Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday accused the Congress of having attempted to obliterate the contribution of Sardar Patel, BR Ambedkar and Netaji Subhas Bose to “project one family”. He was speaking at the Red Fort, where, in a first, Mr. Modi unfurled the tricolour to commemorate Bose's Indian National Army. “It is sad that in order to project one family, contributions of great sons of India like Sardar Patel, BR Ambedkar and Netaji Subhas Bose have been sought to be erased. Our government is reversing this,” Mr. Modi said.
The reference was to the projection of the “Nehru family”, with the PM hinting that all others were pushed to the margins to project the family. Patel was India's first deputy Prime Minister at a time when Nehru was the first PM. Bose and Nehru had been very close to each other in the 1930s as socialist leaders, till Bose quit the Congress after the Tripuri session of 1939 and founded the Forward Bloc, which later took a political line favouring consolidation of left forces in the country. Mr. Modi also announced an award in the name of Subhas Bose. “I was at an event dedicating the National Police Memorial before coming here. I have announced that we will start a national award in the name of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. We will honour those policemen who risk their lives during natural disasters each year with this award. Police and paramilitary jawans will be eligible for it,” he said.
Mr. Modi recalled that as Gujarat Chief Minister, he had organised a function in 2009 to commemorate the Haripura session of the Congress, where Bose had been elected Congress president. The PM asserted that the feeling of nationalism was important, paying tributes to Bose for being a great nationalist. At the INA Trials at Red Fort, Mr. Modi asserted, INA veteran Shahnawaz Khan said that Bose was the first man who made him think about India within Indian frames. “It is our misfortune that those who created our systems after independence saw India through the frames of England. Our culture, languages, education system, curricula and system suffered because of this. If the country had got the guidance of Subhas Bose and Sardar Patel after independence, things would have been different and alien frames would not have been used to understand India,” Mr. Modi said, in another veiled attack on Nehru.
