If Narendra Modi’s verbal assualt on Sonia Gandhi and son Rahul at a Gujarat rally dipped the election campaign to a new low, the RSS-CPI(M) slanging match gives an indication of which way the campaign would go.In an attempt to pay back in the same coin, the CPI-M today dug up British records to embrass the opponent. While the Sangh called the Marxists ‘‘betrayers’’ who did not participate in the freedom struggle, the CPI-M shot back calling the RSS ‘‘bedfellows’’ of the colonial British rulers.The CPI-M made good use of the material dug by up historians K.M. Panikkar and Sumit Sarkar (used in the ICHR-sponsored volumes Towards Freedom which was stopped in publication stage by HRD Minister Murli Manohar Joshi) on RSS stalwart V.D. Savarkar.Equating the RSS with Savarkar, CPI-M leaders Sitaram Yechuri and Nilotpal Basu raked up the latter’s clemency note to the British Government written when he was in the Cellular Jail in Andaman.‘‘The only person that the Sangh could identify with (as having taken part in the Independence movement) is V.D. Savarkar and he openly begged the British to set him free and even promised to serve the cause of the colonial rulers,’’ Yechuri and Bose said, quoting the British Home Department records.After he was released from jail, one of the pro-Left historians said, Savarkar (also included in Panikkar/Sarkar volumes) ‘‘appealed to the Hindu youth to join the Britsih Army to be trained in a manner that they would help them establish a Hindu rashtra.’’The CPI-M leaders even read out the November 14, 1913, letter of Savarkar which stated: ‘‘I am ready to serve the (British) government in any capacity you like, for as my conversion is conscientious so I hope my future conduct would.’’Not leaving it at this, Yechuri and Bose also quoted Bombay Home Department communications: ‘‘Sangh has scrupulously kept itself within the law and in particular has refrained from taking part in the disturbances (Quit India Movement) that broke out in August 1942.’’Incidentally, the Quit India movement is a sore point with the Communists as well. They have also been trying hard to wash away the stigma of not joining the Movement — the first real mass-movement of the sub-continent for Independence.Recently, Left Front Chief Minister of West Bengal Buddhadeb Bhattacharya admitted that the Communist evaluation of Subhas Chandra Bose was faulty and that he was, indeed, a great national leader and patriot.
