By Jayanta Roy Chowdhury
As we
celebrate the 123rd Birth Anniversary of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, the “Prince Among
Patriots,” we must ponder over whether
and why he is still relevant even after the interval of nearly 74 years since his
last address to his countrymen through a radio dispatch towards the end of
World War II.
After all
three generations of Indians have been born since his disappearance or death on
18th August 1945. Many ideas which were revolutionary while he was still
alive no longer seem to find resonance with the world of today. Communism has all but died out. Fascism in
the form that Hitler propagated died out only to be reborn in the last two
decades in other forms.
To
understand the relevance of Netaji, we have to delve into his thought process
and understand what he stood for and
re-evaluate them in today’s circumstances. Indeed we have to keep asking at all
time, do these principles stand the test of time ?
To my mind Bose
stood for three basic tenets - democracy, secularism and socialism. Despite
attempts to paint him as a fascist, by referring to his meetings with Hitler
and Mussolini and his reported statement during the World war II where he said
an election should be held soon after independence, but once a Government was
in place it should be given emergency powers to rid India of its problems of
caste and communalism, Bose followed the path shown by his political mentor
Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das and was a democrat to the core.
In his Presidential
speech at the Haripura Congress in 1938, Bose made his political ideas on the
future of India very clear : “ Our goal is that of
an Independent India and in my view that goal can be attained only through a
federal republic in which the provinces and the states will be willing partners.”
He was clear that this federal republic would be a
multi-party democracy. Speaking on the form of India that the congress was
striving for and the nature of party politics that should ensue after
independence he made it clear : “The
state will possibly become a totalitarian one, if there be only one party as in
countries like Russia, Germany and Italy. But there is no reason why other
parties should be banned. Moreover, the party itself will have a democratic basis,
unlike, for instance, the Nazi Party which is based on the ‘leader principle’.
The existence of more than one party and the democratic basis of the Congress
Party will prevent the future Indian state becoming a totalitarian one.
Further, the democratic basis of the party will ensure that leaders are not
thrust upon the people from above, but are elected from below.”
He also very clearly enunciated the fundamental
rights which he felt Congress must grant to all citizens in his landmark
Haripura speech – “(i) Every citizen of
India has the right of free expression of opinion, the right of free
association and combination, and the right to assemble peacefully and without
arms, for a purpose not opposed to law or morality; (ii) Every
citizen shall enjoy freedom of conscience and the right freely to profess and
practise his religion, subject to public order and moral ity; (iii) The
culture, language and script of the minorities and of different linguistic
areas shall be protected; (iv) All citizens are equal before the law,
irrespective of religion, caste, creed or sex; (v) No disability attaches
to any citizen by reason of his or her religion, caste, creed or sex, in regard
to public employment, office of power or honour, and in the exercise of any
trade or calling; (vi) All citizens have equal rights and duties in
regard to wells, tanks, roads, schools and places of public resort, maintained
out of state, or local funds, or dedicated by private persons for the use of
the general public; (vii) The state shall observe neutrality in regard to
all religions; (viii) The franchise shall be on the basis of universal adult
suffrage; (ix) Every citizen is free to move throughout India and to stay and
settle in any part thereof, to acquire property and to follow any trade or
calling, and to be treated equally with regard to legal prosecution or
protection in all parts of India.
These clauses of the Fundamental Rights resolution seem to have eventually found its place in our Constitution when it was drafted. It also in his own words “make(s) it clear that there should be no interference in matter of conscience, religion, or culture, and a minority is entitled to keep its personal law without any change in this respect being imposed by the majority.”
These clauses of the Fundamental Rights resolution seem to have eventually found its place in our Constitution when it was drafted. It also in his own words “make(s) it clear that there should be no interference in matter of conscience, religion, or culture, and a minority is entitled to keep its personal law without any change in this respect being imposed by the majority.”
However, for
him democracy was not a borrowed idea taken from Europe. Making a historical
survey, Bose in an address ten years before Haripura, cited the examples of
Republics in ancient India and referred to the principle of democracy, as
applied in India in the governments of villages and towns. He highlighted the
fact that the doctrine of democracy was not unknown to India in the past
“...from the above historical narrative it will be evident that democratic
republican forms of government existed in India in the ancient times. They were
usually based on a homogenous tribe or caste. In the Mahabharata, these tribal
democracies are known as ‘Ganas’… (Even) in monarchical states also, the people
enjoyed a large measure of liberty, as the King was virtually a constitutional
monarch. This feat, which has been consistently ignored by the British
historians, has now been fully established through the researches of Indian
historians.”
Now let us
take up his ideas of socialism – Communists and many others have termed it as
“jumbled”. Possibly their rejection of his `Samyavad’ seems to have come from
the fact that he rejected the Marixian
dogma of class struggle, despite admiring certain goals of Marxism and had described
himself openly as a Socialist.
At the
Rangpur Political Conference on March 30, 1929, he made it clear that he
favoured Swami Vivekananda’s socialistic
ideas where he wanted to work for a classless, casteles society through social
change and economic progress. “This socialism did not derive its birth from the
books of Karl Marx. It has its origin in the thought and culture of India. The
gospel of democracy that was preached by Swami Vivekananda has manifested
itself fully in the writings and achievements of Deshabandhu Das, who said that
Narayan lives amongst those who till the land, prepare our bread by the sweat
of their brow those who in the midst of grinding poverty have kept the torch of
our civilization, culture and religion burning,” Bose pointed out.
