(^12) THE WEEK NOVEMBER 12, 2017
BHASKARAN
power point ● Sachidananda Murthy
MILESTONES
and her grandson Rahul has been.
There has been an intense effort to
question the legacy of Nehru, who ruled
for 17 years. The BJP has criticised his
decisions on Kashmir, China, secular-
ism and socialism. After the government
gleefully took over the Nehru Memorial
Museum and Library in Delhi, a steady
deconstruction of the Nehru legacy is
happening.
But Modi’s muscular nationalism pre-
cludes similar criticism of Indira, who
was vigorously opposed by the earlier
generation of BJP leaders. Even the 1971
Shimla agreement,
whereby she gave up
territory in Pakistan
under the control
of the Indian Army,
is not fodder for
criticism, as the war
saw the liberation of
Bangladesh and the
elimination of the
Pak threat in the east.
She also cocked a
snook at the Chinese
(who gave sleepless nights to Nehru and,
later, to Modi) by annexing Sikkim.
Modi admires her tough style of
functioning, and has brought out his
own version of garibi hatao, the big
vote catcher for Indira in 1971. He is
also rough with his cabinet and allies,
like Indira was known to have been.
Even 33 years after her assassination,
her image as a strong leader lingers. At-
tacking it does not provide the BJP the
kind of political capital it accrues from
its tirades against Nehru, Rajiv, Sonia
Gandhi and Rahul, who are all ‘softies’
in the saffron lexicon.
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N
arendra Modi and his top minis-
ters had their political baptism
by fire during the Emergency.
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and
the Bharatiya Jana Sangh were in the
crosshairs of the Indira Gandhi govern-
ment, and their top leaders like Atal
Bihari Vajpayee, L.K. Advani, Murli
Manohar Joshi and Bhairon Singh
Shekhawat were sent to jail.
While Modi went into hiding disguised
as a sadhu or Sikh, student leader Arun
Jaitley was under preventive deten-
tion for 19 months. Sushma Swaraj was
active in legal teams
that fought cases of
Emergency detenues.
The trio, along with
present-day senior
leaders like Rajnath
Singh and Ravi
Shankar Prasad, have
intense Congress-pho-
bia, which has its roots
in their opposition to
the politics and style of
functioning of Indira
Gandhi. They were actively involved in
the Janata experiment, which dislodged
Indira from power.
Yet, three and a half years of the Modi
government has seen Indira become
less of a target for criticism than other
leaders of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty.
Admittedly, her death anniversary on
October 31 was a low-key affair, as the
government laid more emphasis on the
birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai
Patel, India’s Iron Man, which is on the
same day. But, otherwise, India’s only
woman prime minister, who ruled for 16
years, has not been targeted the way her
father, Jawaharlal Nehru, her son Rajiv,The hard target
Feminine power: Jacinda
Ardern, 37, became the
world’s youngest female
leader when she was sworn
in as the prime minister of
New Zealand on October- Ardern is New Zealand’s
third female prime minister.
Green tram: The world’s fi rst
hybrid electric tram powered
by hydrogen fuel cells was
launched in China. The tram
emits only water.
On a roll: Kidambi Srikanth
defeated Japan’s Kenta
Nishimoto in straight sets to
win the French Open Super
Series in Paris. He is the fi rst
Indian shuttler to win four
Super Series titles in a year.
Was the Taj Mahal a Siva
temple? Of course not, histo-
rians say. Expect P.N. Oak, of
course. But he is no historian,
say historians. The divide is
deep and bitter.
Anyway, the debate has
brought an old word into the
limelight, mythistory. Port-
manteau of myth and his-
tory. The origin of the word
is attributed to celebrated
Canadian-American histo-
rian William H. McNeill. In
1985, he gave lecture titled:
Mythistory, or Truth, Myth,
History, and Historians.
One defi nition: “History
is an account of the past,
whereas myth is a likely
story. Mythistory, then, is
a story of the past likely to
have currency.” Mythistory
can never become history,
unless suffi cient evidence is
found. The Taj story, most
historians say, does not even
fall in mythistory.