The following is not meant to be a political statement. It is an introduction to books written by the author on three Indians he has great admiration for - Har Dayal, Netaji Bose and Vallabhai Patel.
THE PARADIGM SHIFT IN THE INDIAN NARRATIVE
Written by Dr. Bhuvan Lall
The moment the hologram image of Subhas Chandra Bose lit up at the most important boulevard and location of modern India tears were flowing in the eyes of millions of Indians. I was just one among millions that evening.
We were finally doing justice to the man the world had been so unfair to.
Most of my childhood in the 1970s-80s was spent in Lutyens’ Delhi and my introduction to our great nation’s history came during the morning walks on the weekends at the India Gate while living in the capital city of the world’s largest democracy. My father had an astounding memory filled with dates, events, and facts from India and the world’s history some of which he had witnessed himself. His amazing storytelling style captivated me and formed my understanding of India and our family’s past in matters of governance over centuries from the Mauryas to the Mughals and Marathas. My father often narrated the mind-blowing story of Azad Hind Fauj (INA) and how Subhas Chandra Bose finally got us our freedom. My father who volunteered in the Quit India movement as a teenager and knew General Shahnawaz Khan of INA believed Bose’s sacrifice had no parallel. On many occasions, as we stood at the empty canopy next to the India Gate in an unwavering voice, he told me that of all the giants of India’s freedom movement none other than Bose belonged there. We left it at that and headed to the children’s park nearby for the swings. Decades later while working in the movie business in Hollywood, California, I took a deep plunge into the lives of three Indians my father reverently spoke about, Har Dayal, Subhas Chandra Bose, and Vallabhbhai Patel. Though I did not realize it back then, it was the beginning of a life-transforming journey.
Dr. Har Dayal (1884-1939), the cultured Dilliwallah who spoke, wrote, and taught in 17 languages was possibly one of the most brilliant persons to have walked on planet Earth. Profoundly disturbed by the events of the Ghadr of 1857, he rejected the opportunity to be an ICS officer and dramatically resigned from his hard-won Oxford scholarships even after forming the Majlis debating society. His Professors at Oxford who had evaluated his tutorials and noted, ‘We can’t improve upon Mr. Har Dayal, he writes better than us’ were aghast as no student had ever walked away from Oxford scholarships. Next, the man born with the ‘Indian dimaag’ while teaching at Stanford became the kingpin in the revolutionary movement of India and the architect of the famed Ghadr movement in California (1911-1919) that demanded complete freedom and impacted India for its inclusive nature by including thousands of women and men from all religions, castes, and regions into its folds. Har Dayal, the ‘presiding genius’ (named so by Michael O’Dwyer) secretly inspired Indians for the armed takeover of their motherland and then to invade Britain to teach the natives Sanskrit. His name and fame across India, Europe, and America led to a Paramount movie based on his life in the 1920s, and novels by Jack London and Somerset Maugham immortalized him as a character. Har Dayal’s life and accomplishments were systematically destroyed by British Intelligence. MI6 was created by Hukumat-i-Britannia for just this singular purpose.
Then for reasons best known to the historians of the colonial and post-colonial period Har Dayal was wiped out from the pages of world history. Nevertheless, in the global academic circles and top American Universities, this uniquely gifted man who held a Ph.D. from London (now SOAS) is still remembered as the foremost authority on Buddhism and his body of work is proof of that unparalleled intellectual prowess that was light years ahead of everyone else. After living on four continents in exile, Har Dayal died on a cold night in March 1939 in Philadelphia far away from his motherland and the family he loved but by that time the baton had been passed to a man who would eventually liberate India.
Subhas Chandra Bose needs no introduction in India. The Cambridge-educated firebrand resigned from the ICS in 1920 to free his motherland from alien rulers. He selflessly devoted all his energy and years to that singular objective. Appointed as the youngest President of the Congress Party in 1938 he was unethically ousted the following year in March 1939 even though he had won the first and last internal election. This forced him to follow through independently on his dynamic strategy of ‘blood and freedom’ rather than the dull ‘ahimsa and satyagraha’ approach for the independence movement. Traversing through the planet during World War 2, with his existence under constant threat he reached the defining moment of his life as the leader of the Azad Hind Fauj (INA) that met the Hukumat-i-Britannia on the battlefields of Kohima, Imphal, and Mount Popa.
