's political career was marked by his deathless commitment to his ideals of burning patriotism and selfless service. His political career began in 1929 when he became a Member of the Bengal Legislative Council.

He was elected as a Congress candidate from the Calcutta University constituency. He acted as a watchdog for the University in the Council. But in response to the Congress call for boycott of Council, he resigned, but later re-entered it as an Independent Member for the sake of serving the University when he was re-elected in 1937. As a firm believer in Hindutva and Sanatana Dharma, he became president of All India Hindu Mahasabha in 1939. That did not come in the way of his becoming the Finance Minister of Bengal in 1941 in the hectic days of the II World War. Even while remaining in the Government, he actively opposed the British Government when the leading Congress leaders were arrested after the Quit India Resolution was passed in Bombay on 9 August, 1942. When his views on the patriotism of the Congress leaders went unheeded, he resigned from the Ministry as a protest against the British policy of oppression and suppression of civil liberties in India.

THE GREAT BENGAL FAMINE OF 1943-44, generally referred to as Panchasher Manvantar by the Bengalis (the famine of fifty, ie the Bengali year 1350), was a great calamity. During the period from 1943 to 1946, 38 lakhs of people died as a result of the famine and the epidemic diseases that accompanied it. When this issue came up for debate in the Bengal Legislative Assembly, Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee indicted both the Food Minister of Bengal H S Suharawardy and his business friend Ispahani in these words: 'IN THE NAME OF THE STARVING MILLIONS OF BENGAL I CONDEMN YOU. ON BEHALF OF THE HELPLESS FAMILIES OF RURAL BENGAL WHO HAVE LOST THEIR BREADWINNERS, CHAMPIONS AND PROTECTORS I CONDEMN YOU. BENGAL HAS NOT SEEN GREATER ACTS OF OFFICIAL CRIME IN ITS LONG HISTORY'.

Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee covered himself with glory by his Himalayan relief efforts during the deathly days of Great Bengal Famine. Government of Bengal appointed an apex relief organisation called Relief Coordination Committee with Badridas Goenka as President and Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee as Vice-President. Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee saw to it that 5000 relief kitchens were opened in Bengal for catering to the needs of famine-stricken people. He rose above narrow party alignments and in the process emerged as the most shining symbol of Bengali protest against the arrogance of British imperial authorities and the misdeeds of the essentially anti-Hindu, pro-Islamic, and pro-British Bengal Government.

Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee was initially a strong opponent of the Partition of India. But following the communal riots of 1946 organised by H S Suharawardy, Prime Minister of Bengal, Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee strongly advocated against Hindus living in a Muslim- dominated State government controlled by the Muslim League. He supported the Partition of Bengal in 1946 in order to prevent the inclusion of the Hindu majority areas in a Muslim-dominated East Pakistan. The basically traitorous , anti-national and shameless CPI (M) Government in West Bengal has functioned as an official political agent of Bangladeshi Islamic Terrorism, Global Islamic Terrorism, ISI Islamic Terrorism, SIMI Islamic Terrorism for the last 30 years by freely allowing a massive infiltration of Bangladeshi Muslims into West Bengal. These illegal Islamic immigrants have been the Vote Banks of the CPI (M) Party and these Muslim Vote Banks have now been bought over by the Trinamool Congress of Mamta Baneerje. It will not be too much to say that both the CPI (M) and the Trinamool Congress (TMC) are the successors of the Muslim League of HS Shurrawardy in undivided Bengal in !946.

On the advice of Mahatma Gandhi, Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru inducted Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee in the interim Central government in 1946 in New Delhi as a Minister for Industry and Supply. He came to be widely respected by many Indians and also by members of the Indian National Congress and Sardar Vallabhai Patel as an outstanding Minister.

But on the explosively controversial issue of Nehru's 1949 Delhi Pact with Pakistan Prime Minister Liyakat Ali Khan, Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee resigned from the Central Cabinet on 6 April, 1950. He was firmly against Nehru's invitation to the Pakistani Prime Minister and their pact to establish Minority Commissions and guarantee minority rights in both countries. He wanted Nehru to hold Pakistan directly responsible for the terrible influx of millions of Hindu refugees from East Pakistan, who had left the State fearing religious suppression and violence aided by the State. Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee described Nehru's action as 'abject Muslim appeasement', and was hailed as a great hero by the people of West Bengal.

