Indira Gandhi

New Delhi, June 20: K.S. Sudarshan’s praise of Indira Gandhi has embarrassed the Congress and the BJP, but the Vishwa Hindu Parishad has endorsed every word uttered by the RSS sarsanghachalak and added more of its own.

On June 19, while addressing a gathering of RSS activists in Lucknow on “Hindu Saamrajya Dinostav”, Sudarshan lauded the late Prime Minister for dismembering Pakistan in 1971 and described her as a “leader of guts”.

He reportedly said: “The only leader who had an iron will was the late Indira Gandhi, though she often used it for her personal gains. When Pakistan mounted an offensive in 1971, she went ahead and split Pakistan into two. Though she later also imposed the Emergency, Indira Gandhi was a leader of guts.”

BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar had to be repeatedly coaxed by the media to yield a response today.

He began by saying: “We have no comments to offer on that (Sudarshan’s) speech,” and later said Atal Bihari Vajpayee continued to be the best Prime Minister for the party. “There is no doubt in any of our workers’ mind on this,” said Javadekar.

Despite his assertions, within the BJP, Sudarshan’s comments were construed as another “snub” to party president L.K. Advani for “going overboard on the Indo-Pak peace initiative”, as sources put it.

The VHP offered its muscle and rhetoric to the RSS chief and took pot-shots at Advani. “She (Indira Gandhi) divided Pakistan and never changed her stand like some big leaders do,” senior vice-president Acharya Giriraj Kishore was quoted by PTI as saying. “He (Sudarshan) had only praised her courage.? She was the only man in her cabinet. She acted like He-Man.”

The VHP veteran went on to say: “Unlike the big leaders who change their views, she was consistent about her stand and never wavered from it.”

Later, Sangh spokesperson Ram Madhav put out a “clarification” on agencies, saying: “There was neither praise nor condemnation in his (Sudarshan’s) speech”.

He claimed that Sudarshan only referred to the “glimpse” of courage Indira Gandhi displayed during the liberation of Bangladesh.

Asked by PTI why the RSS sarsanghachalak singled out Indira Gandhi as the “only leader with an iron will” and not Vajpayee, its own swayamsevak, Kishore said: “There was only one Prime Minister who divided Pakistan. Only another PM who eliminates Pakistan can be greater than her.”

Queried on a recent speech made by Advani in which he contexualised his comments on Mohammed Ali Jinnah, Kishore’s response was: “It was an afterthought as he had consistently maintained it was a well-considered remark (on Jinnah) and that there should be a debate on it. But having seen the backlash, he is retracting.”

The Congress sought to deflect the debate on Sudarshan’s attack on Jawaharlal Nehru, who the sarsanghachalak alleged was a “product of western culture” and was made the first Prime Minister of India because the British thought he would “protect their interests”.

The party’s spokesperson, Anand Sharma, told reporters: “Mrs Indira Gandhi is acknowledged to be one of the strongest leaders of this country by history, by her generation, by the present generation, by future generations and by posterity.”

Sharma stated that the Congress did not need a “certificate” from Sudarshan 21 years after Indira Gandhi was “martyred”.

He recalled that after the Indo-Pak war of 1971, the then “leader of the BJP”, Vajpayee, had called her “Durga”.

Sharma objected to Sudarshan’s reported description of Nehru as the “last Englishman to rule India”.

“To say the British anointed him as the PM is to make a mockery of history. No level-headed person of a responsible organisation will utter such things,” the Congress leader said.

“To say that Nehru is the cause of all ills in India, as Sudarshan said, reflects the RSS supremo’s state of mind. Nehru was a thinker, a visionary and a dynamic leader who was dedicated to building the nation after Independence. To belittle and reject his contributions is condemnable.”