http://epaper.dnaindia.com/epapermain.aspx?pgNo=4&edcode=820040&eddate=2013-11-08
The recent verbal duel between the Congress and the BJP over the legacy
of Sardar Patel, India’s first home minister, attained a climax when it
graduated into a public spat between prime minister Manmohan Singh and
Gujarat chief minister and BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra
Modi, during the inauguration of the renovated Sardar Patel Museum.
The wrangling over Sardar Patel has certainly drawn some issues to the public domain, whilst providing certain tactical advantages to Modi, wherein he is able to set agenda in the electoral debates and as well as anchor it, around his personality while waiting for his political opponents to blink.
At the same time, it puts an enormous burden on the Congress to respond to the sense of historical injustice meted out to the historical personalities who do not belong to the Nehru-Gandhi family and stir itself out of the crisis. Great icons like Sardar Patel belong to the nation and cannot be confined to any kind of political or primordial categorisation.
This issue certainly raises larger questions not about appropriation or misappropriation, but of honouring the legacy of the builders of modern India and making the Congress-led government acknowledge their contribution.