Calling this
the doctrine of synthesis, Bose’s ideas stood on four pillars: 1) Freedom of
Conscience, 2) Political Democracy, 3) Economic Democracy or Indian Socialism
and 4) Dignity of Man.
That he
clearly felt that Nazism and Hitler were an unmitigated disaster is quite clear
to those who have read him and those who managed to interview his close followers with whom he confided. In a letter written in March, 1936 to Dr.
Franz Thierfelder, the co-founder with Dr. Tarak Nath Das, of the Indian
Institute of Munich, Bose wrote “When I
first visited Germany in 1933, I had hopes (of) the new German nation, which
has risen to a new consciousness of its national strength and self-respect ....
Today, I regret that I have to return to India with the conviction that the new
nationalism of Germany is not only narrow and selfish, but also arrogant.”
When Hitler referred to white superiority in a speech in 1936, Bose
denounced the Führer in a press conference in Geneva and advocated a trade
boycott of Germany by Indians. Similarly, when
Hermann Göring’s made disparaging remarks about Mahatma Gandhi, Bose was
stinging in his criticism. Later in conversations with his close associates Bose dubbed Hitler “baddha pagal”
(raving mad).
However, the
fact remains that Bose took the help of Germany and Japan in trying to win
freedom for his motherland. This his followers would readily term as `Realpolitiks’
of the kind that Chanakya or Machiavelli
would have followed.
Many accused
him of trying to replace one colonial power – Britain with another -
Japan. However, he was aware that this
was a distinct possibility and had warned his closest associates in the INA
Azad Hind Fauj to “prepare for a second war”, after India wins its freedom. He
wanted the Army to be ready to fight his benefactors the Japanese if the need arose.
The need
would perhaps have arisen. The Japanese Imperial forces did much to hinder his
rise even as they propped his INA up. This was despite his excellent political
relationship with Japan’s Prime Minster Hideki Tojo and Emperor Hirohito. Early
when the INA was being formed in 1943, when the Japanese liaison officers
learned that Bose wanted to recruit more soldiers from among the Indian
Prisoners of War beyond the approximately 26,000 he had recruited, many of
those who had not made up their mind were abruptly shipped off to prison
labour. He was denied any significant arms cache and had to content himself with arming his men
mostly with captured British weaponry, which also limited the numbers of local
Indians, mostly Tamils he could recruit into his army to about 30,000, despite
the fact that nearly 1 lakh volunteered.
The Japanese
dilly-dallied on demands for transfer of actual control of the strategic
Andaman & Nicobar Islands and did not agree with Netaji’s more sound war
aims of reaching Chittagong district of United Bengal through the Arakan hills
which could have triggered off a revolution in mainland India, preferring to
attack Manipur and Naga districts of NEFA. The success of these two fierce
battles would at best have yielded some
densely forested territory to the Indo-Japanese forces. The d extremely tenuous
communication links of these areas with mainland India meant that British
censorship ensured Indians knew nothing of these battles at that time and hence
had no great reason to organize any supportive revolts.
It did not
take a Napoleon to understand that to invade India a more direct thrust towards Bengal was more
logical. The British understood that well and decided to pre-empt such a move
by removing or destroying the long distance boat services in the Bengal delta
leading to the Great Bengal Famine.
Bose’s secularism and his strong belief that India
would have been better off without the curse of caste was also amply clear. A
story told by Ambassador TCA Raghavan last Sunday at Chittaranjan Bhavan about his visit
to the famous Chettiar temple in Singapore should suffice to explain his
beliefs.
The Chettiar
Temple set up by the rich mercantile community of emigres from Tamil Nadu was
anxious to donate to the INA war effort but wanted Subhas Bose to visit the
temple. Bose refused complaining that the temple practiced orthodoxy and did
not allow people of all castes and religion to enter its premises. Ultimately
the temple authorities bowed down and urged him to visit with any associates he
chose without any regards to caste or creed.
Major
General A.C. Chatterjee, Minister for Finance in the Azad Hind Government who was
an eyewitness to this historical incident
also gives a vivid description of it in his Memoir : ‘In due course,
Netaji went to the temple, accompanied by his Muslim, Hindu, Sikh and Christian
officers. They went not only into the inner courtyard of the temple, where
previously non-Hindus were not allowed to enter, but even to the sanctum
sanctorum, where only Brahmins could (previously) set their feet. This was an
even more remarkable incident in the annals of the temple. Not only this, but
the Brahmin priest of the temple put `tilakas’ (marks) over the foreheads of Netaji
and the officers, irrespective of caste, creed and religion and gave them `prasad’
(food offering) of the deity. The officers in their turn willingly accepted the
`tilaka’ on their foreheads and gladly partook of the `prasad’ offered to them.
By such acts, the Hindus did not become less Hindus, nor the Muslims or
Christians or Sikhs any the less Muslims, Christians or Sikhs. What did happen,
however, was that they all rose to the plane of human relationships to a higher
level. Their love and respect for one another increased manifold. Bose then delivered
a remarkable speech explaining what the
Movement implied, emphasizing upon the unity amongst the followers of the
different creeds and religions of India and the significance of universal
brotherhood.’
In this day
and age when religious and caste based difference have again raised their head
and attempts are being to drive a wedge within India, remembering this lesson
in true secularism is perhaps even more important than ever.
Jai Hind !
©️ Jayanta Roy Chowdhury
23rd
January 2019