Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Read online

  It wasn’t an effort to belittle Gandhi, who, despite his being ‘saintly’, offered sickening solutions to his Congress followers to oust men like Bose from the Congress and got the Congress followers to follow, with an illusion that his solution would fetch back Lord Rama’s kingdom to India.

  Instead, his disciples initiated India into a playground of endemic political corruption by generations of corrupt politicians, plaguing India after Independence and, like Gandhi, as a token they brought Indian democracy under family rule.

  However, Herman was perhaps a little wrong. A lonely and forlorn Gandhi did lose all his intellectual friends, besides Bose and Rabindranath Tagore, and was getting overburdened by a sense of responsibility by his dreadful realisations.

  Thus, if Bose petered out in Moscow, he, at least, did not have to shoulder a huge responsibility for the moral degeneration of India which had crept in.

  It was tragic that a destroyed Empire’s last political investment succeeded, while Gandhi’s failed, as since 1947, ‘inheritors’ of Gandhi defamed him by their corrupt practices.

  With the ‘English Left’ Nehru, a bigger ‘demagogue’ took over and agreed with the British not to reform colonial bureaucracy, judiciary, police, and the army, as well as not to develop the education policy, basic medical care, and family-planning for the poor.

  Even Tagore, who was highly disappointed with the Congress, wrote, a little before his death, in ‘Savyatar Sankot’ (Civilisation in Crisis), ‘we all know that the British will go, but I am scared in what shape they will leave India.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  A Lonely Left

  ‘In this mortal world everything perishes, and will perish, but ideas, and dreams do not. One individual may die for an idea, but that idea will, after his death, incarnate itself into thousand lives…’

  - Bose wrote to jail authority on October 30, 1940, ‘Give Me Liberty or Death’, to force the Government to release him. And he was released the same day.

  I

  f Bose’s Left image has always been analysed as without content, like the ones by several foreign and Indian writers, it has also been because he’s read less, and probed even lesser.

  Interestingly, the fault lies with the successive Union Governments, which didn’t make any serious attempt to publish his articles and writings. He wrote so frequently during his first exile in Europe by British Government and some of the writings are now traceless.

  Only a few publishers in present Pakistan—that too long back in mid-40s till early-50s, preserved his rare writings, which are no more available now.

  Though ‘there isn’t a greater Left leader in India than Bose, he needs to be properly explained,’ former and late CPI general secretary AB Bardhan once told this writer saying, ‘we need to know him better in ideological terms.’

  Interestingly, Bardhan wasn’t an illiterate man. He was well-read, who saw both Bose and Gandhi during his younger days, heard them, and yet he would admit that not much efforts were made to explain Bose!

  Nor the party he formed—the Forward Bloc—that still lives on because of Bose as one of the small brothers of big brother Stalinist CPI(M), doesn’t feel there is a need to tell people what was Bose’s Leftism—it wasn’t always about guns and wars!

  If this remains a tragedy with Bose’s Leftism, it simply gets enlarged with young generations pooh-poohing it when it comes for a fashionable preference.

  Whether someone likes it or not, Bose was an Indian socialist, whose knowledge and conception of socialism didn’t follow any global grammar or schools of thought on Socialism either English or Moscow or Europe-inspired. And like Bardhan said, his war achievements hastening the pace of India’s liberty may have also clouded his message of socialism which was, as said earlier, neither Moscow nor Europe-inspired ism!

  Ironically, British thinkers and policy makers who failed to brand Bose as an ideological ally of Axis, knew his intensions of revolution and economically reconstructing India into a socialist and industrialist state by discarding colonial heritage.

  ‘I am not apologist of Axis power, it’s not my job to hold a brief for what they do,’ Bose stunned global powers from Berlin as he spoke in his radio, saying, ‘my only focus lies with India and India alone.’

  The same Indian leader told his ministers in South East Asia when informed Japan was surrendering: ‘So what, we are not defeated (he hinted the struggle would continue).’

  Apparently, his utterances seemed to have been an attempt to keep the optimism flowing for his army leaders as frustration was deepening everywhere with atom bombs aftershock and with news that his ally Japan was surrendering.

  Thus, Bose who had always been busy either mentally or physically to end the British rule, though whenever an opportunity came either for speaking or writing, he spoke and wrote for socialism as a vehicle of ‘widest good for poor people after Independence.’

  But his socialism had always been with a human face (a term that neither emerged during Bolshevik Revolution in Soviet Union nor Mao’s Cultural Revolution in China) like he told the students of Tokyo University explaining the stages and evolution of civilisational conflicts in India and why even this socialism after India won its freedom ‘couldn’t be delinked with India’s past.’

  Exiled from India by British Government and also for his treatment in Europe in early-30s, one day (April 3rd, 1935), Bose met Romain Rolland at his residence Villa Olga and wanted to know from him what would be his reaction in case Gandhian Satyagraha failed and a new movement emerged which took care of both independence and protecting the rights of workers and peasants (he didn’t forget to mention the rights of workers and peasants)?