Subhas Chandra Bose needs no introduction in India. The Cambridge-educated firebrand resigned from the ICS in 1920 to free his motherland from alien rulers. He selflessly devoted all his energy and years to that singular objective. Appointed as the youngest President of the Congress Party in 1938 he was unethically ousted the following year in March 1939 even though he had won the first and last internal election. This forced him to follow through independently on his dynamic strategy of ‘blood and freedom’ rather than the dull ‘ahimsa and satyagraha’ approach for the independence movement. Traversing through the planet during World War 2, with his existence under constant threat he reached the defining moment of his life as the leader of the Azad Hind Fauj (INA) that met the Hukumat-i-Britannia on the battlefields of Kohima, Imphal, and Mount Popa.
His Azad Hind Fauj with Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims, Christians, and Parsi soldiers and even a regiment of women warriors marched to the tune of ‘Kadam Kadam Badhaye ja’ and their war cry was ‘Delhi Chalo’.
Bose’s dream of unfurling the national flag at the Red Fort in Delhi and connecting the dots of the Ghadr of 1857 and the Ghadr Party was finally accomplished after the INA trials in 1945/46.
The two bitter rivals Muslim League and Congress were on the same side of the fence as far as INA was concerned thereby destroying the ‘Divide et Impera’ policy of the British.
The nationalists within the British Indian Army influenced by the charismatic Bose and his INA chose ‘Country’ over the ‘King’ and destabilized the British Empire.
This landmark trial not only ended the misrule of the Hukumat-i-Britannia in India – it wrecked the despotic British Empire worldwide. Bose’s foremost adversary General Claude Auchinleck, C-in-C of the British Indian Army called him a ‘genuine patriot’ and appreciatingly wrote in 1946, “Subhas Chandra Bose acquired a tremendous influence over them (British Indian Army) and that his personality must have been an exceedingly strong one”.
At that moment, Subhas Chandra Bose with his nonsectarian approach, belief in gender equality, and economic equity became the most important leader of the multilayered Indian freedom movement and the most popular man of his era with all the other famous leaders acknowledging as much.
However, for the next 80 years, selfish court historians in tandem with the massive British propaganda machinery fanatical tarnished the image of the greatest Indian nationalist as a misguided individual. They ignored the facts that his few meetings with the evil and racist Nazis had been absolute failures and he had reached a dead-end in Berlin in 1942. Yet the world was misled to believe that he was a collaborator of the Axis powers and possibly even a fascist. Subsequently, vested interests concocted thousands of weird stories about this incomparable man, and some are still in circulation.
But the masterly legal defense presented by Bhulabhai Desai at the INA trials proves otherwise.
On closer examination of the data as extracted from the archives worldwide, the speeches of Bose on the Azad Hind Radio, and especially the words of Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar who attended the INA trials, the true picture emerges and squarely places him in the pantheon of the world’s greatest leaders as well as the Liberator of India. The statue at the canopy next to the war memorial finally does him justice after 75 years. Without question, India is indebted to him. And those who wish to debate the installation of Netaji’s statue on India Gate, must have the patience to read up before expanding on their imaginary theories and broadcasting ‘fictional accounts’.
Vallabhai Patel:
In the post-World War 2 scenario, with India still under shackles, the Hukumat-i-Britannia dealing with the mutinous mood in the British Indian Armed forces and the communal virus dividing the nation, one man rose like a giant to adequately deal with the challenging situation. His name was Vallabhbhai Patel. A brilliant lawyer of Ahmedabad, who topped the exams at the Bar in London, Patel carved a name for himself as the iron man of India on the battlefields of Kheda and in organizing the Salt March to Dandi.
Vallabhai Patel:
In the post-World War 2 scenario, with India still under shackles, the Hukumat-i-Britannia dealing with the mutinous mood in the British Indian Armed forces and the communal virus dividing the nation, one man rose like a giant to adequately deal with the challenging situation. His name was Vallabhbhai Patel. A brilliant lawyer of Ahmedabad, who topped the exams at the Bar in London, Patel carved a name for himself as the iron man of India on the battlefields of Kheda and in organizing the Salt March to Dandi.
The chief lieutenant of Mahatma Gandhi for decades, Patel stepped aside to enable a younger man to be his boss and devoted the last five years of his life as the savior of his motherland. Even though the highest statue in the world is dedicated to his memory, Patel, the first Deputy Prime Minister of India has not been adequality appreciated for his contributions to the India story in the areas of foreign relations, military affairs, economic policy, internal security, civil service, constitutional matters, and the colossal time bound tasks of evenly partitioning of India’s assets plus the successful integration of the princely states.
