For far too long it has been a recurrent pattern to patronizingly dismiss the irked line of thought that questions how the Indian establishment has kept Netaji Boses legacy a grey area, as something born out of a sense of parochial Bengali pride alone. Now, I do not speak a word of Bengali, and have spent a grand total of ten days in my life in Calcutta, so at least that prejudged perspective doesnt apply here.
I have a question today. I cannot for the life of me understand why the Ministry of Defence, in the year 2011, has to go to the Delhi High Court to challenge an order of the Central Information Commission, asking an RTI applicant to be provided a SIXTY YEAR OLD manuscript. Of course, when the manuscript happens to be the official history of the INA, then a sense of déjà vu comes in. After all, it will be largely about Bose, right? And the less we know about Bose, the happier our governments seem to be. The bizarrest thing this is an official history commissioned by the Government Of India. And it has to be kept locked away. The ministry, for the record, has refused to provide a copy on the grounds that it is planning to publish the manuscript (considering it was submitted in 1950, and they are still planning to publish it, it is unlikely to come in our lifetimes) and asserts that responding to the RTI query will hit the economic interests of the state.
Mr Antony, in Gods name, you dont believe that, do you? What is the government going to do with the supposedly massive revenues from the sales of the manuscript when you do publish it in 2075? Build a new battle tank? "Economic interest"? Give us a break, please. Why do the words Bose and INA introduce a paralytic reflex in our governance, some half a century after the man supposedly died? Why is he the ruling systems equivalent of He Who Must Not Be Named?
Even as Netajis death seems to have engaged the Indian mindspace the way the Kennedy assassination has the US, staying a perpetually open-ended question, there is no mainstream political party which has been able to, or has been interested in, playing the caretaker of his legacy. The irony has been that Boses spiritual mentor, Vivekananda, the monk, has the Ramakrishna Mission and other organizations taking his ideology forward effectively even today, while Bose, the political leader, the general of a self-made army, has no equivalent political organization aspiring to do so. Only sundry organizations keep trying to file PILs, RTI applications etc in an attempt to raise questions that invariably have the powers that be squirming. There is, so to say, no political next of kin.
But then, that is hardly a surprise, considering that for a long time, we were reluctant to acknowledge even his legal next of kin. While children, grandchildren, or great-grandchildren with more illustrious surnames are much feted, an Anita Pfaffs existence in the Indian national consciousness is, at best, incidental. Pardon me for the nastiness of this point since I have absolutely nothing personal against anyones origins but one cannot but be amused at how warmly the Congress, which was so squeamish about Boses German spouse once, took to the Italian spouse of national leader subsequently.
Perhaps our establishments discomfort with the man is because Bose has been as intractable to handle and difficult to ignore in death as he was in life. When he was politically active, Bose was a bundle of contradictions. Spiritualist, Leftist, Nationalist, Fascist and many other adjectives tagged him at the same time. Those who thought his death would simplify things were disappointed; after he was no longer on the scene, he became larger than life. The Congress, which spared no pains to keep him out while it could, stepped in to reclaim his legacy by proxy, quickly adopting the cause of the INA once the Red Fort trials set the nation in a frenzy.
Once that hype blew over, however, Bose was ambiguously feted as a nationalist and such things, but no political stream would really claim him as one of their own. The Congress cannot really appropriate him till it idolises Nehru and worships the Mahatma. Nehru summed it up himself in 1942: "We parted company with him many years ago. Since then we have drifted further apart and today we are very far from each other." That drift was never bridged. The Marxists viciously pilloried him for his dealings with the Axis powers and abused him liberally, before, much later, apologizing for the "great mistake" made in wrongly evaluating Boses 'patriotism and selfless sacrifice'- and then used the opportunity to remind us that 'Netaji never compromised with communal forces'. Ergo, he is not the BJPs, he is ours!
The right wing meanwhile was happy to tell us that Savarkar had advised Bose on sundry issues. I recall the BJPs keenness to claim Bose as one of its own, by including him as a natural part of a pantheon of nationalistic militant leaders such as Shivaji, Bhagat Singh and Veer Savarkar. Advani, as Dy PM, rued to INA veterans that had Netaji been given his due place, no leader could have matched him in stature for half a century. An article in a BJP journal at that point of time said: Not only does the BJP stand to gain electorally, but Subhash Chandra Bose will be freed from the confines of political myth-making. The appropriation by the BJP is a posthumous homecoming for a nationalist who believed that rashtrabhakti is a synthesis of religion and nationalism, of the spiritual and the political. Posthumous homecoming, indeed.