  The French Savant told Bose, if Satyagraha failed, he ‘would be very sorry and disappointed… if Gandhi’s Satyagraha failed to win freedom for India. At the end of the Great War (First World War) when the world was sick of bloody strife and hatred, a new light dawn on the horizon when Gandhi emerged with his new weapon of political strife. Great were the hopes that Gandhi had roused throughout the world.’

  Bose said, ‘we found from experience that Gandhi’s methods are too lofty for this materialistic world and as political leader he is too straight forward in dealings with his opponents… If Satyagraha ultimately fails and national endeavour continues by other methods, would he (M Rolland) cease taking interest in the Indian movement?’

  To this, M Rolland replied, ‘Fight must go on in any case.’

  Bose who recalled his meeting and discussion with Romain Rolland, said he agreed that ‘the time had come for the Congress take a definite stand on economic issues.’

  M Rolland also told Bose, ‘I am not interested in choosing between two political parties or between two generations. What is of interest and of value to me is a higher question. To me political parties do not count. What really counts is the great cause that transcends them, the cause of the workers of the world. To be more explicit, if as a result of unfortunate circumstances, Gandhi (or any party, for that matter should be in conflict with the cause of the workers and with their necessary evolution towards a socialistic organization, if Gandhi (or any party) should turn away and stand aloof from workers’ cause then forever will I side with the oppressed workers forever will I participate in their efforts and in their combats because, on their side is justice and the law of the real and necessary development of human society.’

  This both delighted and amazed Bose. ‘Even in my most optimistic moods, I had never expected this great thinker to come out so openly and boldly in support of workers’ cause.’ Bose wrote about this meeting in Modern Review, in September 1935.

  So a socialist Bose was frank and candid when he met Palme Dutt in London and admitted seeking a synthesis with National Socialism and Communism, which wasn’t a happy term.

  He criticised the Indian Communists saying, ‘their attacks on Congress seem to me that their anti-national’, and this ‘view is further strengthened in view of their hostile attitude they ha
ve towards the Indian National Congress.’

  Though during the same meeting he told Dutt that ‘I should add that I have understood and am quite satisfied in the writings of Marx and Lenin, and in the official statement of policy of the Communist International, giving full support to struggle for national independence and recognising this as an integral part of its world outlook.

  My personal view today is that the Indian National Congress should be organized on the broadest anti-imperialist front and should have the two-fold objective of winning political freedom and establishment of socialist regime.’ Published in Daily Workers, London, in January 1938.

  Bose’s consistent plea and demand for socialism should have by now convinced his friends, foes and admirers that his brand of Leftism wasn’t as content less like many wanted to depict him as, especially CPI leader Hiren Mukherjee and like.

  At the end of same year, Bose announced his desire to come back to India after almost five years of British-imposed exile, notwithstanding warning from British consul general of Vienna that if he decided to go to India, he would be arrested the moment he arrived.

  And when Bose reached Bombay, he was immediately put under arrest, which went on till 1937.

  After all these five years, Bose saw things have changed in his home-ground as he also emerged as a promising young Left leader in India.

  All these months as Bose fought his way to freedom, he shared his global and views about Asia with his motherland by writing in Modern Review.

  In ideological terms, these writings give readers an insight into his thought vis-à-vis emerging global political trends and his love for freedom and humanity.

  Japan’s role in Far East happens to be one such piece which clears him of ‘political opportunism’ like later day intellectuals would suggest.

  ‘Japan has done great things for herself and for Asia. Her awakening at the dawn of the present century sent a thrill throughout our continent. Japan has shattered the white man’s prestige in the Far East and put all the Western imperialist powers on defensive…

  But could not all this have been achieved without imperialism and humbling another proud, cultured and ancient race?

  No, with all our admiration for Japan… our whole heart goes out to China… China must still live for her own shake and for humanity.’

  Then Bose warned his countrymen, ‘Let us learn from Far Eastern conflict. …let India resolve to aspire after national self-fulfillment in every direction—but not at the expense of other nations, and not through the bloody path of self-aggrandisement and imperialism.’ JS Bright, Important Speeches and Writings of Subhas Bose, p 76.

  Quote from Bose’s writing proved that unfortunately his version of socialism was linked to Fascism by his zealous contemporaries, especially in Fabian Socialist and Communist camps though he always talked about a political system for India with a human face.

  We shall see how he laid out a roadmap of ‘socialist and democratic India’ after Independence, much before the concept of welfare state emerged even in capitalist West.

  While in London in early 1938, he was informed about him being selected as the next Congress President. During his speech as Congress President, he laid out his plan for a socialist and democratic India with prophetic note (which was missed by celebrated historians) both on Partition and British Empire, ‘British Empire is a hybrid phenomenon in politics. It is a peculiar combination of self-governing countries, partially self-governing dependencies and autocratically-governed colonies. Constitutional device and human ingenuity may bolster up this combination for a while but not for ever. If internal incongruities are not removed in good time then, quite apart from external pressure, the Empire is sure to break down under its own strain.’ And it broke down within a short span after Second World War.

  On Partition, ‘It’s well-known truism that every Empire is based on policy of divide and rule. But I doubt if any empire in the world practiced this policy so skillfully, systematically and ruthlessly as Great Britain,’ Bose said prophesying, ‘I have no doubt that British ingenuity will seek some other constitutional device for partitioning India, and thereby neutralise the transfer of power to the Indian people.’ A warning came true a decade after!