The enormous strain of those trying times eventually crushed his health and we lost him on 15 December 1950 when we needed him for another decade at least. The political leadership of that time strategically removed and sidelined all the brilliant civil servants who worked closely with Patel including V. P. Menon, H. M. Patel, ICS, and Vidhya Shankar, ICS.
Patel’s family wisely remained away from the limelight. Nevertheless, it is universally agreed that if Vallabhbhai Patel was not at the helm of affairs at that crucial time of Indian history there would be no India to talk about today.
After having spent over two and a half decades globally researching the lives of three exceptional men my biographies of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and Har Dayal are out there for you to read and my book on the life and times of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel is slowly reaching its destination.
After having spent over two and a half decades globally researching the lives of three exceptional men my biographies of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and Har Dayal are out there for you to read and my book on the life and times of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel is slowly reaching its destination.
The key takeaways for us and the next generation from these inspirational lives are - “Hard Work, Merit, Honesty, Ethics and Patriotism”.
I am delighted that on Republic Day 2022 we are witnessing a paradigm shift in our nation’s narrative from colonial (pre-1947) to post-colonial (post-1947) to the real Bharat or Hindustani narrative emerging now in 2022 with its own heroes to take us forward towards world leadership. At this stage, we must have in our thoughts the lives of these three world-class Indians Har Dayal, Subhas Chandra Bose, and Vallabhbhai Patel who made us who we are.
Happy Republic Day 2022!
Jai Hind!
The writer is the author of
I am delighted that on Republic Day 2022 we are witnessing a paradigm shift in our nation’s narrative from colonial (pre-1947) to post-colonial (post-1947) to the real Bharat or Hindustani narrative emerging now in 2022 with its own heroes to take us forward towards world leadership. At this stage, we must have in our thoughts the lives of these three world-class Indians Har Dayal, Subhas Chandra Bose, and Vallabhbhai Patel who made us who we are.
Happy Republic Day 2022!
Jai Hind!
The writer is the author of
- ‘The Man India Missed the Most Subhas Chandra Bose (2017),
- The Great Indian Genius Har Dayal (2020)
- and India on the World Stage (2021).
- The Life and Times of Vallabhbhai Patel (coming soon).
All these books are available worldwide on Amazon.
©️ Bhuvan Lall
www.bhuvanlall.in
All these books are available worldwide on Amazon.
©️ Bhuvan Lall
www.bhuvanlall.in
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Listen to the original national anthem sung by Netajis INA in 1943 in port Blair. Later recorded in madras by Lt.Col Lakshmi Sehgal
Record must not be Publicly Perfomed Says the record Label
and that Says it All
"Good On Ya Mate"
"Netaji is used in 2022 as an Election Ploy" and they forget Netaji's INA had Hindus, Christians, Muslims, Gurkhas and Sikhs united as Freedom Fighters. Modi & BJP have no such standing in Independent India Today
The appropriation of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose by BJP-RSS erases the historical reality that Netaji, throughout his life, stood against the values that Hindutva propagates.
23 Jan 2022
( For Your Information Subash Chandra Bose aka Netaji is a distant relative on my wife's side and Bengalis will tell you he was not an RSS Man and his ideologies were different )
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Note from a Modi supporter:
Netaji was shunned by Jawahar and his parivar. When Clement Atlee visited Calcutta after demitting office he met an old friend his (who happened to be a retired judge).The Judge asked Mr Atlee if he gave us Independence because of Gandhiji to which Atlee said "Definetly not. Majority of Indian army favoured Netaji and were veering to him". There would have been mayhem and the pimp (Mountbatten) couldn't have carried out his nefarious designs "Netaji was the one who got us Independence and had he been on the scene he would've blown away Jawahar and Gandhi."
Modi knows this better than you and me and he has been hailing Netaji from 2014
Me: BNJP Marketing people are using Netaji to swing votes to BJP/RSS and this will back fire certainly. People in India are not stupid and they vote out incumbents who have not performed. Yogi & Modi have dug their own Graves since 2014.
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The appropriation of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose by BJP-RSS erases the historical reality that Netaji, throughout his life, stood against the values that Hindutva propagates.