Maulana Jawaharlal Nehru had boundless affection for the terrorist and murderous Muslims of both West Pakistan and East Pakistan (East Bengal or present Bangladesh). When the criminal and barbarous Muslims of East Pakistan, with the full official and political support of the Government of Pakistan, were playing the savage drama of State-sponsored Hindu Genocide in East Pakistan immediately after the Partition of India in 1947-48, the Hindus of East Bengal----men, women and children--were running for their lives to places of safety and security in West Bengal. At that time, in a brutally insensitive and inhuman fashion, the murderous joker Maulana Jawaharlal Nehru was advising the helpless Hindus of East Bengal (East Pakistan) to stay back in their traditional places of habitation, unmindful of the slaughter, rape of women, loot of property, wholesale destruction of Hindu villages and other atrocities that were being let loose by the Muslims of the then East Pakistan (East Bengal and now Bangladesh).

This becomes clear from the irresponsible and reprehensible letters sent by this lecherous Congress Dacoit to Dr.B.C.Roy, the then Chief Minister of West Bengal.

I am presenting below the full text of the Editorial which was published in the Monthly Journal  JANA SANGH TODAY in its issue of December 2006. We can see the letters sent by Maulana Jawaharlal Nehru to Dr.B.C.Roy on 16^th August 1948 and 22^nd August 1948.

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Ideology
Nehru's Neglect Of Hindus
Dec 2006

The great Calcutta killing took place in August 1946. This carnage was followed by riots in East Bengal and were especially centred around Noakhali, a port in the Bay of Bengal and Tippera (now in Tripura). The rioting was so prolonged and intense that it set off an exodus of Hindus who proceeded towards Calcutta. Even a tour by Gandhi to reassure the affected families made little difference. Partition took place in the middle of August a year later, and the exodus almost became a flood. This compelled the central government at Delhi to talk to their Pakistani counterparts. At the end of Inter-Dominion Conference in 1948, an Indo-Pak agreement was signed in the hope of reassuring the minorities.

The 'Marginal Men' by Prafulla K. Chakrabarti, Naya Udyog, Kolkata, 1999, is relevent in this context. In it is quoted the correspondence between Jawaharlal Nehru and West Bengal Chief Minister Dr. B.C. Roy. Two of Nehru's letters are quoted.

On 16 August 1948 Nehru wrote:

”I have your letter of August 4th about the influx from East Bengal. I realise your difficulties and naturally we should do what we can to help you. But as I told you long ago there is no reasonable solution of the problem if there is a large influx from East Bengal. That is why I have been terribly anxious throughout to prevent this, whatever might happen. I still think that every effort should be made to prevent it. I think that it was a very wrong thing for some of the Hindu leaders of East Bengal to come to West Bengal.”

On 22 August Nehru wrote:

”I have been quite certain right from the beginning that everything should be done to prevent Hindus in East Bengal from migrating to West Bengal. If that happened on a mass scale it would be a disaster of the first magnitude. Running away is never a solution to a problem. I think the Hindu leaders of East Bengal who have come away have done no service to their people. If, as you suggest, things have gone too far already, then naturally we shall all do what we can, but I shudder at the prospect and at the magnitude of the human misery that will come in its train. to the last I shall try to check migration even if there is war.”

On 1 April 1950, Dr, Shyama Prasad Mukherjee resigned from the Jawaharlal Nehru ministry as an angry protest against the Indian government's appeasement policy towards Pakistan. In a cabinet meeting earlier that afternoon, this is what Dr, Mukherjee said, as quoted in the book called Soundings In Modern South Asian History, edited by D.A. Low, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1968:

“When Muslims in Kashmir were attacked, you sent Indian armed forces and spent crores of rupees. What do you care for us Bengali Hindus? What do you care for the criminal assaults on our women?” Suddenly Panditji stood up and began to advance towards Syama Prasad. That tiger of Bengal also raised his hand and stepped forward. For a moment it looked as if the Cabinet meeting would become a battle field. But I pacified Shyama Prasad. When things came to such a pass, Patel left the meeting. A couple of other ministers also left. I said to Panditji: "Half the Cabinet has gone away. I think the meeting should be adjourned". Panditji calmed down and the meeting was adjourned.

The immediate cause of Dr. Mookerjee's anger was the exodus of Hindu refugees from East Pakistan which had begun again in early 1950. According to the figures later given to Parliament by Jawaharlal Nehru, between 7 February and 8 April 1950, about 9 lakh Hindus crossed into India.

From the beginning of partition, some four million Hindus had migrated from East Pakistan, as described by Jawaharlal Nehru himself on the floor of Parliament on 7 August 1950.

