Har Ghar Tiranga ad featuring Vinayak Savarkar sparks row

A full-page
newspaper advertisement by the Karnataka government sparked a row between the
ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress on Sunday, August 14, a day
before the world’s largest democracy celebrates Independence Day. The
advertisement was part of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Har Ghar
Tiranga’ campaign.

The
controversy

The
advertisement caused controversy both in omission and commission. It allegedly omitted the
picture of freedom fighter and India’s first Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal
Nehru from the ad and included the picture of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)
ideologue Vinayak Savarkar titled Revolutionary Savarkar.

The ad was
published on August 14 to mark ‘Partition Horrors Remembrance Day’. A video
posted on Twitter of the ad by the Karnataka BJP sparked the row. BJP and
Congress leaders clashed over a BJP’s claim that Jawaharlal Nehru and Muhammad
Ali Jinnah were responsible for the partition.

Congress’s
Jairam Ramesh said the real intent of PM to mark August 14 as Partition Horrors
Remembrance Day is to “use the most traumatic historical events as fodder for
his current political battles.”

“Nehru will
survive such pettiness, CM Karnataka desperate to save his job knows what he
has done is an insult to his father SR Bommai & his father’s 1st
political guru MN Roy – both great Nehru admirers, the latter being a friend as
well. Pathetic this is.”

Karnataka
BJP said it did not use Nehru’s photograph because it was Nehru who divided
India. “That is why his photo was omitted in the newspaper,” said BJP
spokesperson M Ravi Kumar, reports NDTV.

Of the
inclusions, Kumar said: Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel “struggled for our freedom so
his photo was included. So are Jhansi Rani, Gandhi and Savarkar. Nehru was the
country’s first Prime Minister. He fought for our Independence and divided our
country.”

Congress leaders said this was a
politically-motivated move by the BJP government and called for the sacking of
Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai. “It is a shame on Indian democracy and
freedom. India is celebrating 75 years of Independence. The Prime Minister
should sack Basavaraj Bommai and we are seeking an apology,” said DK
Shivakumar, state Congress chief.

The Karnataka BJP later tweeted a picture of the same ad with a marked out sketch of Nehru captioned in Kannada: “Did the Congress forget Nehru’s face so quickly or is it cleverly blind?”