Assam Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) chief Bhupen Bora on Friday slammed the BJP-led central government, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi for deliberately mentioning former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's speech on Assam (during the Chinese aggression in 1962), rather than doing 'Rajdharma' and focusing on the current situation in Manipur.
“The harsh reality is that BJP and its leadership feel dwarf at the towering personality, intellectual calibre, unmatched popularity and global reputation of Jawaharlal Nehru and therefore the party resort to malign his reputation by presenting his quote in a distorted manner thereby trying to create confusion among the public," Bora stated in a statement.
“The repeated quote “my heart goes out to the people of Assam at this hour”, has been willfully picked out of the larger context of Nehru’s speech, to discredit him. The real fact is that, despite initial setbacks on the Indian front, the former Prime Minister pledged to have victory, neither give up nor tolerate the Chinese incursion," Bora stated.
“We are not going to tolerate this kind of invasion of India by any foreign country. This is the first war of independent India. To maintain her independence, the country is not going to lose this war however long it lasts and whatever harm it may do to us. Therefore on this day, which has been a sad day for us, bringing news of reverses and setbacks, I want to send my greetings to the people of Assam, especially to the people of North East Frontier Agency (NEFA), (erstwhile Arunachal Pradesh), and to the rest of India and to tell them, that we must not be worried about this, sad we must be necessarily, but we must train ourselves, to meet all these reverses, and to make our determination still firmer, to do all that we can, to repel and throw out the invader from India. We shall not be content till the invader goes out of India or is pushed out. We shall not accept any terms that they may offer, because they may think that we are frightened by some setbacks. I want to make it clear to all the people in Assam, to whom our heart goes out at this moment," Bora stated that this is what Jawaharlal Nehru had said in his speech.
Bora further stated: “These were words of a leader who had determination to fight the invader. He also wished to express compassion for those who had to face the sudden challenge at the ground level. Jawaharlal Nehru viewed the Chinese aggression as a threat to not only India’s integrity, but an attack on all independent nations. He thus ended his speech by saying that he would keep the people of India abreast, with what was happening on a frequent basis, in order to mobilise the nation to meet the situation, and it is not only in Assam or Ladakh or India, but it is a menace for Asia and the entire world. And so let us all say today with real meaning and repeat our old cry, Jai Hind.”
“Nowhere in the speech do we get a whiff of surrender or abandonment of Assam to the Chinese. Critics of the speech may find it interesting to note that Nehru’s daughter Indira Gandhi, who was the president of All India Congress Committee between 1959 and 1960, flew down to Tezpur in November 1962, to take stock of the situation. Indira Gandhi reached Tezpur with ration and supplies for the inhabitants from the Indian Red Cross," the APCC chief further stated.
“Katherine Frank in her biography of Indira Gandhi has mentioned that Indira Gandhi returned to Delhi for exactly eight hours, displaying a flaming confidence as the tribal people had refused to leave Tezpur. She made a brief radio broadcast, had the aircraft refilled with supplies and returned to Assam for another forty eight hours. Almost immediately upon her arrival in Assam, the Chinese unexpectedly decided to announce a unilateral ceasefire and started to withdraw their troops," Bora stated.
Regarding the unrest in Manipur, Bora stated that even after three months of violence in the state Prime Minister Modi has continuously been avoiding the issue. "Even during the discussion in Parliament on the no-confidence motion, the Prime Minister instead of speaking on the state’s burning issues, tried to divert the public attention by quoting that particular sentence from Jawahrlal Nehru’s speech," he said.
Bora challenged the BJP and RSS, to share any speech of Jawaharlal Nehru in 1962, where he had mentioned ‘surrender’ or ‘abandonment’ of Assam to China.