Like the death of two other illustrious sons of Mother India, Netaji and Shastriji before him, Syama Prasad Mookerji’s death still remains shrouded in mystery. And no attempt so far has been made to remove the veil over it. This is felt even as Dr Mookerji’s 120th birth anniversary was celebrated on July 6. The tragedy appears greater in the sense, as the famous jurist and Privy Councillor Dr Jayakar had observed, was to die forlorn in a prison house , locked there without trial by his country’s Swadeshi Government and by persons with whom he had struggled and shared power. That could be a fitting termination to his warring life, but the tragic circumstances leading to his untimely death would ever remain an indelible blot on much talked of India’s glorious democracy.
Syama Prasad’s ideas and legacy, however, survived glowingly, with the result that long after his martyrdom, the BJP, successor to the Bharatiya Jana Sangh that he had founded, came to power in the Central Government under the stewardship of his one-time secretary Atal Bihari Vajpayee and formed the first non-Congress Government in India to last a full term between 1999 and 2004.Then in 2014 the party shot to power with a decisive majority under the leadership of Narendra Damodardas Modi , decimating the National Congress to a miserable forty-four seats . Even subject to compulsion of coalition politics, his party, keeping alive the memory of his struggle for integration of Jammu and Kashmir, has succeeded amidst insurmountable odds, in abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution.
Recently, the Modi Government opened the nine km long magnificent all-weather tunnel reducing the time of journey and distance between Jammu and Srinagar. They have not allowed their leader’s sacrifice to go in vain. Shyama Prasad was a great son of a great father Sir Asutosh Mukherji , who never hesitated to retort to Viceroy Lord Curzon and roared fearlessly in the provincial and imperial councils, and was popularly known as the Royal Bengal Tiger.
Syama Prasad inherited many of his father’s great qualities both through inheritance and acquisition. Many are not aware that Syama Prasad regarded Odisha as ‘Gurudeber Desh’, since Madhusuudan Das , while in Calcutta also happened to be his private tutor.
The sterling qualities of his father and his teacher had resulted in making him a staunch nationalist. He also could feel his father’s influence in shaping the educational life of Bengal and in assisting him, he got insight into the affairs of Calcutta University, which had made him the ablest Vice Chancellor of the University while he was only thirty three. While NC Chatterji had hosted Savarkar in Calcutta, Syama Prasad came in brief contact of the hero. Savarkar’s analysis of Indian political scenario and his gospel of unalloyed nationalism convinced him to be the only effective antidote to Muslim separatism and the divide-and-rule policy of the alien rulers.
He decided to join Hindu Mahasabha, became its vice president and subsequently owing to Savarkar’s continued ill health, became its president. It also earned Gandhiji’s approval, who had said , “ Somebody was needed to lead the Hindus after Malavyaji.” ; to which Syama Prasad commented , “But then you will dub me as communal.” Gandhiji’s characteristic reply was, “Like Shiva who drank the poison after churning of the sea, somebody must be there to drink the poison of the Indian politics. It can be you.” Gandhiji was greatly impressed by the broad and thoroughly nationalistic outlook of Dr Mookerji. “Patel is a Congress man with a Hindu mind, you be a Hindu Sabhaite with a Congress mind,” Gandhiji told him before parting.
When Syama Prasad’s last ditch effort to avoid vivisection of the Motherland had failed, since he felt that the Congress leaders in their impatience and hunger for power had conceded to the demand of partition and he rightly foresaw that it may lead to the whole of Bengal and Punjab going to the would-be Pakistan, he directed his energies to salvage as much as he could from the ship that had begun to sink.
PB Chakravarty, former Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court and former Governor of West Bengal, observes, “Dr Mookerji intervened and harnessed all the mighty powers he possessed to an organised and determined opposition to the diabolic plan of United Sovereign Bengal and he forced a partition within a partition. He indeed snatched West Bengal from the jaws of MA Jinnah.
About this triumph of having achieved the partition of Bengal, Dr Mookerji had remarked to Nehru, when the latter accused him of concurring in the partition proposal, Dr Mookerji had retorted, “While Congress partitioned India, I partitioned Pakistan.”
When an angry Nehru gave the threat, “I shall crush your Jan Sangh,” Dr Mookerji’s rebuff was: “I say, I will crush this crushing mentality of yours.” Veteran journalist Durga Das writes in his book ‘India from Curzon to Nehru and After’ that there were only three effective spokesmen of the Opposition during the Nehru era. They were SP Mookerji, Kripalini and Lohia.The first was a real leader because he spoke for the largest group which opposed Nehru’s policies. In oratory and debating skill, he surpassed all others who have followed him.”
All his life Syama Prasad fought valiantly for his country’s freedom both social economic as well as political; for civil liberties of the people and for the unity of his motherland. After independence, he fought for upholding democracy against growing fascism of the men in power.” He truly became a martyr to civil liberties, to democracy and to the unity of India,” remarked Prof Balaj Madhok regarding his mentor.
(ggmohanty@gmail.com)