In 1942, the Indian National Congress (INC), which was one among the many political parties in India, gave a call to the British Government to quit India. The Quit India Movement failed but consolidated the Indian National Congress vis a vis the other political parties and claimants on power when the power would have eventually transferred to Indians.

We cannot appreciate the history of modern India only through the lenses of Indian National Congress, it would be a big mistake, and wrong reading of history which does not give justice to the contribution of other important movements in India.

Let us get some facts ready to see through the hype created over Quit India Movement.

The Indian National Congress (INC) was India’s first political entity created by the landlords and the upper caste elite Hindus to establish a claim on Indian civil services. The INC was totally and completely supported by the Indian capitalists like Birla and Tatas.

It was the first party of the “Brahmins-Banias”, before the new party of the “Brahmins-Banias” started emerging in the form of “Jan Sangh” which was founded by Shyamaprasad Mukherjee, a Brahmin who came out of the Congress, to start an alternative front for the “Brahmins-Banias”, now known as the BJP.

The Indian National Congress can be called “Grand Old Party of Brahmins and Banias”, instead of “Grand Old Party of India”.

The INC got the power in the central and provincial elections in the elections of 1937. The Congress Governments resigned in the year 1940. The Congress party also became a major party in the elections of 1946.

So, the show of quit India movement and its current glorification is eyewash. It was one party’s call to consolidate its party and its cadres.

As Modi rightly said in his speech, the external factors were instrumental in the complete transfer of power to Indians. His own founding fathers of Hindutva nationalism, Hindu Mahasabha opposed the Quit India Movement. The Muslim league opposed the Quit India Movement. The Communist Party of India opposed the Quit India Movement. More importantly, the Scheduled Caste Federation (SCF) opposed the Quit India Movement.

This shows that the political entities in India were becoming clear that the British will leave soon what they have to contend with is not the “foreign power” but the “ruthless Congress elites and upper castes” who were trying to consolidate their hold over India’s backward classes and the using minorities in India to consolidate their position.

RSS/BJP is only imitating the INC, but they talk of “Congress-Free” India.

This can be reworded as the RSS/BJP movement to make the INC quit India. Judged by the attitudes and mentalities of the RSS/BJP and INC leaders and ideologues, they are of the same mind.

However, the rising wave of the social movements in India or “caste” based assertions in India, whether its Brahmin-Bania axis in terms of RSS/BJP or RSS or Communist Party of India, they have no other alternative to co-opt the language of the movements and use it to further their vicious agendas.

That is why the RSS/BJP Government is coming up with the slogans like “communalism free India” and “Casteism free India” and INC is arranging through its Government in Karnataka the conferences like “Ambedkar International Conference“, but where is any “party” and “Government” commitment to annihilating caste, because annihilating caste will mean annihilation of “Brahminism and Banianism” and rise of the “Shudras and ati-shudras”: the old coup for which people like Phule, Shahu, and Ambedkar worked.

It means all the political parties becoming the “old” BSP which had this coup in its heart of political formation: the rule of the Shudras and Ati-Shudras!

Author – Mangesh Dahiwale, Human Rights Activist