My
salute to all the freedom fighters of
India on this auspicious day of India’s Independence!
I
make it a point to stress the ‘all’ for
I salute everyone: the revolutionaries, the soldiers and officers of the Indian
National Army (INA), and indeed every heart that panted for freedom, every soul
who shed his or her blood that Mother India be free of her shackles.
Unfortunately,
the Indian multitude has been largely brainwashed into considering almost all
of the above freedom fighters beyond the pale. Those who did not follow the
dictate of Gandhi and Congress, those who spilled their blood for their
motherland, are the ones to suffer this fate particularly.
There is one glaring exception: The rioters
of the Moplah
Rebellion.
One
will be hard put to it to find a more gruesome rioting. They did spill blood; not their own, but that
of the Hindus and the Europeans; they fought, not for the freedom of India, but
for Khilafat and “Muslim Raj”—yet the Government of Kerala graciously allowed
them into the officially recognized “freedom fighters” clique in 1971.
I
have sworn to find out why, one of
these days.
I
had a very telling conversation with one whom we shall call A.
“Oh,
anyway, there was no struggle for freedom after the Quit India Movement in ’42,
as such! So how many freedom fighters can still be around?” says A.
What a shocker! Quit India
Movement was an ineffective, unorganized, badly-timed Congress Movement which
did not even have United India as a goal. I gobbled like a turkey—metaphorically
speaking—at this preposterous statement, but did manage to blurt out:
“Do
you not count the INA . . .! Those soldiers were freedom fighters!”
He
managed to crown his previous gaffe:
“Oh,
the INA soldiers are not mentioned as freedom fighters.”
They who went to war fighting for
India’s freedom, whom the Indians adored as their Symbol of Freedom, whom the
British quote as a reason for getting out of India for good—they are not to be
mentioned as freedom fighters—by whom?
The
Congress?—the same Congress who came to power in free India by championing
these patriots to win the elections and then stabbed them in the back when
freedom was won? By that Congress?
It
was obvious to me that A was supremely unaware of belonging to the “brainwashed
multitude” of India.
“You,”
I cried, “are making the grave error of assuming that the history of the
Congress is the history of India!”
Fact
of the matter is that he is not alone in making this error. This “error” has
been insidiously percolated in the national and international psyche.
How
does one counteract such brainwashing? A feeling of helplessness was washing
over me. It was at that time I connected with Mr. Vishnu Pandya. And I realized
that as long as there are people like him around, there is light at the end of
the tunnel.
Vishnuji
is an eminent personality of Gujarat, India. He is a noted journalist,
biographer, poet, novelist, historian—really, you name any facet of writing and
he has a command of it! He is an author of an astounding 92 books . . . !
Fifteen of those are biographies of Revolutionaries of Gujarat.
On
Independence Day Eve, there was a mega-show in Junagadh, Gujarat, especially honoring
those freedom fighters who are in danger of being lost in obscurity. He has
written the script for it.
Dr.
Shreerang Godbole is another eminent personality. He boldly and forthrightly
champions the cause of the Revolutionaries. Do
read his gripping article on them on this link:
Hats off to them both!
I do hope
there are many more people like Vishnuji and Shreerang, that every freedom
fighter of India will get deserved recognition and be evergreen in the Indian
memory.
Vande Mataram!
Anurupa Cinar
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