The two prime ministers met in Delhi at the end of which they signed what has come to be known as the Nehru-Liaquat agreement. Syama Prasad Mookerjee saw the riots in East Pakistan as part of a deliberate and cold blooded plan to exterminate or expel the minorities from East Pakistan. It is this conviction which made Mookerjee suggest an exchange of populations. As we have seen, Nehru rejected this suggestion out of hand. As quoted in his Selected Speeches referred to earlier, Nehru went on to explain:

“An exchange of population is something which we have opposed all along. It is something which I consider not only undesirable but also not feasible. It is a question of arithmetic, apart from anything else. If we wanted an exchange of population between East and West Bengal and if we did it with the complete cooperation of both the governments on expert level and with every facility given, it is calculated that it would take five and a half years and that, if no untoward event happened. Of course, many untoward events will happen in the meantime and, of course, there will be no such magnificent cooperation between the two governments either! All kinds of upheavals will take place during that period, so that one cannot think of this solution in terms of reality.”

“Then again, where do we draw the line? The present position is that, so far as the Hindu population of East Bengal is concerned, one might say, generally speaking, that the entire population is full of fear and apprehension about the future and, given the opportunity, would like to come away from East Bengal. That is only their present feeling. I do not know, if they will actually come, when an opportunity is given. Perhaps, later some people will stick to their lands and other things. That will depend on the developing situation and on whether they have security or not.”

To a Hindu, the arguments advanced by Jawaharlal Nehru, in or outside Parliament, were not convicting. They appeared contrived merely to escape having to take a firm stand against Pakistan.

A Prime Minister, strong enough to lead such a large country as India, should have said: "Janab Liaquat, either you stop sending out Hindus or we would send a commensurate number of Muslims across your borders. If you indulge in ethnic cleansing, we shall be left with no choice. In any case, it was your party called the Muslim League led by Qaid-e-Azam Jinnah which had repeatedly insisted that there should be an exchange of population. On the other hand, we were generous enough not to press for uprooting people who had lived where they did for generations. You have answered our generosities with treachery. Now face the consequences."

No such statement or voice was heard from Prime Minister Nehru. Even in 1950, it was obvious that he was no visionary. His colleagues of the stature of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Dr. N.V. Gadgil had protested against Nehru's appeasement, and sure enough as times unfolded, Nehru was proved wrong, again and again. Is it therefore any surprise that any number of Indians are prepared to blame Nehru for having mismanaged the Kashmir issue with Pakistan? But very few realise that he was also the architect of a worse disease, namely, communalism which afflicted Indian polity in a number of ways with different depths.

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From October 1949 to December 1950, with unfailing regularity, Maulana Nehru kept on giving ever-varying and ever-variable figures relating to influx of Hindu Refugees from East Pakistan and West Bengal. Sometime in the middle of 1950, Maulana Nehru told the Indian Parliament that between 7 February 1950 and 8 April 1950, about 9 lakh Hindus crossed into India.

Dr.Shyama Prasad Mukherjee was the only Indian political leader in the India of 1950 to clearly see through the dastardly Islamic Game of Hindu Genocide which the Government of Pakistan under Muhhamed Ali Jinnah was letting loose against the Hindus of East Pakistan (East Bengal or today’s Bangladesh). Maulana Nehru had nothing but hatred and contempt for the pitiable and helpless Hindus of East Bengal. The only stupid advice he could give the Hindus of East Bengal at that time was to stay back in their traditional homes and lands in East Bengal and get slaughtered by murderous Muslims of East Bengal. Totally shaken up and traumatized by this disastrous policy of Muslim Appeasement, Dr.Shyama Prasad Mukherjee felt morally and totally constrained to resign from the position of Cabinet Minister in the wholly pro-Islamic, Evangelical and anti-Hindu Government of Jawaharlal Nehru in April 1950.

On 21 October, 1951, after a long and detailed discussion with Sri Guruji Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar, Leader of the RSS, Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee founded 'Bharatiya Jan Sangh' (Indian People's Union) at Delhi and became its first president. 

THE JAN SANGH SYMBOL

Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, with his legal background, also strongly advocated a Uniform Civil Code for both Hindus and Muslims. He wanted a ban on cow slaughter. He pointed out the paramount political necessity of ending the special status of Muslim majority Jammu and Kashmir in the larger interest of India's integrity and national unity. Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee defined the contours of the Hindutva agenda which later became the wider political expression of India's Hindu majority in the 1990s. Deen Dayal Upadyaya, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, L K Advani and several other latter-day BJP stalwarts were inspired by the personality and example of Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee.

