Dr. S.P. Mookerjee, an academic, barrister, and politician, founded the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, a precursor to the BJP, making him a significant figure in the Hindutva ideology and a continued inspiration for BJP’s politics. Described as a preacher of nationalism and a proponent of a unified India by Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal, Dr. Mookerjee served as the president of the Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha (1943-46).
During his tenure as Mahasabha’s president, Dr. Mookerjee vehemently opposed Huseyn Suhrawardy’s United Bengal plan, which aimed to establish an independent Bengali nation with a Muslim majority. Dr. Mookerjee believed that a “sovereign undivided Bengal would be a virtual Pakistan.”
In 1947, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru invited Dr. Mookerjee to join the interim cabinet as the Minister for Industry and Supply. He was one of the two non-Congress ministers in Nehru’s cabinet, the other being Dr. B. R. Ambedkar. Dr. Mookerjee resigned in April 1950 over the controversial Nehru-Liaquat Pact, a bilateral agreement between India and Pakistan outlining the treatment of minorities.
Following his disagreement with the Mahasabha, Dr. Mookerjee founded the Bharatiya Jana Sangh in 1951, envisioning it as a “nationalistic alternative to the Congress party.”
Proponent of Kashmir’s integration with India
One of the key planks of the Jana Sangh was the integration of J&K with the Indian Union. After Maharaja Hari Singh acceded to India in 1947, negotiations continued for years regarding J&K’s exact status vis-à-vis the Indian Union.
In the summer of 1952, almost five years after India’s independence, Sheikh Abdullah, the state’s prime minister, signed the Delhi Agreement, defining the contours of J&K’s autonomy. Kashmir was allowed to fly its own flag alongside the tricolour, its land was secured against “outsiders”, and the Centre was forbidden from sending in armed forces without the state’s permission.
In Parliament, Dr Mookerjee launched a scathing criticism of the Nehru government’s J&K policy. He demanded to know who had made Sheikh Abdullah, a man with unacceptable “divided loyalty”, a “King of Kings”, and pressed for making the state a part of India with no special concessions.
“Nahin chalenge ek desh mein do vidhan, do pradhan aur do nishan (You cannot have two constitutions, do prime ministers, and two flags in one country),” Dr Mookerjee famously said.
An energetic agitation and an untimely demise
Dr Mookerjee came out in support of the Praja Parishad, the political party of Jammu Hindus, and its “highly patriotic and emotional” movement to “merge completely with India”. He repeatedly asked Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah to halt the crackdown on the Parishad, release its leaders from custody, and convene a meeting of all stakeholders from J&K.
In April 1953, amidst deadlock on the issue, Dr Mookerjee took the agitation to the streets in Delhi. Hundreds of Jana Sangh workers courted arrest.
Having failed to get Nehru to change his policy, Dr Mookerjee set out for Jammu on May 8, 1953. He intended to proceed to Srinagar thereafter, despite orders by Sheikh Abdullah to curtail his movement. He was arrested on May 11 and sent to prison in Srinagar.
In June, while still in prison, Dr Mookerjee fell ill, and suffered a massive heart attack on June 22. He died a day later.
Many in the Sangh Parivar continue to believe that Dr Mookerjee’s death was a part of a wider conspiracy to curb the movement in Kashmir. The BJP’s website says that he “was martyred for the cause of integrating Kashmir with the rest of India.”