A tweet by Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Jawaharlal Nehru’s writing going online, went viral sparking off a lively debate on fairytale, history, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and, of course, right-wing supporters.
“Finally, all 100 volumes of Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru spanning the period of 1903-1964 are now online. Essential reading for all those interested in 20th Century Indian history. This is also for trolls in the hope they read and imbibe some gyaan! nehruselectedworks.com’’ tweeted Ramesh.
Any mention of Nehru on Twitter, is usually met with the usual venom from trolls, and suitable outrage from the Congress. Rohan Raj, who describes himself as “Centre Right’’ tweeted: “Not interest in old fashioned Nehru history. Time to rev up our knowledge of ancient history that was glorious n by far the best in the world before Islamic invasion and march ahead to the new India we envisage. Our great civilisation needs to reclaim our past n become Vishwa Guru.’’
Anil Bhalla, who is a retired banker and lives in New York, chose to invoke Nehru’s “gargantuan follies’’ including China. “Does it also refer to his many gargantuan follies including, agreeing to the nation’s partition, Kashmir referral to the UN, fiasco & famine in agriculture, economic growth derisively said to be at Hindu rate, humiliating debacle & defeat by, & loss of territory to China in 1962,’’ his tweet read.
This is not the first time Ramesh’s tweet on Nehru has turned into a battle between the saffron troll army and Congress supporters. Earlier this year, after releasing Narayani Basu’s book on “VP Menon: The Unsung Architect of Modern India”, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar wrote on Twitter: “Learnt from the book that Nehru did not want Patel in the Cabinet in 1947 and omitted him from the initial Cabinet list. Clearly, a subject for much debate. Noted that the author stood her ground on this revelation.” Ramesh and Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, however, took to Twitter to share Nehru’s letter to Mountbatten in 1947 with Patel’s name right on top.
But Nehru had many staunch defenders, too. Factvsprejudice put a screenshot of V.P. Menon’s words—“the trusted lieutenant and right hand man of sardar patel”—where he writes that Sardar Patel agreed to Partition before Nehru did. The proof tweeted to “chachaji’’ was to provide a better argument. “Now don’t say even he is lying here,’’ he tweeted.
Major Ramesh Upadhyay tweeted, “Make it a must read for every Congi right from SoniaG, economist RahulG, farmer’s wife PriyankaG to the booth worker, if u are left with any.” To which, N.S. Bumb tweeted, “They will at least learn READING, if not anything else & make be some art of creating false narratives.’’