I am a bit confused over this issue , Yes about this Jaswant Singh and Jinnah affair. I thought that Jaswant blamed Nehru and Patel for the partition of India absolving Jinnah of doing so. To my simple mind that would imply that the guys who should be offended should be the "Congresswallas" , They are ofcourse silent on this issue. But now it dawns to me during that time Nehru and Patel were heros of the nation, everyone just spoke about them and noone else as such. But now it dawns to me that maybe Patel and Nehru were the secret icons of the BJP. I actually did not know this, though it is becoming clear that over the past decade BJP is slowly getting fascinated of Sardar Patel.
No let me actually correct that: Over the last decade Lal Krishna Advani has been getting fascinated of Sardar Patel. Not without good reason, let me assure you. Advani wants to ape Patel and become another Sardar. In his own mind, that is. The Sardar belonged to Gujarat and Advani's family also settled in Gujarat (Kutch to be precise) after partition. Advani these days gets elected to the Lok Sabha from Gujarat from the seat of Gandhinagar ... So basically Patel is Advani's latest icon and that of his (aspirant) "chhote sardar" Narendra Modi.But when did he become an icon of the BJP? So why are they bothered if Jaswant Singh showed him in bad light? I fully understand why the "chhote sardar" has banned the book. If he is the "chhota sardar" how can he tolerate the insult of the sardar, the original man on whom he wants to style himself?
I remember as a schoolboy we read history books that taught that the Congress party got us our freedom. But that was in school lessons. But there was an unofficial version too that we heard at home or from seniors that i had learnt from Meerut which said that the partition of the country could have been avoided if Nehru and Patel were not in a hurry to rule the country. In their anxiety to do so, and much to the dissapointment of Gandhi, these guys accepted partition. If the duo had stood firm and agreed to share power with Jinnah, partition would never have taken place. Yes independence may perhaps would have been delayed but partition would not have taken place. Independence could have come a few years later and the Congress party could have lost his primacy by the time India became independent. But partition would not have taken place
What we learnt during our school days is an awfully long time ago. The fact that a generational change takes place every 10 years these days (or is it 5 years?) means that many generations have passed after that. The Love Aaj Kal generation that is found on Facebook couldn't be bothered the least if Jinnah was a gaandu , fraud or a great man. Ditto for Patel and Nehru. They would not give a damn that India and Pakistan were once part of the same nation. For them there is India and there is Pakistan and also there is Bangladesh. So why get agitated over Jaswant Singh's book? He has written a book and let the guys who want to read it, read it (I will) Unless of course you want to make it a bestseller by creating a controversy and banning the book.
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