While the Congress party is busy claiming that Home Minister Amit Shah ‘insulted’ Dr BR Amedkar during his parliament speech, by twisting a single sentence from his statement without context, the BJP has been responding by highlighting how the Congress, currently pretending to be an ardent admirer of Amedkar’s policies, has been complicit in ignoring him and sidelining him from its early days in power.
As a further embarrassment to the Congress, a letter from Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, has been making the rounds on social media, characterizing Ambedkar as a person who “allied himself with the British Government and against the Congress” and apparently branding him a traitor.
The letter dated 26th January 1946 was addressed to Amrit Kaur (possibly Congress leader Rajkumari Dame Bibiji Amrit Kaur who was appointed the first health minister of independent India). It read, “I have received two or three letters from you. As for Mayer’s letter, I sent it merely for Bapu’s (Mahatma Gandhi) information. There is nothing to be done about it. I quite agree with you about this business of using blood for writing and tilak marks. I have protested repeatedly. Nan is now due to arrive here early next week. But I shall not be certain till she actually comes.”
However, the crucial part of the letter came letter where Nehru informed, “You will have read about the violent attack on the Communists in Bombay. This is producing an intolerable situation. I have said something about it, I hope Bapu will take this matter in hand. About the gentleman named Rai Sahib Sonadhar Das Senapati at Shillong and the report of the conversation between him and me, I am not aware of the name of the person but someone did meet me and irritated me exceedingly by his stupidity.”
He then voiced his views about Ambedkar and conveyed, “The report as given is very incorrect, lie (presumably Rai) asked me why the Congress should not go to Ambedkar and make it up with him. I told him that we are going to do nothing of the kind. Ambedkar had repeatedly insulted the Congress and Congress leaders and unless he apologised we would have nothing to do with him. I certainly did not say that the scheduled castes would not get the political privileges given to them under the Poona Pact. My whole stress was on the fact that Ambedkar had allied himself with the British Government and against the Congress and we could not deal with him.”
The historical record further mentioned that in a letter on 17th January 1946, Amrit Kaur stated, “I see you had a sketch given to you which had been drawn in blood. I saw too in the papers that some girls had put the tilak mark our your forehead with blood. Because of this, I think I expressed myself forcibly on this issue. I send back to you the report that the gentleman most probably gave you.” The response of which was delivered by Nehru in his letter.
Nehru’s letter was also shared by BJP’s Amit Malviya. He termed the development as “shocking beyond imagination” and highlighted, “Nehru wrote to Amrit Kaur, referring to the revered Baba Saheb Ambedkar as a traitor and accusing him of collaborating with the British.”
This is shocking beyond imagination. In a letter dated January 26, 1946, Nehru wrote to Amrit Kaur, referring to the revered Baba Saheb Ambedkar as a traitor and accusing him of collaborating with the British.
— Amit Malviya (@amitmalviya) December 20, 2024
“…asked me why the Congress should not go to Ambedkar and make it up… pic.twitter.com/IzPb4QUlSK
Malviya cited the pertinent paragraph from the letter and charged, “There can be no greater insult to Baba Saheb Ambedkar, the architect of our Constitution, and to the entire Dalit community. The Congress’s deep-rooted disdain for Dr Ambedkar is both troubling and unacceptable.” Despite the Congress party’s best efforts to discredit the BJP by twisting Amit Shah’s words about Ambedkar, their own previous actions appear to have come back to haunt them and reveal their hypocrisy, leaving them in an uncomfortable situation.