23 Jan 2022
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have been infatuated with India's anti-colonial nationalist leadership; not necessarily out of love and respect for the values that they stood for, such as anti-imperialism, a commitment to democracy and secularism.
Their infatuation stems from a thirst for co-option as they barely have icons within Hindutva's ideological past who participated in the national freedom struggle.
Their icons do not match the contributions of the Indian National Congress (INC) leadership, including M.K. Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, Maulana Azad, Badshah Khan, etc.
Then, the selective co-option is designed to drum up their empty credentials by putting leaders who stood together against the colonial powers against one another in the most insulting manner.
After Patel, Hindutva’s latest catch is Netaji Bose. Recently Prime Minister Narendra Modi has declared that Netaji’s birthday would be celebrated as Parakram Diwas. An act that appears harmless on the surface becomes problematic when one looks at how it gets organised and bandied about in public by the government, wider Hindutva apparatus and worst of all, the PM himself.
During the West Bengal elections, the RSS-BJP tried its best to milk Netaji’s legacy by including one of his many surviving kins into the BJP and displaying some obscure and unsubstantial documents in public. However, none of this helped, and BJP comprehensively lost the Assembly elections in the state.
We are sure that the same theatrics will start once Netaji’s birth anniversary celebrations commence. But we should keep some crucial aspects in mind before we fall into the BJP’s trap and start counterposing and vilifying other leaders vis-à-vis Netaji.
For example, even though Netaji left the Congress in disagreement with Gandhi, he never vilified Gandhi, Nehru, and the Congress.
This could be best gauged from how he named the regiments of the Indian National Army (INA). He named them Gandhi Brigade, Nehru Brigade, Azad Brigade and Rani Lakshmi Bai Brigade. Barring the great Rani, all the regiments were named after the stalwarts of the Congress.
Netaji did so out of sheer deference and respect for the Congress leadership even though he had parted ways with them. No regiments were named after VD Savarkar, Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, or any other RSS ideologues who were active at the time.
For him, the true leaders of the national movement were Nehru, Gandhi and Azad. This is proved by a 1943 speech that Netaji made from exile from Bangkok on Gandhi’s 74th birthday, wherein he described Gandhi’s contribution as ‘unique and unparalleled.’ Netaji went on to say that ‘‘no single man could have achieved more in one single lifetime under similar circumstances.’’
Netaji identified openly with the Left-wing of Congress. He counted Nehru among his comrades on the Left and described him in his book The Indian Struggle as ‘‘while his brain is with the Left-wingers, his heart is with Mahatma Gandhi.’’ Netaji spoke highly of the Bolshevik Revolution and connected India’s destiny to it in the same book. He wrote,
‘‘During the twentieth century, Russia has enriched the culture and civilisation through her achievement in the proletarian revolution, proletarian government and proletarian culture. The next remarkable contribution to the culture and civilisation of the world, India will be called upon to make.’’ (p. 372)
He further elaborated,
‘‘I am quite satisfied that Communism, as it had been expressed in the writings of Marx and Lenin and the official statements of policy of the Communist International, gives full support to the struggle for national independence and recognises it as an integral part of its world outlook.
My personal view today is that the Indian National Congress should be organised on the broadest anti-imperialist front and should have the two-fold objective of winning political freedom and the establishment of a socialist regime.’’ (p. 394)
Since the RSS-BJP has always lampooned socialism in the Preamble of the Indian Constitution and hailed communists of all shades as "anti-nationals", they should also label Netaji the same because he openly harboured pro-socialist and pro-communist sympathies. But they will never dare to do so. Instead, they will present a picture of Netaji in opposition to Nehru and Gandhi to gain false political brownie points among the people of India.
Since Netaji learnt his lessons of politics from Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das, who readily allocated 60% of seats for the Muslims in Bengal for their socio-political upliftment, he was a secular nationalist at heart.
Netaji declared, "If we want to make India really great, we must build up a political democracy on the pedestal of a democratic society. Privileges based on birth, caste or creed should go, and equal opportunities should be thrown open to all irrespective of caste, creed or religion."
He also warned Indians that "religious fanaticism is the greatest thorn in the path of cultural intimacy…and there is no better remedy for fanaticism than secular and scientific education."
