On Not Making It To Hallowed Lists

Not being fond of Jawaharlal Nehru may not be a human right but it certainly is a choice. In fact, being not fond of anyone, including persons and personages that many people find ‘fondable’, is perfectly all right. So, if the first PM is excluded in anyone’s scrapbook of Indian freedom fighters, one shouldn’t get into a foamful tizzy. Keeping him out of an honours roll call is okay, as is being critical of his exclusion. Excluding Nehru from an Independence Day government ad – as was the case this August 15 with a Karnataka government ‘poster’ – is, at least, not launching a tirade against the man, and far from a demand to put him behind bars or variations thereof. The reason cited for Nehru not making the grade was that he was ‘responsible for Partition’. Again, that is fodder for a perfectly healthy debate that can be played out across the length and breadth of newspaper Oped pages.

As for freedom fighters’ lists, Groucho Marx was not one for India himself, but he did say, ‘I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.’ Closer home – if not in familiarity then in distance – the writer Shibram Chakraborty refused his freedom fighters’ stipend saying that he didn’t fight for Indian independence for the money. Nehru, too – one can only suppose – wouldn’t have minded being left out of the I-Day ‘party’ in Karnataka.