Aiyar’s own credentials do not even qualify him to comment on a patriot of Savarkar’s stature. Journalist Dhiren Bhagat’s book ‘The Contemporary Conservative’ has references to Mani Shankar Aiyar’s Cambridge days in 1960s. When Indians were donating money and jewellery - even sweaters to sustain India’s fight against the Chinese in 1962, Mani Shankar Aiyar, as secretary of the Cambridge unit of Communist party, was busy collecting funds for Chinese soldiers. Aiyar was then perceived as threat to national security and the police had a slew of files on him. However, the Aiyar family put to use its strong political connections and the then President of India intervened to clear the decks for Mani’s entry into the IFS. In any other country a person with such credentials would have been bundled off to jail. But in India, Mani Shankar Aiyar could dare to enter the IFS and today makes lewd remarks about Savarkar.

The Prime Minister’s contention that Aiyar’s statement was given in his personal capacity, that he was expressing his personal opinion, that the plaque was removed by an organisation and that this has nothing to do with the government or the Congress party is baseless. Can any individual get a national monument maintained by a public sector undertaking altered to his personal preferences? The plaque was removed on the orders of the Petroleum Minister and not an individual. Moreover, is the government not responsible for the activities of a Public Sector Undertaking? By distancing itself from the controversy, the government is endorsing the acts of its Minister and its organization.

Even more laughable is Aiyar’s argument that the NDA had shown disrespect to Mahatma Gandhi by not including his quotation on the plaque. Aiyar had just tried to rectify this mistake by removing the quotation of an equally respected freedom fighter and including Gandhi’s quotation. If the non-inclusion of Gandhi’s quotes is a disrespect shown to Gandhi, then how does Aiyar account for the removal of an existing quote? In his own views should this not be a greater sin? Moreover, Savarkar had spent 12 precious years of his life at the Cellular Jail in Andaman where the Swatantrya Jyoti, on which the quotes were inscribed, has been installed. Gandhi, on the other hand, had never even been to Andaman, so his quote is less relevant in the given case.

This is not the first time that the Congress has shown disrespect to Savarkar. Last year in February when a portrait of the great freedom fighter was to be unveiled in the Parliament, Congress President Sonia Gandhi had urged President Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam to reconsider his decision to unveil the portrait. In a letter to the President, Mrs. Gandhi said, “I am writing to express my solidarity with other members of the Opposition parties about our inability to be present at the unveiling of the portrait of V D Savarkar by you in the Central Hall of Parliament tomorrow. We mean no discourtesy to you but the feelings in the party are unanimous on this matter. We believe that in view of the serious controversy this has provoked, you might want to reconsider your decision.”

Congress chief spokesman S Jaipal Reddy had expressed the party’s ‘deep regret’ at the decision to ‘hang’ a portrait of V D Savarkar in the Central Hall of Parliament. “While Savarkar was indeed an early pioneer in the freedom movement and spent several years of incarceration in the Cellular Jail at Port Blair, his petition for mercy to the British authorities, his advocacy of the two-nation theory and his alleged association with the assassins of Mahatma Gandhi makes it extremely inappropriate that his portrait be put up in the same hallowed precincts which celebrate the fundamental secular and democratic values of the freedom movement and nation-building,’’ the party had said in a statement.

But this time nobody in the Congress seems to be coming forth to raise his voice in support of Aiyar. The very same Congress who was last year so vociferous in expressing its opinion against Savarkar is today trying to grope for a more respectable answer, saying that they believe that Savarkar was a great patriot and that Aiyar was only expressing his personal opinion. The row created by the Congress over Savarkar’s portrait in the Parliament last year is still fresh in our memory, yet the Congress chooses to act saintly this time and Aiyar stands isolated. What makes the present case different from the previous one is that the Assembly elections are round the corner in Maharashtra where Savarkar is highly revered. That explains why we don’t have Sonia Gandhi and the others joining the rhetoric. Of course, unconditional support was voiced by Laloo Prasad in whose state Savarkar is not much known and Laloo could strengthen his secular credentials by voicing his opinion against the ideologue of Hindutva.

The worst and the most important point is that every time the Congress spits venom against this father figure of the Indian revolutionary freedom movement, it shows complete lack of knowledge and understanding of the Indian history. In putting forward its case against Savarkar, the Congress lays down a set of reasons, which on deeper probe do not stand ground. A closer look at the allegations made by the Congress reveals that not even a single allegation makes any sense.

The allegation of Savarkar's apology to British rulers is ridiculous. He had remained in British jail for 14 years under the most torturous conditions. It is true that Savarkar had filed six (August 30, 1911, October 29, 12, November 14, 1913, September 10, 1914, October 2, 1917 and March 30, 1920) mercy petitions. He was a revolutionary who did not believe in passive martyrdom and wanted to come out and plunge into the freedom struggle and fight the British. He was a follower of Shivaji's tactical line and his "mercy petitions" were nothing but attempts at tactical retreat. The Home Secretary, Sir RH Craddock, had personally visited the Andamans and had a two-hour-long talk with Savarkar on November 21, 1913. Savarkar’s motive behind the mercy petitions becomes clear from what Craddock inferred from this meeting. He wrote in his Note dated Nov 23: "Savarkar's petition is for mercy. He cannot be said to express any regret or repentance. It is quite impossible to give him any liberty here, and I think he would escape from any Indian jail. So important is he that the European section of the Indian anarchists would plot for his escape which would before long be organised. If he were allowed outside the Cellular Jail his escape would be certain." (National Archives of India, Home, Political Affairs, February 1915, Nos. 68- 160)

