Courtesy
SATURDAY, JANUARY 26, 2013
Why was Bose diminished on Republic Day?
M.J. Akbar, Sunday Guardian
We measure power through size. Check any
political poster. The boss gets the biggest face. Others in the pecking order
descend till the miniature at the end.
Why was Subhash Chandra Bose struggling
among the also-rans in the Bengal Republic Day tableau? Swami Vivekananda,
understandably, had pride of place. But it might have been better to keep Bose
out of the jumble rather than literally reduce his stature. If Bengal forgets,
how long will India remember the only Indian to head a government of united
India?
Bose declared independence before the
British gave it in 1947. His government in exile did not have Gandhi's
sanction. It fought on the wrong side of the Second World War; but it was a
proud and free government whose contribution to our freedom has been reduced by
the domestic political forces he challenged.
Bose is an embarrassment to Congress
because he challenged Gandhi, and was a powerful parallel icon to Nehru. Bose
asked Indians to give him their blood, and he would give them freedom. Gandhi
promised freedom without violence. Gandhi refused to join the British war
effort in 1939; Bose went a step further, and led Indian troops on the side of
the Germany-Italy-Japan axis. However, their horizon, freedom, was the same.
More than six decades later the argument
might seem pedantic, and yet it is worth revisiting. Invaluable Indian blood
and treasury helped Britain win the first world war. After victory, Britain
reneged on its commitment to Indian self-rule within the empire without batting
an eyelid. Instead of dominion status, Indians got vicious brutality at
Jallianwala Bagh and the pernicious Rowlatt Act.
It is not generally known that Gandhi was
not a pacifist: he served on British frontlines in the Boer and Zulu wars in
South Africa, and was very eager to lead a medical unit to the killing fields
of France in 1914, at the onset of the first world war. In 1918, Gandhi worked
so hard as a recruiting agent for the British army, urging Gujaratis to prove
they were not "effeminate" by picking up a gun; that he almost died
of exhaustion. Farewell bhajans began to be sung before he recovered. Gandhi not
only lost hope in Britain but he also felt betrayed.
Britain had as much to protect in 1945 as
in 1918. London knew that its empire would unravel at the point where it had
begun, in India, once India became independent. What pushed Britain towards the
exit gate? Of course there was the irresistible momentum of Gandhi's nationwide
struggle. But the British had faced this challenge before, in the
non-cooperation movement 25 years before. The significant difference was the
nationalist sentiment unleashed by Bose among Indians in uniform. Bose's Indian
National Army [INA] showed them where their national loyalties should lie.
Bose's war also inspired the young to surge beyond the confines of Congress.
Even Gandhi, who only had faint praise
for Bose in a 1945 obituary ["Subhas Bose has died well. He was
undoubtedly a patriot though misguided"], had to admit in an article
published on 15 February 1946, "The hypnotism of the Indian National Army
has cast its spell on us...[Netaji's] patriotism is second to none...He aimed
high but failed. Who has not failed?...The lesson that Netaji and his army brings
to us is one of self-sacrifice, unity irrespective of class and community, and
discipline..." When the British put three INA officers - Shah Nawaz, a
Muslim, Sahgal, a Hindu, and Dhillon, a Sikh - on trial for sedition, India
exploded in wrath. Nehru said on 24 December 1945, "The INA trial has
created a mass upheaval."
Bose broke the backbone of British rule
when he destroyed trust between the British Raj and its armed forces. The
eminently sensible Sir Claude Auchinleck, commander in chief, accepted that any
extreme punishment for INA officers would make governance impossible, because
Indians adored them as national heroes. This, he said, was the "general
opinion held in India, not only by the public, but...by quite a considerable
part of the Indian Army as well".
Subhash Bose's contribution to the
formation of a Republic of India was no less than that of the very greatest of
our founding fathers. Bose proved in practice what an Indian secular state
would be. At a time when the Muslim League was in ascendance, he had the love
and trust of Muslims. He lived his dream of gender equality when he set up the
Rani of Jhansi regiment, under the fiery and beautiful Lakshmi Swaminathan.
When Bose told the Japanese he was setting up a women's-only force, they
thought he was joking. I do not believe Bose could have fought alongside
Hitler, who advised the British to shoot Gandhi dead, and resented the Japanese
advance because he thought Asia was being lost to white Europeans. Hitler was
an undisguised racist, as were all Nazis.
Perhaps India can survive without Bose.
But such amnesia will only diminish India.
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