The Forward Bloc, hopelessly embedded in Bengal and comfortable playing junior partner to bigger Left formations even while they liberally abused Bose never could gain a fraction of the mass appeal that its founder did. So Bose has belonged to everybody, and the INA has been oft quoted as a shining example of Indians of all creeds coming together to fight for the motherland - but, specifically, he has belonged to no one, the way Nehru belongs to the Congress, Hegdewar to the Sangh, or MN Roy to the Marxists. Subhash Babu was in that sense perhaps only appropriated whole-heartedly and unapologetically by the Bengali intelligentsia a tragic, rather raw deal for a man whose mindset was anything but regionalistic.
Some years back, Prof Satadru Sen, then teaching at the University of Washington, Seattle, said in the course of a lecture on Bose that Ultimately, dying at the end of the war was the best thing Bose could have done for India. Perhaps that is true. For those who feared his non-conformism, his death brought comfortable stability. For those who loved him, amidst all the contradictions, there is at least an eternally romanticized picture of the leader who went down fighting, uncompromising and uncorrupted. With or without a defined political legacy, despite the consistent squeamishness of the state in acknowledging him, the man refuses to fade away. Do what you will.
I read a line recently, on the net, which said -- '"I am an extremist," Bose once said, and his uncompromising stand finally cut him off from the mainstream of Indian nationalism.'
Amidst the endless chain of middle-of-the-road political leadership that stands for nothing, except itself, perhaps the extremist isnt politically fashionable. But India has still not outgrown the need for the Bose brand of extremism. It may be just romantic posturing, but I see the man as having tried his best, and having been taken away midway through his political and philosophical mission. Perhaps, someday, it will be taken up and completed. By us, or, at least, in our lifetimes.
Its clichéd to end any write-up this way, but then, Bose embedded it in our minds, its his birth anniversary today, and the man just lives on, you know, in his own way, so its kind of apt
Jai Hind!
Bose: The extremist who refuses to die : India : Anshul Chaturvedi : TOI Blogs
I have a question today. I cannot for the life of me understand why the Ministry of Defence, in the year 2011, has to go to the Delhi High Court to challenge an order of the Central Information Commission, asking an RTI applicant to be provided a SIXTY YEAR OLD manuscript. Of course, when the manuscript happens to be the official history of the INA, then a sense of déjà vu comes in. After all, it will be largely about Bose, right? And the less we know about Bose, the happier our governments seem to be. The bizarrest thing this is an official history commissioned by the Government Of India. And it has to be kept locked away. The ministry, for the record, has refused to provide a copy on the grounds that it is planning to publish the manuscript (considering it was submitted in 1950, and they are still planning to publish it, it is unlikely to come in our lifetimes) and asserts that responding to the RTI query will hit the economic interests of the state.
Mr Antony, in Gods name, you dont believe that, do you? What is the government going to do with the supposedly massive revenues from the sales of the manuscript when you do publish it in 2075? Build a new battle tank? "Economic interest"? Give us a break, please. Why do the words Bose and INA introduce a paralytic reflex in our governance, some half a century after the man supposedly died? Why is he the ruling systems equivalent of He Who Must Not Be Named?
Even as Netajis death seems to have engaged the Indian mindspace the way the Kennedy assassination has the US, staying a perpetually open-ended question, there is no mainstream political party which has been able to, or has been interested in, playing the caretaker of his legacy. The irony has been that Boses spiritual mentor, Vivekananda, the monk, has the Ramakrishna Mission and other organizations taking his ideology forward effectively even today, while Bose, the political leader, the general of a self-made army, has no equivalent political organization aspiring to do so. Only sundry organizations keep trying to file PILs, RTI applications etc in an attempt to raise questions that invariably have the powers that be squirming. There is, so to say, no political next of kin.
