Author:
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: January 19, 2013
URL: http://www.dailypioneer.com/sunday-edition/sundayagenda/books-reviews/123206-the-man-who-saved-bengal.html

Prasad Mookerjee
 Author: Tathagata Roy
 Publisher: Prabhat, Rs900

The book holistically explores the life of Syama Prasad Mookerjee, says Saradindu Mukherji

 Syama Prasad Mookerjee, one of our last Mohicans, has not received much scholarly attention primarily due to the stranglehold of the public sector ‘intellectuals’ committed to the Nehruvian pan-Islamic, Leftist worldview. Tathagata Roy’s biography, with a crisp introduction by LK Advani, is a comprehensive account of this patriot, spotless in both private as well as public life, and adds to the earlier works of Balraj Madhok and Dinesh Chandra Singha (in Bengali). When Mookerjee (1901-53) died in mysterious circumstances in the jail of Sheikh Abdullah in Srinagar, the Mother of Pondicherry reportedly said, “They have killed him.” The author writes on all these, including Jawaharlal Nehru’s role. The letter Mookerjee’s traumatised mother, Lady Jogmaya, wrote to the first Prime Minister is a must-read document to assess the character of the ‘liberal’ Nehru!

 An outstanding student, who was called to the Bar (Loncoln’s Inn), and a lawyer in the Calcutta High Court, Mookerjee was the Vice-Chancellor of the Calcutta University between 1934 and 1938, proving his mettle as an educationist of high order. His academic ties with Acharya Prafulla Chandra Roy and Rabindranath Tagore, and how he helped Kazi Nazrul, are all there. When he invited Tagore to address the university convocation in Bengali, it was approved by Governor John Anderson, but was boycotted by Muslim students and Ministers who loathed their mother tongue as the language of the kafirs; they even opposed the use of ‘Shri’ and the lotus symbol on the university’s emblem for being idolatrous and anti-Muslim. Only after they suffered at the hands of West Pakistanis that some of them realised their folly.

 A Congress member of the Legislative Council, Mookerjee’s politics is explained by the emasculation of Bengali Hindus following the Government of India Act, 1935. With the Muslim League-Krishak Praja Party coalition in place, the sufferings of Hindus increased, while the Congress, primarily dependent on Hindus, failed in its duty of defending their rights. Desecration of Hindu temples, defilement of Hindu idols, and attack on Hindu women went on. Hindus were virtually excluded from government services.

 Entering active politics in 1939, Mookerjee became the president of the Hindu Mahasabha, and the Minister for Finance in the Fazlul Haque Ministry (1941). He, however, resigned from the ministry in 1942 in protest against the severe treatment meted out to those arrested following the Quit India movement, and the criminal negligence of the cyclone victims. Roy takes care to point out that Mookerjee was in “complete agreement with content of the resolution (on Quit India) but had serious reservation as to the technicalities, and not afraid to speak out”, and hence not comparable to the Communists collaborating with the British and the Muslim League.

 Mookerjee’s proximity to the Hindu Mahasabha is best explained by the fact that the Congress in the 1940s was repeatedly trying to engage in negotiations with Jinnah, despite being rebuffed. He and the Hindu Mahasabha alone protested against the Lahore Resolution on Pakistan. Mookerjee clearly saw through the Anglo-Muslim conspiracy and tried to protect Hindus from unending humiliation and sufferings as witnessed during the “Direct Action” (August 16, 1946).

 It was due to the untiring efforts of Mookerjee that West Bengal could be carved out and the pernicious United Bengal plan of Suhrawardy-Sarat Bose was scuttled. It was he who suggested the idea of dividing Punjab and save the eastern part for India. He worked indefatigably for the rehabilitation of the refugees and at one time proposed an exchange of population between India and Pakistan, which many Muslim Leaguers were demanding but was vetoed by Mahatma Gandhi and his loyalists.

 As the Minister for Industry and Supply in Nehru’s Cabinet, he helped the process of industrialisation. Indignant and hurt by the systematic genocide of Hindus, and then censuring Nehru’s Pact with Liaqat Ali Khan for dealing a death blow to Hindus of East Pakistan, he resigned from the Cabinet. Subsequently, he set up the Bharatiya Jan Sangh and carried on his spirited campaign for the persecuted Hindus of East Pakistan, and, of course, the complete integration of Jammu & Kashmir with the rest of India, and for this he had to pay the ultimate price.

 Roy, an engineer-author and a BJP politician, has a holistic approach, unlike most of the ‘trained’ historians who obfuscate real There are records concerning Mookerjee in the British archives, and hopefully some scholar would make use of them soon.