MODI, MAMATA
appropriate Netaji’s legacy to gain political mileage in Bengal ahead of this summer’s election, in which home minister Amit Shah has vowed the party would win at least 200 of the 294 assembly seats .
Even Saturday’s cultural event was not free of the shadow of intense rivalry between Bengal’s ruling Trinamool Congress and the BJP, which made major inroads into Bengal in the 2019 national election, winning 18 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state. When chief minister Mamata Banerjee rose to address the audience before Modi, BJP workers raised Jai Shri Ram slogans and some booed her. An upset Banerjee spoke a few terse words, ending with “Jai Hind, Jai Bangla”. She did sit through the entire programme and was seen conversing with Modi.
At the event, Modi released a collection of Bose’s letters, two commemorative coins and a stamp. He also felicitated veterans of the Indian National Army that Bose led against the British Indian Army. The veterans included Nayek Lalti Ram, Dr BN Pandey and INA colonel Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon’s daughterin-law. Modi spoke a few lines in Bengali. “Today I bow before the sacred land of Bengal that brought up little Subhas and taught him to grow through sacrifice. This land gave the country its national song and anthem,” said Modi, who was on a one-day visit to the city. He named eminent Bengali social reformers, scientists and educationists and former President Pranab Mukherjee, who was honoured with the Bharat Ratna, the nation’s highest civilian award, in 2019 by the BJP government.
“Netaji’s sacrifice and perseverance is the source of energy for today’s youth. We want generations to remember him. We have decided that programmes will be held across the nation. Every year his birthday will be celebrated as Parakram Diwas,” Modi said. “When the country is surging ahead in the spirt of Make in India, the teachings of Netaji become important because he travelled across the world to create awareness about the nation and raise an army... Netaji showed that the British empire, where the sun never set, could be defeated,” said Modi.
“Netaji said no power in the world can put India in chains as long as it is independent. Netaji used to treat poverty, illiteracy, disease and lack of scientific innovation as the main problems. Today, our nation is striving to make women and farmers self-reliant and strengthening education, infrastructure. We are introducing a new national education policy,” said Modi.
Union culture and tourism minister Prahlad Singh Patel was also present at the Victoria Memorial Hall. “Netaji probably did not get the honour he deserves. Today, events are also being held at Cuttack in Odisha where Netaji was born and at Haripura in Gujarat, where he was elected president of the Congress party for the first time,” Patel said.
Modi on Saturday became only the third prime minister, after the late Lal Bahadur Shastri and PV Narasimha Rao, to visit Kolkata’s Netaji Bhawan on the freedom fighter’s birthday. The mansion on Elgin Road, where the freedom fighter’s family lived, now houses a museum on Bose. Shastri was the first Prime Minister who visited the historic building on January 23 when he was in office, said Bose’s grandnephew and Bharatiya Janata Party leader Chandra Kumar Bose, who was present in the museum during Modi’s visit. Rao visited the building in 1995 to attend Bose’s birthday celebrations.
“The prime minster saw the Wanderer car that Netaji used. He visited Netaji’s study and his elder brother Sisir Kumar Bose’s room and also saw Netaji’s uniforms, swords and old photographs. The Prime Minister was inquisitive about Netaji’s visit to Haripura in Gujarat and we showed him some photographs,” said Sugata Bose, another grandnephew of Bose’s, who showed PM Modi around.
Haripura is located in Surat. Bose was elected president of the Congress party at the Haripura convention held in February 1938. Records say that Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel decided that the convention would be held in Haripura, which was then a village.