The then Vice President
of India and a great scholar Dr. Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan, immediately after
the appalling custodial death of Dr. Shyama Prasad Mookerjee who was very close
to him, had penned down in his painful misty-eyed words about his charismatic
and magnetic personality. He said, “He did never fear to express his Conscience
throughout his public career. The blatant lies are uttered in silence. If the
huge injustice takes place somewhere then to be reticent on it in the
expectation that someone shall speak the truth someday, is a great sin committed
on the part of a human being. Each one of us must put out the truth fearlessly
in a democratic society”. The irony is that the one who dared to revolt for truth
and his conviction to make whole J&K, a part of our great nation like other
states, was made to sacrifice through his life by some dubious secularist fascists masquerading as a democratic darling. The
consequence is the nation’s eyes are still lingering for truth to come out
behind his ‘Mysterious’ but ‘Possible Political assassination’.
One may wonder as to
why we have deliberately used the paraphrase ‘Mysterious but Possible Political
assassination’ even though nothing is judicially established as of now? The
reasons are too simple to be astonished. ‘Mysterious,’ because even after
passing of 63 years of the occurrence of his death, it continues to remain an
enigma as to the nature, identity and role of the catalysts behind his sudden
demise in custody of a Government outside the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court
of India, and the even greater mystery is why the then Central Government in
power didn’t constitute a commission of Inquiry or any such body to look into
the nightmarish death of one of India’s greatest leaders. The Government’s complete
unwillingness and lack of cooperation at that time to constitute an inquiry into
the matter to find out the real cause of his death even after repeated requests
from the mother of the deceased and numerous celebrated personalities, makes it
even more mysterious and indicates a possible existence of criminal intent in
the entire scenario.
For the explanation of
the second part ‘Possible Political assassination’ there are numerous factual records
to reach such a conclusion. In case of the occurrence of any mysterious death
the first aspect which any investigating agency prefers to concentrate upon, is
who may be the greatest beneficiary of such a death or who would have been more
troubled, had the deceased been alive. The same principle applies to this case
also and needless to say that the highest beneficiary of his death was none
other than the then Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru and the then Prime
Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Sheikh Abdulla. It is a matter of record that
Pt. Nehru and Shekh Abdulla had got extremely frustrated by the way Dr.
Mookerjee was receiving enormous support from the people of the Country on the
issue of entire J&K being an integral part of the nation like any other
state. Dr. Mookerjee’s full-fledged support to ‘Jammu and Kashmir Praja
Parishad Party’ formed and led by Pt. Premnath Dogra had instilled a sense of great
anxiety and fear in Nehru’s mind. He had made Nehru extremely uncomfortable and
had almost exposed him through his questions in Parliament dated 7th
of August 1952 and on several other occasions inside and outside of Parliament.
Mr. Nehru in one of his letters to Dr. Mookerjee had gone to the extent of
threatening him in a subtle hint. He had written “If the movement continues
then ‘we’ shall decide as to what actions the Government can take in this
regard.” The pronoun ‘We’ used by him was indicative of how he was in complete
cahoots and alliance with Mr Sheikh Abdulla.
It is not an
embellishment to note that Mr. Nehru had started sensing his titanic competitor
in Dr. Mookerjee’s vibrant, dynamic and nationalistic personality. Tathagata
Roy in his book ‘The Life and Times of Dr. Syamaprasad Mookerjee’ reveals an
astounding fact in this connection through the reference to his personal
interview with Balraj Madhok dated 28th of August 2008 in New
Delhi. As per Balraj Madhok, immediately
after Dr. Mookerjee made his decision of visiting ‘J&K’ public, the noted
freedom fighter Sucheta Kripalani came to meet him. She asked Dr. Mookerjee
“You should not go to Jammu & Kashmir. Pt. Nehru will not let you come
back.” To this he responded that he doesn’t have a personal animosity with Pt.
Nehru. He added that he is fighting for a cause and why Pt. Nehru shall have a
sense of personal hostility towards him? Sucheta Kriplani responded to these
sincere and upright feelings of Dr. Mookerjee by saying that she knows Nehru
better than him. She apprised him that Nehru considers him his prime competitor
and he may try to eliminate him from the field by going to any possible extent.
Tathagata Roy had also
interviewed Savita Banerjee, the eldest daughter of Dr. Mookerjee, on 24th
of April 2010 in her Goregaon Flat of Pune and what she revealed during the
conversation was indeed appalling. She said that on her secret trip to Srinagar
with her husband Nishith they somehow managed to meet the nurse who was taking
care of Dr. Mookerjee in his last moments. The nurse apprised the couple after lot
of emotional entreaties that when Dr. Mookerjee went into sleep, she was
directed by the hospital doctor to inject a specific injection after he wakes
up. When Dr. Mookerjee woke up the nurse injected him the said injection and he
immediately screamed with all his might ‘It burns, I am burning’. The nurse ran
towards the telephone to inform the doctor but till then Dr. Mookerjee lost
consciousness and perhaps was made to sleep forever. Needless to say that all
these aforesaid indications candidly beckon of a deep political conspiracy in
Dr. Mookerjee’s death. Though, on the other hand some may argue that these
facts are not substantiated by any positive evidence and thus this would not be
fair and reasonable to point finger upon someone, we would like to humbly
submit our counter to this prospective counter that “Absence of Evidence
is Never Evidence of absence.”
The former Prime
Minster of India, Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee had openly said in 2004 that Dr.
