Will Partition Remembrance Day Act Aid in Healing from Tragedy or Reopen Wounds?

Heaping blame on the doorsteps of Muslims for multiple woes is essential for the Hindutva votaries to enlist the electoral support of large sections of Hindus. Events related to Partition were distorted earlier too, in recent years most importantly by Union Home Minister Amit Shah who accused the Congress during the debate on the Citizenship Amendment Bill of “Partitioning the country on the basis of religion.” Shah’s charge overlooked the fact that the founder president of BJP’s preceding party, Bharatiya Jana Sangh, Syama Prasad, was cabinet minister in independent India’s first government under Nehru. The then RSS chief, MS Golwalkar, was disdainful of India shaking off the British yoke and termed the historic event on 15 August as “so-called independence.” Neither Golwalkar nor any of his ideological progenies understood the import of Nehru’s most famous speech, “Long time ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially.” Nehru accepted with pain and regret that Indians were making a fresh beginning, but not with all dreams intact. Modi’s decision of intertwining the horrors of Partition with Pakistan’s Independence Day cannot but necessitate recalling Golwalkar’s viewpoint expressed in the aftermath of the tragic events that he did not accept the finality of Partition. Things get settled or unsettled solely by the will of man.” India’s neighbourhood policy anyway is a major deficit area and a call for this remembrance worsens the situation, especially vis-a-vis our western neighbour.