New Delhi, March 24: The Congress has hit back at the BJP's attempt to appropriate Bhagat Singh, recalling that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh had no role in the freedom struggle and its icon V.D. Savarkar had sought mercy from the British to get out of jail.
The party mocked the BJP's decision to celebrate this Holi as "martyrdom day" and play the song Mera rang de basanti chola - that has come to be associated as an expression of romantic revolutionaries.
Freedom fighters Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev were hanged by the British on March 23, 1931.
In its bid to counter the RSS, the BJP's ideological mentor, Congress has juxtaposed petitions by Bhagat Singh and Savarkar on its official Twitter handle under an acerbic headline: "Martyrs & Traitors".
To rub the message in, the party held a media conference yesterday where spokesperson Shobha Oza said: "The nation knows what role the RSS had in the freedom movement and how it is using nationalism to polarise and divide the society now."
The Congress quoted from Bhagat Singh's last petition to the British government in Lahore jail in 1931: "We wanted to point out that according to the verdict of your court, we had waged war and were therefore war prisoners. And we claim to be treated as such; i.e. we claim to be shot dead instead of to be hanged."
Together with this is a quote from Savarkar's petition to the British in Cellular Jail, in the Andamans, in 1913: "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."
Another post quotes from Bhagat Singh's petition: "We request and hope that you will very kindly order the military department to send its detachment to perform our execution."
Alongside is Savarkar's plea: "I am ready to serve the British government in any capacity they like, for as my conversion is conscientious so I hope my future conduct would be."
The point the Congress tried to make is: unlike the martyrs, RSS heroes begged for mercy.
Party chief Sonia Gandhi issued a statement that said: "The heroism of deeds and clarity of thoughts displayed by these martyrs - Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev - resonates in and inspires the minds of every Indian."
In his tribute Rahul Gandhi, the party's vice-president, recalled how these martyrs gave up their lives smiling.
With the BJP attacking the Congress for siding with alleged anti-nationals in JNU and using Bhagat Singh to lure away youths, the party's Twitter handle today posted another quote of the revolutionary, a self-proclaimed atheist and champion of secularism: "Any man who stands for progress has to criticize, disbelieve and challenge every item of the old faith."
It was a subtle criticism of the government's impatience with dissent.
Yesterday, the Congress spokesperson had said: "The BJP today is running a campaign on nationalism with the prime objective of misleading and dividing the country.... The BJP's love for the country is fake. If you love the country, you don't divide the people."
To back up her allegation, Oza said the Haryana Assembly had passed a resolution in 2009 to dedicate the international airport in Chandigarh to Bhagat Singh. "But the new BJP government overturned this resolution and passed another to name the international airport after RSS pracharak and former chief of Haryana Jan Sangh Mangal Sain. Mangal Sain's contribution to the nation is unknown, he only served the RSS," the spokesperson said.
"The BJP thinks that his contribution was bigger than the martyr who died for the nation. This exposes the pseudo-nationalism of the BJP."
Oza spoke of the turmoil in several universities and asked the government why students were being targeted. She also pointed out that the Sangh's student wing ABVP was involved in every controversy and said it showed a deliberate design to impose the RSS worldview on the nation.