Mukherjee’s death was the result of Nehru’s conspiracy. Dr. Mookerjee was
intentionally arrested in Jammu and Kashmir, so as to take him out from the
jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of India. He was confined in a straitened
detention-centre near Nishat garden but it was at a considerable distance from
the main town of Srinagar. The doctors could only come on a special invitation
or request. The biggest room of this straitened detention centre was 10fit long
and 11 fit wide in which Dr. Mookerjee was locked up with his other two
colleagues Gurudatt Vaidh and Tekchand. Sheikh Abdullah had issued special
directions that no special treatment shall be given to Dr. Mookerjee without
his prior approval. On 24th of May 1953, Jawaharlal Nehru and Kailashnath
Katju arrived in Srinagar for holidaying and they didn’t have the slightest
courtesy to meet Dr. Mookerjee and see in what conditions he was made to spend
his days. Dr. Mookerjee’s health started seriously deteriorating in the morning
of 22nd June 1953. The Jail Supritendented was apprised of the
situation and he came up with a Taxi (not ambulance) to get him admitted in a
hospital. Even in that critical condition, he was made to cover the distance
between his bed and the taxi on his feet. He was admitted in the ladies
department of the Government hospital where only one nurse was there to look
after him. Later on what happened is just an imperceptible history as this was the
very place where a long-awaiting conspiracy was turned into action to achieve
the desired outcome. Dr. Mookerjee was no more on 23rd of June 1953.
Pt. Nehru who was outside India when this incident had occurred showed absolutely
no sign of regret or grief even for the sake of social nicety after he landed
on Bombay airport.
This has been a general
precedent that whenever a celebrated personality from any field dies under
mysterious circumstances, an inquiry commission is constituted, but this didn’t
happen in case of Dr. Mookerjee’s death. Three commissions had been set up to
find out the truth relating to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s death. These
commissions were – Shah Nawaz Commission (1956), G.D Khosla Commission (1970)
and Manoj Mookerjee Commission (1999). Similarly, Kapoor Commission was
constituted to look in to the Political assassination of Mahatma Gandhi;
Thakkar Commission for Indira Gandhi and J.S Verma Commission and SC Jain
Commission for Rajiv Gandhi’s killings. This is noteworthy that in all of these
above cases (except Subhas Chandra Bose’s case) everyone knew about the
respective killers yet the committees were constituted but no committee has
been constituted hitherto to find out the truth behind Dr. Mookerjee’s death
even though he died under completely mysterious circumstances within the border
of a state upon which the Supreme Court of India had no jurisdiction. Is this
not a great travesty of justice and a blatant discrimination in the first
place? Does the citizenry have no right to know the reasons which led to the sudden
demise of one of its beloved leaders? The mother of Dr. Shyama Prasad Mookerjee
Jogmaya Devi, had written to Pt. Nehru to find out the real cause of his
mysterious death. But Pt. Nehru dismissed her request by saying that he had
gathered information from his personal source and did not find any mystery
behind his death. He termed it a natural death. Nemo Judex In Causa Sua is
an established principle of natural justice which means no one can be a judge
in his own cause, but here Jawaharlal Nehru appears to be one.
Irrespective of
political persuasion or political ideologies, justice should not alone be
provided but also seem to be provided. And as the facts present themselves, the
mysterious death of Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee in prison, in Kashmir, requires
a relook. People must know what went into the sudden death of Dr. Mookerjee in
prison while some other political leaders were busy holidaying completely
oblivious of his health conditions and unconcerned about the well-being of one
of the greatest personalities this sub-continent has produced. All the files
related to Dr. Mukherjee needs to be known by the larger public, whether with
the Central Government or State Government It also needs to be seen whether
there are any files in the first place or not. If not, why not. And if yes,
they should be made known to the wider public.
It is perfectly
understandable to have reservations regarding the functioning of our police
system and justice delivery mechanism. So, yes, even a person with dubious
background like Yakub Menon deserves justice in a nation proud of its bearings. And, in that scenario, a great
intellectual and political leader like, Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee surely
deserves justice. It is quite possible that the culprits of his political killing might all be dead or
too old and infirm but it needs to be known, who were they?
The entire
intellectual, academic and media class of India has been silent on this for
more than sixty years. It has never been widely debated or discussed. His name
and contributions does not even appear in Indian history books. Even somebody
like Jinnah, who created Pakistan, has been re-accommodated or at least
discussed by academics, intellectuals and media persons whereas even the memory
of Dr. Mukherjee has been wiped off the slate of Indian history. His death,
like the death and killing of religious and ethnic minorities in Bangladesh,
something which Dr. Mookerjee had intuitively sensed after the massacre of
Hindus in Noakhali, goes largely unnoticed. It is high time that it is known.
Let truth be known whatever it may be.
*(Dr. Mukherjee’s
great-granddaughter, Dr. Gayatree Sharma, a journalist formerly working with
the Times of India is ready with the petition for setting up of such an enquiry
commission by the Government of India. She is going to take up the issue both
with the Government of India and the President of India. When interviewed by
the authors of this piece, she informed on how she will also rally all the
existing members of the extended Mookerjee family on this issue.)
*The factual narrative of
this essay is drawn primarily from these two sources:
1. Tathagata Roy, Dr. Syama
Prasad Mookerjee, Prabhat Prakashan, 2012.
2. Prashanto Kumar
Chatterji, Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee and Indian Politics, Foundation Books,
2010.
By: Rohit Kumar (4th Year B.A.LL.B Student, School of Law, KIIT University, Bhubaneswar)
Pratyush Kumar http://www.nludelhi.ac.in/pep-fac-new-pro.aspx?Id=64
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