NEW DELHI – Would Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose have approved of the statements made in the Dharam Sansad, TMC MP Mahua Moitra asked in her speech in Lok Sabha on Thursday.

Speaking on the Motion of Thanks to the President, the Trinamool Congress leader termed the mention of freedom fighters in the President’s address as “lip service”.

“The President’s address refers to Netaji on multiple occasions. I will remind this Republic that this is the same Netaji who said that the government of India should have an absolutely neutral and impartial attitude towards all religions.

“Would Netaji have approved of a Haridwar Dharam Sansad that issues blood-curdling calls for Muslim genocide,” she asked.

Quoting a speech Subhas Chandra Bose made in Comilla (now Bangladesh) in 1938, Moitra said, “Communalism has raised its ugly head in an all-out nakedness”.

She went on to add that the insignia of Netaji’s Indian National Army (INA) was Tipu Sultan’s springing tiger.

The same Tipu Sultan that this government has erased from textbooks, said the Trinamool Congress MP.

She went further to state that INA’s motto was three Urdu words – Etihaad, Etmad and Kurbani (Unity, Trust and sacrifice).

“This [is the] same Urdu language that this government is so delighted to replace with Hindi as the first and official language of Jammu and Kashmir,” she said.

‘This government wants to alter history’

Mahua Moitra said the President’s address is an assessment of the state of the Union today and she vehemently disagrees with that assessment.

“I stand here today to ask the most important question that faces us all – what is the kind of republic that we want, what is the India that we want today?

“Ours is a living constitution, it breathes as long as we are willing to breathe life into it. Otherwise, it is just a piece of paper, black and white, that can be smudged into shades of grey by any majoritarian government,” Moitra said