He was elected to the Bengal legislative council in 1929 and 1930, first as a Congressman after which as an Independent. He discovered his strategy to the Hindu Mahasabha in 1939 at a time of nice churn within the Indian freedom motion and two years later joined the Progressive Coalition authorities of Fazlul Haque of the Muslim League with whom he had variations. But he remained the Finance Minister within the authorities until 1942, justifying his resolution by saying that what was required was organising Hindus and their cooperation with Muslims who believed in joint work by the 2 communities. A controversial letter in opposition to the Quit India Movement written by Mookerjee to the British has additionally been talked about by many writers throughout this time.

From 1943 to 1946, Mookerjee was the Hindu Mahasabha president and took up the reason for Bengal Hindus within the run-up to Partition. He opposed the United Bengal plan of Muslim League chief and Bengal Prime Minister H S Suhrawardy. The plan known as for a separate Bengal unbiased of each India and Pakistan, one thing Mookerjee noticed as nothing however the domination of Hindus by a Muslim majority. Instead, he known as for the partition of Bengal, with Hindu-majority West Bengal staying inside India.

Moderate Hindutva

Though a Hindutva ideologue, Mookerjee represented its reasonable wing. After the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, he made the Mahasabha’s Working Committee undertake resolutions that “expressed shame that Gandhi’s assassin had been connected with the organisation, and declared support for the government in its efforts to suppress… subversive activities in any shape or form”, writes B D Graham in his guide Hindu Nationalism and Indian Politics. Significantly, he resigned from the Mahasabha in November 1948 as a result of the occasion rejected his suggestion that it both avoid politics to stay a Hindu cultural outfit or open itself to non-Muslims if it needed to proceed to be a contemporary political occasion. In each these contexts, Mookerjee got here throughout as a reasonable Hindutva voice.

But he caught to the reason for justice for Bengali Hindus even after Partition, when he raised his voice in opposition to the “persecution” of Hindus in East Pakistan, resulting in a gradual stream of refugees coming to India. At the time, the minister of Industry and Supply within the Jawaharlal Nehru authorities. But he resigned in 1950 following variations over the Nehru-Liaqat pact and the next yr, he fashioned the Bharatiya Jana Sangh with the assistance of RSS volunteers and commenced to organize for the primary basic elections of 1952. The new occasion received simply three seats. Its chief was eminent however the occasion had did not take off.

Kashmir’s particular standing and pushback

Mookerjee quickly got here to affiliate himself with a trigger that will provide him a spot in India’s political historical past perpetually — Kashmir.

Following the struggle of 1947 over Kashmir and the UN-mediated ceasefire that introduced the Line of Control into existence, UN Security Council Resolution 47 requested either side to demilitarise so {that a} plebiscite might be held to find out the needs of the individuals of J&Ok. Since demilitarisation by no means occurred on both facet, the decision remained a lifeless letter. However, the Nehru authorities thought that Kashmir required particular constitutional provisions. To institutionalise this, Article 370 of the Constitution gave Parliament powers solely on defence, international affairs, and communication within the case of Kashmir. Indian legal guidelines didn’t apply to Kashmir past these three heads, individuals from exterior required a allow to go to the state and have been barred from shopping for land there.

The state’s Prime Minister Sheikh Abdullah abolished massive land holdings in J&Ok in 1951 below the Big Landed Estates Abolition Act, with out giving any compensation, hitting exhausting Hindu landlords from the Dogra neighborhood. He additionally adopted Urdu because the official language. As a end result, resentment brewed among the many landlords.

In protest, the Praja Parishad of Prem Nath Dogra, a former RSS swayamsevak and civil servant from Jammu, launched an agitation in opposition to the Sheikh Abdullah authorities in February 1952. In Parliament, the Jana Sangh took up the arrest of Dogra and his followers after a conflict with the police within the state on February 8, 1952. Later, the Jana Sangh additionally opposed the adoption of a flag for the state by the Constituent Assembly of J&Ok. On June 26, 1952, Mookerjee pressed the Centre to persuade J&Ok to simply accept full integration with India. The Jana Sangh and Prajna Parishad broadly adopted a slogan: “Ek desh mein do vidhan, do pradhan aur do nishan nahin ho sakte (in one nation, there cannot be two Constitutions, two Prime Ministers and two flags)”.

The Praja Parishad additionally rejected the Delhi Agreement that the Nehru authorities and J&Ok administration signed in July 1952 as a part of which the state accepted the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court and the supremacy of the Indian flag. However, the state’s flag would additionally proceed to stay in use. As a part of the settlement, the state additional accepted the President of India’s energy to declare a state of Emergency below Article 352 with the concurrence of the state within the occasion of inner disturbances.

By late 1952, the Parishad launched an agitation when the J&Ok Assembly elected Karan Singh, the son of J&Ok’s final monarch Raja Hari Singh, as the pinnacle of the state (Sadr-e-riyasat). Dogra and different Praja Parishad leaders have been once more arrested.

At its first annual session at Kanpur in December 1952, the Jana Sangh handed a decision supporting the Praja Parishad’s Jammu Satyagraha for the state’s full integration with India. Nehru noticed the orientation of the Jana Sangh as “communal” on this query, writes B D Graham. The Jana Sangh then determined to enter agitation mode. Atal Bihari Vajpayee who turned personal secretary to Mookerjee at first of 1953 was despatched throughout the Hindi-speaking states to popularise the agitation. In Delhi, Jana Sangh employees would all of the sudden emerge in parks and shout slogans demanding the total integration of Kashmir.

In May 1953, Mookerjee escalated the protest by going to J&Ok and not using a allow, a symbolic rejection of Kashmir’s particular standing. Vajpayee accompanied him. On May 11, 1953, he crossed the Ravi by highway into J&Ok and was arrested by the state police. He instructed Vajpayee to return to Delhi and inform everybody that he had entered the state and not using a allow if solely as a prisoner, writes Abhishek Choudhary in his current biography of Vajpayee. Mookerjee was stored in a cottage about eight miles from Srinagar. He was, nevertheless, a coronary heart affected person with a blood strain downside and couldn’t deal with the brand new setup. On June 23, he died of a large coronary heart assault.

What he left behind within the Hindu nationalist motion was a way of “martyrdom” for Kashmir. L Ok Advani used to recall how a journalist in Rajasthan knowledgeable him that Mookerjee was no extra and the way the Jana Sangh plunged into deep mourning. In allied organisations of the RSS, there’s a widespread slogan: “Jahaan hue balidaan Mookerjee, wo Kashmir hamara hai; jo Kashmir hamara hai, wo saare ka saara hai (where Mookerjee was martyred, that Kashmir is ours; the Kashmir that is ours is the full Kashmir)”.