But then, that is hardly a surprise, considering that for a long time, we were reluctant to acknowledge even his legal next of kin. While children, grandchildren, or great-grandchildren with more illustrious surnames are much feted, an Anita Pfaffs existence in the Indian national consciousness is, at best, incidental. Pardon me for the nastiness of this point since I have absolutely nothing personal against anyones origins but one cannot but be amused at how warmly the Congress, which was so squeamish about Boses German spouse once, took to the Italian spouse of national leader subsequently.
Perhaps our establishments discomfort with the man is because Bose has been as intractable to handle and difficult to ignore in death as he was in life. When he was politically active, Bose was a bundle of contradictions. Spiritualist, Leftist, Nationalist, Fascist and many other adjectives tagged him at the same time. Those who thought his death would simplify things were disappointed; after he was no longer on the scene, he became larger than life. The Congress, which spared no pains to keep him out while it could, stepped in to reclaim his legacy by proxy, quickly adopting the cause of the INA once the Red Fort trials set the nation in a frenzy.
Once that hype blew over, however, Bose was ambiguously feted as a nationalist and such things, but no political stream would really claim him as one of their own. The Congress cannot really appropriate him till it idolises Nehru and worships the Mahatma. Nehru summed it up himself in 1942: "We parted company with him many years ago. Since then we have drifted further apart and today we are very far from each other." That drift was never bridged. The Marxists viciously pilloried him for his dealings with the Axis powers and abused him liberally, before, much later, apologizing for the "great mistake" made in wrongly evaluating Boses 'patriotism and selfless sacrifice'- and then used the opportunity to remind us that 'Netaji never compromised with communal forces'. Ergo, he is not the BJPs, he is ours!
The right wing meanwhile was happy to tell us that Savarkar had advised Bose on sundry issues. I recall the BJPs keenness to claim Bose as one of its own, by including him as a natural part of a pantheon of nationalistic militant leaders such as Shivaji, Bhagat Singh and Veer Savarkar. Advani, as Dy PM, rued to INA veterans that had Netaji been given his due place, no leader could have matched him in stature for half a century. An article in a BJP journal at that point of time said: Not only does the BJP stand to gain electorally, but Subhash Chandra Bose will be freed from the confines of political myth-making. The appropriation by the BJP is a posthumous homecoming for a nationalist who believed that rashtrabhakti is a synthesis of religion and nationalism, of the spiritual and the political. Posthumous homecoming, indeed.
The Forward Bloc, hopelessly embedded in Bengal and comfortable playing junior partner to bigger Left formations even while they liberally abused Bose never could gain a fraction of the mass appeal that its founder did. So Bose has belonged to everybody, and the INA has been oft quoted as a shining example of Indians of all creeds coming together to fight for the motherland - but, specifically, he has belonged to no one, the way Nehru belongs to the Congress, Hegdewar to the Sangh, or MN Roy to the Marxists. Subhash Babu was in that sense perhaps only appropriated whole-heartedly and unapologetically by the Bengali intelligentsia a tragic, rather raw deal for a man whose mindset was anything but regionalistic.
Some years back, Prof Satadru Sen, then teaching at the University of Washington, Seattle, said in the course of a lecture on Bose that Ultimately, dying at the end of the war was the best thing Bose could have done for India. Perhaps that is true. For those who feared his non-conformism, his death brought comfortable stability. For those who loved him, amidst all the contradictions, there is at least an eternally romanticized picture of the leader who went down fighting, uncompromising and uncorrupted. With or without a defined political legacy, despite the consistent squeamishness of the state in acknowledging him, the man refuses to fade away. Do what you will.
I read a line recently, on the net, which said -- '"I am an extremist," Bose once said, and his uncompromising stand finally cut him off from the mainstream of Indian nationalism.'
Amidst the endless chain of middle-of-the-road political leadership that stands for nothing, except itself, perhaps the extremist isnt politically fashionable. But India has still not outgrown the need for the Bose brand of extremism. It may be just romantic posturing, but I see the man as having tried his best, and having been taken away midway through his political and philosophical mission. Perhaps, someday, it will be taken up and completed. By us, or, at least, in our lifetimes.
Its clichéd to end any write-up this way, but then, Bose embedded it in our minds, its his birth anniversary today, and the man just lives on, you know, in his own way, so its kind of apt
Jai Hind!
Bose: The extremist who refuses to die : India : Anshul Chaturvedi : TOI Blogs
and that too in Defence forum where all defence guru are here.
