People's Democracy

THE CPI(M) has reacted sharply to the physical attack by the by RSS-BJP workers on the official residence of its Dy. Leader in Lok Sabha, Basudev Acharya for what he said in the Parliament about V.D. Savarkar.

Condemning this attack, CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Sitaram Yechuri made it clear that these methods will not silence CPI(M) from stating historical truths.

Addressing a press conference on May 10 along with Prakash Karat, he took on the RSS on the question of Savarkar's contribution in the freedom struggle. He released the copies of Savarkar's mercy petition to the British while in Andaman Cellular Jail, dated November 14th, 1913 in which he openly begs the British to let him out of Cellular Jail. "In the end may I remind your honour to be so good as to go through the petition for clemency, that I had sent in 1911, and to sanction it for being forwarded to the Indian Government? …… Therefore if the government in their manifold beneficence and mercy release me I for one cannot but be the staunchest advocate of constitutional progress and loyalty to the English government which is the foremost condition of that progress….. I am ready to serve the government in any capacity they like, for as my conversion is conscientious so I hope my future conduct would. By keeping me in jail nothing can be got in comparison to what would be otherwise. The Mighty alone can afford to be merciful and therefore where else can the prodigal son return but to the parental doors of the government?" .. wrote Savarkar.

Sitaram said that historically it is indeed true that V D Sarvarkar was in jail. It is equally true that he sought clemency from the British government, subsequently. These are historical facts. They are mentioned in the "History of the Penal Settlement" by none other than the nationalist historian R C Majumdar.

He said that on the basis of this mercy petition Savarkar had been released from the jail. The RSS, which is idolising him now because it meets their ideological requirements, wants to hide this fact and that is why it is resorting to physical intimidation. Savarkar was the first to coin the word Hindutva and it was he who advocated first the two nation theory, in fact three years before Jinnah had done.

Sitaram rubbished the RSS talk that communists had played no role in the freedom struggle saying it is like the pot calling the kettle black. The truth was that the mentors of the BJP, the RSS which existed since 1925, played no role in the anti-imperialist struggle.

On the contrary scores of revolutionaries who became respected communist leaders and activists such as Harekrishna Konar who became one of the topmost leaders of the CPI(M), Satish Pakrashi, Ganesh Ghosh , Subodh Roy, Loknath Bali, Ananta Singh, Subodh Chowdhury, Phani Nandi, Haripada Bhattacharya, Ranadhir Das Gupta, Ananda Gupta and many others spent years in the Andaman Cellular Jail, he said.

Sitaram Yechuri challenged the RSS to inform the people as to how many of their leaders were lodged in the Andaman Cellular Jail ?