Commenting on Netaji's version of secularism, Harvard University historian Sugata Bose (who also happens to be Netaji's grandnephew), in his book His Majesty's Opposition, has written that
"Netaji was staking out a middle ground between Nehru's secularism, with its distaste for expressions of religious difference, and Gandhi's harnessing of various religious faiths in energising mass politics." ([p. 59)
Today when politicians are busy temple-hopping to prove their Hindu credentials, Netaji observed a strict divide between politics and religion.
Abid Hasan, a long-time compatriot of Netaji, recalls an incident in Singapore when Netaji was reluctantly made to enter a Chettiar temple. Tilaks made of sandalwood paste were put on the heads of Netaji, Hasan and Mohammad Zaman Kiani.
Netaji wiped it off after leaving the temple, and so did his followers. Interestingly, Netaji decided to enter the temple only because the temple authorities agreed to host a national meeting open to all castes and communities. (Ibid, 256)
Netaji was also careful to use eclectic Hindustani instead of Sanskritised Hindi. As a result, a simple Hindustani translation of Tagore’s Jan Gan Man was adopted as the national anthem. Along with this, three Urdu words, Itmad (Faith), Ittefaq (Unity), and Kurbani (Sacrifice)—encapsulated the INA's motto.
Netaji also adopted the springing tiger from Tipu Sultan for the shoulder badges of the INA soldiers.
Just like socialism, secularism is also the big fly in the ointment for the RSS-BJP, whereas Netaji was its hardcore and uncompromising votary. Would the RSS-BJP dare to lampoon Netaji for his secular credentials? Of course not. They will recourse to lies and speak of his military heroism without emphasising the crucial predicate of Hindu-Muslim unity.
Of Hindutva and its inglorious progenitor Savarkar, Netaji spoke in distasteful terms.
In his book The Indian Struggle, Netaji recounts a meeting with Savarkar and Jinnah. He concluded that the politics of Hindu Mahasabha and the Muslim League greatly converged, and he placed them on the same political pedestal.
Netaji wrote,
‘‘Mr Jinnah was then thinking of only of how to realise his idea of Pakistan (division of India) with the help of the British. The idea of putting up a joint fight with the Congress for Indian independence did not appeal to him…Mr. Savarkar seemed to be oblivious of the international situation and was only thinking how Hindus could secure military training by entering Britain’s army in India. From these interviews, I was forced to the conclusion that nothing could be expected from either the Muslim League or the Hindu Mahasabha.’’ (p. 344)
In Bengal, Netaji’s radicalism also invited the ire of the upper-caste/class Brahmanical elements which today have a solid footing within the RSS-BJP. The Bangiya Brahman Sabha criticised Netaji and his brother Sarat Bose and said,
‘‘The Congress has been swept off its old moorings and changed its character. Its politicians and their followers are now largely ill-educated and ill-informed men, fed on the imported literature of modern Irish history, Italian and Austrian revolutions, French republicanism and Soviet rule. They are anxious to try on India the experiments of Western Civilisation ... and to do away with established institutions like Brahmanical hierarchy and zamindari landlordism as one allied system ... which, in the name of social reform, strikes at the very roots of Hinduism.’’ (Chatterjee, J. Bengal Divided, p. 134)
In this context, the Hindu Mahasabha grew in Bengal and got strong support from the big businesses in Calcutta. They were dissatisfied with the radicalism of the Bose brothers. Hindu Mahasabha also gained the support of the wealthy Bengalis, who raised a handsome purse of Rs 10,000 for its inaugural conference.
And when the spectre of Muslim tyranny was raised to drum up Hindu support, Netaji came out scathingly against it. In his autobiographical sketch An Indian Pilgrim, Netaji pounded the ‘Muslim period’ logic in Indian history and represented the Battle of Plassey as an instance of Hindu-Muslim cooperation against a common enemy. It is pertinent to quote him at length. He wrote,
‘‘History will bear me out when I say that it is a misnomer to talk of Muslim rule when describing the political order in India prior to the advent of the British. Whether we talk of the Moghul Emperors at Delhi, or of the Muslim Kings of Bengal, we shall find that in either case the administration was run by Hindus and Muslims together, many of the prominent Cabinet Ministers and Generals being Hindus. Further, the consolidation of the Moghul Empire in India was affected with the help of Hindu commanders-in-chief. The Commander-in-chief of Nawab Sirajudowla, whom the British fought at Plassey in 1757 and defeated, was a Hindu.’’ (Bose. S (ed). Netaji Collected Works Vol-1. p. 15)
To conclude, on January 23, when the Prime Minister will set up a jamboree, we must recall the real Netaji. And as secular, democratic Indians longing for socialism we must distance ourselves from the BJP’s (mis)appropriation of the great leader.