In the 1952 general elections to the Parliament of India, Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee and the BJS won 3 seats. When he was proceeding to Kashmir in 1953 in order to go on a hunger strike on reaching there to protest against the law prohibiting any Indian citizen from settling in that State (which was in their own country) and the need to carry I D cards, he was arrested on 11 May, 1953 while crossing the Jammu & Kashmir-India border. Although the I D card rule was revoked on account of his efforts, he died as a political detenu on 23 May, 1953. Even before he had set out from Delhi, Sri Guruji Golwalkar had advised him not to go to Jammu & Kashmir and warned him about the possibility of his not returning back alive from Kashmir. Sri Guruji had also sent a letter to the same effect through a special messenger which failed to reach him on time. According to many well-informed people, he was politically assassinated with the full political blessings, knowledge, understanding and opaque involvement of Sheik Abdullah and Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru.

At a time when all the Congress leaders including Pundit Nehru found themselves in the mire of triple 'secular' synchronisation, conceptual confusion, political incompetence and human failure to deal with the Muslim problem in India, Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee spoke these prophetic words in his last speech in Parliament on 15 November, 1952:

'I remember I saw a number of Congress leaders and especially Gandhiji and some of us begged of him to appreciate the real point of view whether it will be possible for the minorities to live in Pakistan, in view of the circumstances under which that new country was taking its birth. AND WE SUGGESTED A PLANNED EXCHANGE OF POPULATION AND PROPERTY AT GOVERNMENTAL LEVEL AS PART OF THE PARTITION SCHEME. He was not willing to accept it because their view point was that what they were agreeing to was not a communal division of India, but a territorial division of India'.

Today we are having not only a communal division but also a territorial division of votebank politics in every State in India today. In 1947 we were dealing with only one unreasonable and irresponsible statesman like Jinnah. Today we are constrained to deal with hundreds of self-proclaiming Islamic Terrorist 'Jinnahs' not knowing what they want and not allowing anybody else also to understand what they want. If only our countrymen had listened to the advice of Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee at that time, there would have been no problem whatsoever between Hindus and Muslims either in Pakistan or in India after 1947.

To conclude this part of the article in the words my friend Sadhu Professor V.Rangarajan:

“During the general elections in India in 1967, this sadhu happened to be the youngest candidate of Bharatiya Jan Sangh from Tiruchirappally-1 constituency to the Tamilnadu Legislative Assembly, and was opposed by the DMK and Congress. This sadhu was moving from slum to slum on a bicycle in front of which he had hung a portrait of Dr.Shyama Prasad Mukherjee and hoisted the Jan Sangh flag in ochre colour with the symbol of diya (earthern lamp), while his opponents were moving in posh cars attached with loudspeakers and accompanied by party workers. The slum dwellers took pity on this young candidate, often offered a cup of tea or coffee and asked him very innocently who was the person on the portrait. They were given to understand that Jan Sangh was a Hindi Party and some Marwari Seths had promoted the candidature of this sadhu. The very purpose of this sadhu’s candidature was to introduce Jan Sangh and he had to give a lot of explanation to the people about the party and its founder.

In the last four decades, Bharatiya Jan Sangh grew in leaps and bounds and flowered into a new and powerful political party, Bharatiya Janata Party, which captured power in the Centre and had Sri Atal Behari Vajpayee as the Prime Minister. Still many people in the country, especially in the southern states, are yet to know about the founder of the Bharatiya Jan Sangh who fought for the integration of Kashmir with the mainland Bharat and mysteriously died in the Kashmiree Jail while fighting for the right of all Indians to settle in Kashmir.”

In the next part of my story I intend writing about the cold blooded murder of Dr.Shyama Prasad Mukherjee in Kashmir on 23^rd June 1953 jointly planned and executed by Maulana Nehru and according to some his step-brother Sheik Abdullah.

I will also be writing 4 more articles on the exodus of Hindus from east Pakistan and later Bangladesh to India between 1947 and 2006. 

Tatagatha Roy has written graphically about the untold sufferings undergone by the Hindu men women and children of East Pakistan (Bangladesh) during the last 64 years in his famous work titled A Suppressed Chapter in History---The Exodus in Hindus from East Pakistan and Bangladesh 1947-2006 by Tathagata Roy.