Have I got my history all wrong? Aparna Sen on BJP's Bharat Ratna push for Veer Savarkar
Kolkata/IBNS: Actress-filmmaker Aparna Sen, who had earlier written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi over mob lynching, has taken a potshot at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for proposing Bharat Ratna (the country's highest civilian honour) for Hindutva icon late Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, popularly known as Veer Savarkar.
In a tweet on late Thursday night, Sen said, "Savarkar to be given Bharat Ratna posthumously? But did he not a send 4 mercy petitions to the British to get out of cellular jail, or have I got my history all wrong? Just asking...."
In a major poll promise, the ruling saffron party earlier this week made a strong pitch for honouring Savarakar and two other off-springs of Maharashtra Savitribai Phule and Jyotiba Phule with the country's highest civilian award.
India's liberals and opposition parties see the move to confer Bharat Ratna on Savarkar as an attempt to embed the RSS, BJP's ideological patron, in Indian history while the saffron party holds that had it not been for Savarkar, the 1857 anti-British revolt had not been recognised as the first freedom struggle uprising.
Savarkar to be given Bharat Ratna posthumously? But did he not a send 4 mercy petitions to the British to get out of cellular jail, or have I got my history all wrong? Just asking....
— Aparna Sen (@senaparna) October 17, 2019
Union Home Minister Amit Shah has called for rewriting history from the Indian point of view. He credited Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, a Hindu Mahasabha ideologue, for recognising the 1857 mutiny as India’s first freedom struggle movement as against the British point of view.
The Congress has more often questioned the BJP's intent to describe Veer Savarkar, one of the early proponents of Hindutva-nationalistic politics, as a 'patriot' and has maintained that he was released by Britishers during freedom struggle after a clemency plea in 1937.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi in December 2018 had paid a visit to Cellular Jail to pay respect to Savarkar.
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