The author is an independent research scholar. The views are personal.
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The central figure of the national movement was the man assassinated on January 30, 1948 precisely because he was the central figure. It was the first act in a brazen conspiracy to appropriate the freedom movement by forces who played no part in it. We are seeing the second and third acts now.
Archival photo of Mahatma Gandhi and Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose at a 1938 Congress event. Photo: Wikimedia
26/JAN/2022
There is a species of middle class Indian who has never quite gotten over the feeling that we got our independence too cheaply. Ahimsa does not quite make the grade with them – they would rather that Indians had fought it out with guns and bombs to overthrow the British.
This is the mind-set which is now seeking to elevate the role of the Indian National Army in India’s freedom struggle.
The man who led the struggle, Subhas Chandra Bose, is one of the towering leaders of our independence movement, who along with equally tall figures helped shaped the circumstances in which the British finally departed, albeit peacefully. But in the end, Bose’s effort to liberate India through the instrument of war failed.
There are nations which got their independence through armed struggle, but they have also paid a terrible price.
According to Rana Mitter, some 14 million Chinese died in the 1937-1945 war against Japan. A million plus people died in Vietnam from 1955 to 1975. The Algerian freedom movement (1954-62) saw some 0.5 to 1.5 million people killed in a population of 8 million. The estimates for Bangladesh’s struggle in 1975 go anywhere from 300,000-500,000, though what the figure would have been, if a neighbouring army had not intervened, is difficult to say.
These deaths were violent, sometimes accompanied by starvation, torture and rape and the deep scars of that experience have not gone away. To escape such a fate – on top of all the suffering the people had endured because of colonialism – was a special blessing for India. And this was as much due to the Mahatma’s ahimsa strategy, as the British realisation after the war that they were not in a position to either control the country or indefinitely repress its people.
Those who saw death and destruction in their freedom struggle would envy India. But the problem is with many who have some kind of a perverted nostalgia for a violent nationalism. The reality is that India has not known a real war for a long time. Parts of UP, Bihar and MP did go through the 1857 experience where entire regions were laid to waste, but otherwise, Indians suffered from famine and disease in the British rule, not war. Post independence, north-western India saw large-scale violence and displacement.
The wars that India fought after independence have been short border skirmishes with limited military casualties and virtually no civilian casualties. “Real” war is the one Iraq and Iran fought in 1980-88, or the Vietnamese fought with the US, or what the Iraqis and Afghans experienced at the hands of the US. Only an insane person would wish the country to go through their experience.
Our independence movement was multi-faceted. In it were constitutionalists like the early founders of the Congress Party, the so-called early “terrorists” like Khudiram Bose, revolutionary socialists like Bhagat Singh and others, the militant Ghadar rebels and the Indian Independence League, the advocates of civil disobedience like Nehru and Patel, and those who took to arms – like Bose and his associates. All of them made enormous personal sacrifices, some were executed, others exiled or spent long years in jail. The one group that stayed away from all this is the Hindutvavadis, who are now trying to appropriate credit.
From the 1930s onwards all these forces jointly contributed to shape an environment that eventually persuaded the British to go. As is infamously known, 150,000 British had ruled 300 million Indians and so the British knew that there were limits to ruling by repression. This became increasingly evident with the Quit India movement of 1942 which the British easily suppressed, but which was an alarm bell warning the British of a social and political breakdown that could, in the ultimate analysis, endanger them.
Bose’s bold move to ally with Germany and Japan would have been a masterstroke if he had had a better understanding of Nazism and Japanese imperialism.
Both were predatory movements which carried out some of the worst war crimes of the century and the world is better off with their defeat. To think some good would have come out from an association with them strains credibility.
Japanese pan-Asianism was skin-deep as not only the people in Korea and China learnt, but the people of our own Andaman & Nicobar Islands.
As for the Nazis, their Aryan notions most certainly did not include any truck with India or support for Indian independence.
The minuscule INA could not operate independent of the Japanese forces, and eventually surrendered, along with the Japanese.
The British would have been quite comfortable in 1945 having defeated the Japanese and the INA and, for that matter the Quit India movement, but they had already felt the earth shaking from beneath their feet in India.