Repeated rejections of the Savarkar brothers' petitions aroused a public agitation in Maharashtra. Even Mahatma Gandhi had joined the public chorus for the Savarkar brothers' release in May, 1921. He wrote, "He is clever. He is brave, he is a patriot. The evil, in its hidden form of the present system of Government, he saw much earlier than I did. He is in the Andamans for having loved India too well. Under a just government he would be occupying a high post." (Young India, June 18, 1921)

After passing the barrister's course, Savarkar refused to take the mandatory oath expressing loyalty to British rule and was stripped of his degree whereas Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru took that oath. Going by Aiyar’s and Congress’s logic, should we now start vilifying Gandhi and Nehru for having taken an oath expressing loyalty to the British?

The Congress talks of Savarkar’s “advocacy of the two-nation theory”. Had they got the slightest knowledge of recent Indian history, they would have known that while the Muslim League had advocated the theory and the Congress had accepted it, it was Savarkar’s Hindu Mahasabha which had vehemently protested against it. In fact, Savarkar had formed anti-Pakistan front to fight against the proposed vivisection of our Motherland. In a statement issued on 14^th July, 1944 he wrote:

“Time has come therefore for you, O Hindu Sanghatanists to stand by and defend the geographical integrity and national unity of our Hindusthan. Gandhiji and his partisans want to betray Hindu birth-rights as well as the integrity of India as a nation and a state for a mess of pottage without consulting Hindudom to the utter humiliation of our Hindu Race and Hindu Honour!! I call upon even the Hindus in the Congress who have not yet disowned their Hindu blood as well as those staunch nationalists in other organizations like the liberals who stand by Unity of Indian Nation as the fundamental principle of their political creed, to join hands with us in our efforts to organize an anti-Pakistani front, to denounce the principle itself which aims at conceding the Moslem demand of provincial self-determination to secede from the Central Government, to set up separate and sovereign Moslem states, depriving our Indian Nation of the strongest and most natural borders on both the western and eastern side.”

On the other hand, for capturing the Dalit vote bank, the Congress has no qualms in using Baba Saheb Ambedkar’s name, who had openly supported Jinnah’s two-nation theory. Ambedkar in his book “Pakistan or the Partition of India” has argued for the case of formation of a separate homeland for the Muslims. He has clearly stated that the Muslims and Hindus cannot form a single nation, that the Islamic concept of “Dar-ul-Harab” and “Dar-ul-Islam” did not permit Muslims to live in peace with any other religion. He had thus advocated partition with a hundred percent exchange of population. He felt that as long as some Muslims remained in India, even the creation of Pakistan would not solve India’s Muslim problem. Here are some excerpts from this book:

“In the absence of common historical antecedents, the Hindu view that Hindus and Musalmans form one nation falls to the ground. To maintain it is to keep up a hallucination. There is no such longing between the Hindus and the Musalmans to belong together as there is among the Musalmans of India. (page 19)

“Past experience shows that they are too irreconcilable and too incompatible to permit Hindus and Muslims ever forming one single nation or even two harmonious parts of one whole. These differences have the sure effect of not only of keeping them asunder but also of keeping them at war. The differences are permanent and the Hindu-Muslim problem bids fair to be eternal......(page298) 

“The Musalmans are scattered all over Hindustan - though they are mostly congregated in towns - and no ingenuity in the matter of redrawing of boundaries can make it homogeneous. The only way to make Hindustan homogeneous is to arrange for exchange of population. Until that is done, it must be admitted that even with the creation of Pakistan, the problem of majority vs. minority will remain in Hindustan as before and will continue to produce disharmony in the body politic of Hindustan. (page 104)”

It is true that Savarkar was implicated in Gandhi murder case but it is equally true that the court had honourably acquitted him of the charge in 1950. The allegations of Savarkar’s involvement in the Gandhi murder case were manipulated by Nehru out of vengeance as former was highly critical of Gandhi and the Congress’s ideology and actions which led to the vivisection of the country.

The present Congress leadership has no knowledge of what their party’s stand has been on Savarkar in the past. Indira Gandhi’s remarks, in contrast to her daughter-in-law’s opinion, had been, "Savarkar was a great figure of contemporary India and his name is byword for daring and patriotism. He was cast in the mould of a classic revolutionary, and countless people drew inspiration from him."

On May 20, 1980 Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister had written to the secretary of Swatantrya Veer Savarkar Rashtriya Smarak Samiti: "Veer Savarkar's daring defiance of the British Government has its own important place in the annals of our freedom movement. I wish success to the plans to celebrate the birth centenary of this remarkable son of India." She had also donated Rs. 10,000 for anniversary celebrations. It was during her time that a postal stamp was issued in the memory of Savarkar.

The problem with the present day Congress is its foreign leadership, which shows complete ignorance of Indian history and intolerance to conflicting views and ideologies. Tolerance has been the hallmark of Indian polity since times immemorial. Even in ancient India many philosophies and schools of thoughts existed. There were open debates and discussions and respect was given to all. In modern India different ideologies like secularism, socialism, communism and Hindutva emerged. In spite of their differences, mutual respect was always observed. But we find this basic Indian trait lacking in the present day Congress. The party, by its acts and attitude, seems to be no longer Indian. The foreign leadership has robbed it of its Indianness. The Indian spirit of the Congress is fast eroding.