  He also elaborated that his concept of socialism did not speak for single party rule. Unlike Gandhi, who felt Congress should be dissolved once freedom was won, Bose said instead after Independence party should execute economic, social and industrial reconstruction policies for people. He set up Planning Commission with a purpose of preparing an economic roadmap for India’s development. He happens to be the first Indian leader who felt there was need to have family planning or growing population could not be looked after well.

  On Congress taking over the reins, he assured the massive audience: ‘It will be argued that the continuance of the party in the state… will convert that state into a totalitarian one; but I cannot admit the charge. The state will possibly become totalitarian one if there be only one party like in Russia, Germany and Italy. But there is no reason why other parties would be banned…’ Important Speeches and Writings of Subhas Bose, J S Bright.

  Thus in his Congress presidential speech, he laid out a plan for democracy with socialistic socio-economic measures which every developed nations in post-War Europe packaged as Welfare State to prevent Soviet Union from exporting communism on grounds of socio-economic uncertainties.

  Incidentally, when Bose visualised his welfare state, the term didn’t enter as a well-defined concept either in economics or political science lexicons. Yet Left writers found Bose often as content less left and merely a man of action to accommodate him a bit more.

  He also packaged British engineered Indian divisiveness on the basis of caste and religion in the Indian National Army, telling them ‘everything is Jai Hind here’ and left an example for all. Even Gandhi had recognised it!

  Though Bose spoke about his plans for post-Independence socio-economic reconstructions 79 years back and still after Independence 70 years hence Indian politicians still keep talking about backwardness on the basis of caste and religion and not on economic terms!

  ‘Few Congress Presidential addresses have proved as prescient as Bose’s. He anticipated many of the problems of a free India. His warning about partition came true within nine years. His hope that the Congress would remain in the seat of power even after Independence, has been fulfilled despite Gandhi’s wishes to contrary.’ NG Jog, In Freedom’s Quest, p 136.

  Much ahead of his time, Bose’s genius left either his zealous peers ignoring the real content of his ideological profile or simply opaque.

  Instead they linked him to the myth of fascism which took decades to get exploded. They forget what Winston Churchill said during the war: ‘I would shake hands even with devil, if it’s for saving my country.’ It was right for Churchill while it wasn’t for Bose. The logic seems unconvincing.

  However, attempts by British, pro-British democrats, liberals and fashionable communists failed to brand Bose as an ally of totalitarianism and that failed with Indian people too who love and revere him.

  ‘Indians viewed the Bose-Axis phenomenon in simple national, racial and psychological terms. They knew and idolised Bose, the dedicated patriot. Their foremost concern being national liberty, they saw eye to eye with the patriot that their enemy’s enemy was friend. They were thrilled to learn that with assistance of an Asian power, their revolutionary leader Subhas had set up an Indian National Army to challenge the mighty British Empire in the field of battle, for emancipation of the motherland. The very idea of an Indian Army founded and commanded by an Indian of unquestionable patriotism was enough to evoke enthusiasm and applause from an unarmed people, long used to watching the displays of British military might. The people’s vision on complex issues of the war was conventional, and was conditioned by feelings of national pride, racial revenge and repeated frustrations in the freedom struggle.’ Chattar Singh Samra, Leadership and Political Institutions in India,
p 83.

  This explains both why plotters both in India and abroad to identify his activities as synonymous with Axis ideologically failed, though Bose still remains the lonely Left leader mostly unexplained even by his own party Forward Bloc.

  To break the ideological impasse that left all hunting for him in his hours of crisis, once and for all, Bose wrote to Nehru, ‘You call yourself a socialist—sometimes a full-blooded socialist. How a socialist can be an individualist as you regard yourself, beats me. One is antithesis of the other. How socialism can ever come into existence through individualism of your type is also an enigma to me.’ Bunch of Old Letters, pp 351-363.

  Bose wrote to Nehru after 1939 when he was forced out of office of Congress President by Gandhi his disciples. Yet Bose’s Left profile would never come clear to people and writers who felt he was content less. Though socialism globally lost to free market economy way back in Washington Consensus, but Bose’s case of being a lonely Left leader still makes an interesting reading.

  Just eleven months before he, by a terrible miscalculation and tactical mistake, not expected of him, chose Russia as his next ground for continuing his struggle, he told his critics:

  ‘They call me a dreamer. I confess I am a dreamer. I have been always a dreamer—even when I was a child. The progress of the world has depended on dreamers and their dreams—not dreams of exploitation and aggrandisement and perpetuating injustice—but dreams of progress, happiness for widest masses, liberty and independence for all nations.

  I have been dreamer of dreams. But the dream of all my dreams, the dearest dream of my life has been the dream of freedom of India.

  …They do not like my dreams. But that’s nothing new…

  …I submit they (dreams) have increasingly become realities. The army is one such dream come true.

  No, I do not mind being a dreamer.’

  Bose wrote on 27th September, 1944, Pilgrim. Madan Gopal, Life and Times of Subhas Chandra Bose.