The historian Patrick French has written, based on his study of the British Indian Political Intelligence (IIPI) papers, that by the early 1940s, “the British realized rule in the subcontinent had been destabilized to a fatal degree”. This was not a sudden development, but something that developed through the previous decade beginning with Gandhi’s famous second Disobedience Movement in 1930, and something that the IPI was tracking closely.
The fact that Bose had been able to gather a large number of Indians ready to make war on the British came with a rush of mutinies after the war such as the RIN Mutiny of 1946. Though many of these related, at least initially, to the service conditions of the personnel, they only seemed to confirm that the Indian Army could not be trusted to support the British beyond a point of time.
So Bose’s movement, layered upon the existing template of the ongoing freedom struggle, played an invaluable role in its outcome by adding to British insecurities. But from here to give the INA some kind of centrality in the freedom movement, as the installation of Bose’s statute in India Gate in New Delhi seems to suggest, is simply inaccurate.
Not surprisingly, even before the war ended, Lord Wavell, the British Viceroy formulated his “Breakdown Plan”. Afraid of a general uprising across the country, in 1946 he suggested virtual abandonment of the country after dividing it into India and Pakistan by a certain date. Instead of a controlled British departure suggested by Wavell, what we got was a precipitate one, which was accompanied by the horrors of communal violence beginning with the Calcutta killings of 1946 and their culmination in Punjab after Partition.
The central figure of the national movement was the man who was assassinated on January 30, 1948 precisely because he was the central figure. After all, Nehru or Patel could easily have been targets as well. And we would do well to remember that the Mahatma was done in by forces that had not lifted a finger for the independence of India, and had in some instances aided the British in repressing the Indian national movement. It was probably the first act in the brazen conspiracy to appropriate the freedom movement. We are seeing the second and third acts now.
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Trying to erase Nehru’s imprint on the country is a tall order because he is part of modern India’s DNA. Throw Nehru out of the equation and you end up undermining India.
Nehru in a contemplative mood. Credit: Photo Division
23 HOURS AGO
Note: This article was first published on May 24, 2016, and was republished on November 14, 2021, Jawaharlal Nehru’s birth anniversary.
Writing in the Sunday Times of India, Amulya Gopalakrishnan recently brought out the huge Nehru vilification industry that exists across cyberspace. In Rajasthan, India’s first prime minister is being wiped out from schools since it is more easy to fiddle with textbooks than write academic tomes based on verifiable facts, footnotes and peer-review.
But what would India have been minus Nehru ?
It is very difficult to separate one or the other of the towering individuals who fought for India’s freedom. But there are specific issues in which the personality of the leader played a distinct role. And so it is with Nehru. A counterfactual on India minus Nehru emerges from the consideration of the following eight points.
First, in 1927, he attended the Congress of Oppressed Nationalities in Brussels and gave the freedom movement an international outlook. His anti-imperialist cosmopolitanism certainly gave a modern patina to India’s freedom struggle.
Second, in 1928, Gandhi proposed dominion status for India, but Nehru is the one who demanded complete independence. In line with this, he opposed the Government of India Act of 1935, demanding a popularly chosen Constituent Assembly. Keeping with his views was the decision to move the historic Objectives Resolution of December 13, 1946 which categorically declared India’s decision to become an independent sovereign republic, notwithstanding the British desire to keep the country as a dominion.
Third, and this is perhaps the most intriguing example, in May 1947, Lord Mountbatten sent a plan for devolving power in India to the provinces – Bombay, Madras, UP, Bengal, etc. – allowing them to create confederations and only then transferring power. In other words, opening up the possibility of the emergence of several successor states in British India. This was the plan the British Cabinet approved and sent back to Mountbatten in May of 1947. On the eve of a meeting of Indian leaders announcing the plan, Mountbatten showed it to Nehru who was his house guest in Simla. Nehru was stunned and told Mountbatten that the Congress would under no circumstances accept this and wrote a long note to the Viceroy saying that this would be tantamount to the Balkanisation of India. Indeed, in this note he attacked a number of proposals, including one for the self-determination of Balochistan. Mountbatten postponed his announcement and, subsequently, the plan prepared by V.P. Menon to partition India and transfer power to two dominions was announced. There can be little doubt about Nehru’s role, detailed in Menon’s Transfer of Power, in compelling Mountbatten to stay his hand on a course that could have been disastrous for India.
