"History should be left in the past": Tharoor after Amit Shah targets Nehru in Parliament
Dec 12, 2023
New Delhi [India], December 12 : Responding to Union Home Minister Amit Shah's remarks targeting former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru inside Parliament, senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Tuesday said that one can endlessly argue about history, but it should be left in the past.
The Congress leader said that before making such a comment, anyone should think of what the country's condition was in 'those' days.
"We can endlessly argue about history, but history should be left in the past. Of course, there are lessons we can learn from it. The fact is that those who make decisions at a particular moment in history do so in the context of the facts as they are available then and in the spirit of the knowledge they have and the hopes they want to do in the circumstances around them. Think of what the country's condition was like in those days. The partition, violence, the destruction of homes, the loss of lives, the migration and displacement of millions of people. In the middle of all of this, do you want a prime minister who will commit your country to a prolonged and indefinite war? He definitely thought that a ceasefire followed by a discussion at the UN would establish India's rights. It so happened that with the hindsight of history, the government of the day does not agree with all of that. Let's leave that to the academics to sort out in the circumstances at the time. The decision taken was in full awareness of the realities that India was facing now," Tharoor said.
During the debate on the two bills related to Jammu and Kashmir in Parliament, Amit Shah accused Nehru of "blunders".
Speaking in Rajya Sabha on Tuesday, the Home Minister said Nehru had "accepted his mistake" regarding the ceasefire during the war with Pakistan in 1948 and of taking the Kashmir issue to the United Nations.
"After the experience of United Nations, I have come to the conclusions that no satisfactory results can be expected from there. I considered the ceasefire decision a good one, but we could not deal with this matter well. We should have had more thoughts on the ceasefire and taken it late. Though, these are the mistakes of the past," the Home Minister quoted Nehru as saying.
"This quote is of Jawaharlal Nehru. Unko toh manoge ya nahi manoge ki unhone galti ki. (Will you accept this or not that he made a mistake)," Shah asked Congress members.
The Jammu and Kashmir Reservation (Amendment) Bill, 2023 and the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation (Amendment) Bill, 2023 were passed by Parliament on Tuesday.
