Resurrecting Netaji Bose

A hologram of Netaji Bose has been created at India Gate. A granite statue will replace it. The intention is to bring Bose into the mainstream narrative of the freedom struggle where he has thus far been a secondary figure. It is also in keeping with the attempt, under the present government, to convey that there was a great deal more to the freedom struggle than the Congress, Gandhi and Nehru.

Bose was president of the Indian National Congress for two terms. He resigned during his second term in 1939 when it became clear to him that Gandhi and other Congress leaders would not let him function as president. Gandhi had called the defeat of his candidate Pattabhi  Sitaramayya at Bose's hands "my defeat'. Thereafter, Gandhi's acolytes kept sniping at him and undermining him until his position became untenable. Gandhi and Bose differed on many issues, including the issue of how to deal with the British following the onset of WW2. Gandhi was initially inclined to provide support to the British; Bose was resolutely opposed to it. But, more fundamentally, Gandhi perceived in Bose a certain sympathy towards the revolutionary movement in India and did not take kindly to it.

Bose decided that it was in India's interest to align with the Fascist powers in order to oust the British- the underlying principle was 'enemy of my enemy is my friend'. He seemed to have overlooked the fact that, whatever the failings of the British, the Fascist powers could not be expected to create a better world. He also seemed to think he could persuade the Fascist powers to keep out of India after assisting him to get rid of the British by military means. In this, of course, he was being hopelessly naive. Those who believe that it is wrong to exalt Bose argue that his reading of history was flawed. 

Bose quit the Congress and founded the Forward Bloc. He was arrested by the British government in India. He escaped and made his way to Germany via Afghanistan and the Soviet Union. The Hitler regime put him up in an exclusive quarter of Berlin and gave him a generous allowance to run his activities. At one point in his stay, he got to meeting Adolf Hitler. The meeting did not go off well. Hitler made it clear to Bose that Germany was in no position to intervene militarily in India until it was done with the war in the East. Hitler had made some negative references to Indians- and he was of the view that British rule was good for India- in his book, Mein Kampf. Bose suggested he delete those references as the British would use these to drum sentiment against him. Hitler was not willing to oblige. 

Hitler seems to have decided he had little use for Bose's Indian National Army, at that time made up of Indian prisoners captured in North Africa. He decided to pass Bose on to the Japanese. Bose made his way to Japan in a German U-boat, transferring in mid-ocean to a Japanese submarine. The INA was strengthened after he landed in Japan with Indian soldiers captured in Singapore, Malaysia and elsewhere by the Japanese. The Japanese did not think highly of the INA as a military force and were not willing to give it a lead role in their campaign in Burma.

After the war, the INA soldiers were tried for treason. The trials did not proceed very far as Congress and the general public hailed them as heroes and independence was at hand. Following independence, the Indian army refused to take back the INA soldiers. Nehru had pleaded for their rehabilitation before independence but did not press the issue after he became PM. 

The INA did not make much of an impact militarily. But its creation did not give rise to fears in the British government of an insurrection on the part of armed forces in India. The naval mutiny of 1946 especially reinforced these fears and it was a contributory factor in expediting Britain's exit from India. This was, perhaps, an unintended consequence of the formation of the INA.

Bose was a charismatic leader with a terrific connect with the masses. He was above communal sentiment and his appeal was universal. He was courageous, selfless and utterly devoted to the cause of national regeneration. He had about him a certain nobility that one associates with blue blood at its best. Giving Bose a place of prominence in the story of Indian independence is well-merited, whatever the reservations about the particular means he used to further his cause.

It is also true that the mainstream narrative has been overly dominated by Congress, Gandhi and Nehru. It is good to have alternative figures and narratives emerge. There was the Congress and the non-violent struggle. There were also Congress rebels such as Bose, there was Ambedkar, the revolutionary movement and liberals, such as Gokhale and Srinivasa Sastri who believed that negotiation and constitutional methods would better serve India's interest. 

Let the story be told in full without glorifying any one side - and if that means raising new monuments to personalities such as Bose,  it is welcome.