Strengthening the Union
Fourth, as prime minister it was not possible for him to play a major role in drafting the Constitution, yet his chairmanship of the Union constitution committee and the Union powers committee was a crucial determinant in determining the balance between the powers of the states and the Union government which has managed to maintain the unity of this extremely diverse country. But there can be little doubt that his political outlook and philosophy, primarily his supreme faith in democracy, was reflected in the document which did not have to mention the word “secularism” to make its point because by making the individual citizen the focus of the constitution it bypassed the tangled issue of caste, community and religion.
Fifth, there are many who criticise Nehru for his handling of Jammu and Kashmir. What the critics don’t realise is that but for Nehru and his relationship with Sheikh Abdullah, at least till 1952, it would have been difficult to keep Kashmir in the Indian Union.
Sixth, he advocated the pattern of the economy which balanced the private and public sector. Indeed, this was in line with what Indian industrialists had put forward in the Bombay Plan. The critique of his socialistic leanings must be weighed against the fact that militant communism was the major opposition in the country, at least till the mid-1950s. By adopting a socialistic line, he helped encourage the split in the communist movement and outflanked their appeal.
Seventh, Nehru played a key role in passing four Hindu code bills which carried out the most progressive and far-reaching reform of the community. These had been originally mooted in the constituent assembly but were vehemently opposed by the conservatives and Hindu nationalists. Though the man behind the reform was a man who rejected Hinduism – B.R. Ambedkar – it was Nehru’s key support that ensured their passage in the first parliament. This modernisation, which removed the most oppressive aspects of Hindu society, was vehemently opposed by the RSS and its sister organisations. Among other things, the bills outlawed polygamy, enabled inter-caste marriages, simplified divorce procedures, placed daughters on the same footing as sons on the issue of inheritance of property.
Eighth, Nehru’s personal imprint is also visible in India’s nuclear and space programmes. The father of Indian nuclear science, Homi Bhabha, met Nehru on a voyage back from the UK in 1939 and began a life-long association. Nehru gave him the charge of India’s nuclear programme and he was answerable only to the prime minister. He actually piloted the Atomic Energy Act in the constituent assembly which gave rise to the Atomic Energy Commission chaired by the PM.
Negatives too
Of course, there are also negatives in the Nehru ledger. For example, sending the Kashmir issue to the UN, and his handling of the border dispute with China. Perhaps, minus Nehru, there might have been a different outcome, though it is not easy to discern what it could have been. However, on China it would most certainly not have been a military option. Nehru is on record asking General Cariappa whether India had the capacity to intervene in Tibet and he was told in writing that it was not possible given the weakness of the Indian military and the hostile terrain.
Another negative is the handling of the military itself. Nehru’s pacifist leanings and idealism made him a poor leader of the military. He allowed an important instrument of state power to run down and did not pay the kind of attention that was needed. And his final fault here was to overlook the impact of Krishna Menon’s abrasive personality on the military.
That said, it is clear that trying to erase Nehru’s imprint on the country is a tall order because he is part of modern India’s DNA. Throw Nehru out of the equation and you end up undermining India.
Manoj Joshi is a Distinguished Fellow, Observer Research Foundation.
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Netajis Family
1. Prof. Dr. Anita Bose-Pfaff.
She is the daughter of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. She is 79.
2. Grand Daughter of Bose
3. Great grand daughter of Bose
4. Great grand son of Bose
5. Ambassador of India to Germany, Mr. Harish Parvathaneni
Subhas Chandra Bose‘s daughter and her family lives in Vienna, Austria. They were invited to Berlin by the Indian Embassy for a dinner on the eve of Netaji’s 125th birth anniversary. 👆
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History is always told by the Victor and never the Vanquished
The Gandhi Nehru Dynasty might have ended in Modi Dynasty commenced in 2014.
It would be nice if the Modi Dynasty created History as Opposed to digging old Graves, unearthing worms and rekindling communal differences that existed pre independence. Recipe for Disaster.
Indian Citizens are like Elephants and they never Forget
PS: Modis Marketing Team and his Bhakts have failed him Miserably to stoop to such low levels. First Time in History I have heard so many Award recipients of 2022 Republic Day had turned down their Awards. That is the Biggest insult to a PM of the Country for His Matlabhi Awards aimed at winning votes:
