Netaji and the Mahatma - I

Arunabha Bagchi 22 January, 2016

 

January 23 is the most memorable day for all Bengalis. It is, of course, the birth anniversary of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. The day is particularly important this year, as our Prime Minister has promised to start declassifying  the files relating to Netaji that our government has still not released 70 years after his presumed death in a plane crash in Taipei. There are doubts about the conditions of the most sensitive files, with many observers believing that they must have been damaged by moth, or by bureaucrats. Both UPA and NDA governments refused to declassify the files, despite repeated RTI applications made by concerned citizens. The latest refusal by the Modi government in November 2014 came up with the same outrageously lame excuse iterated many times before: “Disclosure of the documents contained in these files would prejudicially affect relations with foreign countries.” Will we never be an independent country? Imagine the Chinese government issuing a similar statement to the Chinese people.

After Independence, the role of Netaji in our freedom movement has been increasingly downplayed by the Congress Party and the ‘official’ historians to the point that Netaji was reduced to a footnote in our history textbooks for high school students by the time I left India in 1969. Then, in 1974, right after I came to Europe, I had a surprise encounter with an Englishman as we waited for the boat in the Hoek van Holland to go to England. On learning that I was from Calcutta, he startled me by starting a conversation  in reasonable Bengali. As it turned out, he was an engineer at the Gun Shell Factory in Cossipore in the 1940s  and had once lived in Saheb Bagan next to Chiriamore. He told me that had  Netaji  been born in his country, his countrymen would put up a Column for him next to Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square. This comment has been resonating with me ever since. If this Englishman were alive today, he would mention with a wry smile that his countrymen have put up a statue of the Mahatma near their Parliament instead.

The Mahatma and Netaji were, without doubt, the greatest freedom-fighters in their respective generations. That Netaji has virtually faded from our history books is attributed to Nehru’s anxiety that the truth about Netaji might diminish his own unassailable position in India. But other leaders of the Congress were relieved as well. They must have been alarmed at Netaji’s audacity to contradict the Mahatma when their opinions differed. This was bound to create a bad precedent for them. It could not be tolerated in a country where leaders want to ‘rule from their graves’. This has led to the kind of dynastic politics we are witnessing all over India today, with the BJP and the CPI-M being the refreshing exceptions. Even Bengal has fallen prey to this destructive virus. An honest assessment of the differences of opinion between Netaji and the Mahatma is imperative for the future of our country. As our Prime Minister so aptly put it, “There is no need to strangle history. Nations that forget their history lack the power to create it.”

Gandhiji returned to India from South Africa in 1914 and got involved in the freedom  struggle by joining the Indian National Congress. He first fought for delegation of certain powers to Indians by constitutional means, just as most others in the party. But everything changed with the massacre at Jallianwalla Bagh in April 1919, and the subsequent reaction of the colonial government to that unspeakable atrocity, and made “a rebel of the once loyal” Mahatma. By the end of 1920, Gandhiji took over the mantle of the Congress at the Nagpur  session, where a policy of progressive non-violent non-cooperation with the triple boycott of legislature, law courts and educational institutions was adopted. This was  followed eventually by the non-payment of taxes. The Congress even declared its goal as Swaraj that the Mahatma interpreted as “Self-Government within the Empire if possible -  and outside, if necessary.” Gandhiji even promised Indians Swaraj before the end of  1921.

Netaji passed the Indian Civil Service (ICS) examination in 1920 and resigned from his post in May 1921, while still in England, to devote all attention to the freedom of his country. On arriving by ship in Bombay, he went straight to meet the Mahatma who was staying there at that time. He wanted a clarification from the Mahatma on three points. Here are Netaji’s own words, “Firstly, how were the activities conducted by the Congress going to culminate in the last stage of the campaign, namely, the non-payment of taxes? Secondly, how could mere non-payment of taxes or civil disobedience force the Government to retire from the field and leave us with our freedom? Thirdly, how could the Mahatma promise Swaraj (that is, Home Rule) within one year, as he had been doing ever since the Nagpur Congress?” He was satisfied with the Mahatma’s answer to the first question, but remained unconvinced with the reply to the other two. Although disappointed with the replies of his leader, Netaji went to Kolkata and vigorously participated in the non-cooperation movement under the Congress leader in Bengal, Deshbandhu CR Das. 

As Netaji suspected, the year 1921 ended with no   Swaraj in sight. Then on February 1, 1922, Gandhiji sent an ultimatum to the Viceroy, Lord Reading, declaring that if the Government did not promise to grant Swaraj in the next seven days, he would be obliged to start a movement for non-payment of taxes in the Bardoli subdivision of Gujarat. This electrified the nation and similar measures were being prepared all over India. Then in an entirely unrelated event, the police station of an unknown village, Chaura Chauri, was attacked by disgruntled villagers killing some policemen. When the news reached Bardoli, Gandhiji summoned the Congress Working Committee there and the committee, at his insistence, ordered the civil disobedience movement to be stopped throughout the country. The anti-climax led to a dramatic lack of confidence in the leadership and it took eight years before another serious movement for freedom could be launched in India.

Low-key efforts for obtaining Swaraj continued throughout the decade. The only significant development for us was the imprisonment of Netaji without trial in 1925 in Mandalay in Burma. The prisoners there were put in cages, like animals in zoos, exposed to the elements throughout the year. The other prominent leader ever sent there by the British was Lokamanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak. He died soon after his release. Netaji’s condition also deteriorated dramatically in the Burmese prisons. He was released in 1927 at the intervention of top government appointed doctors, B. C. Roy among them. The British  instinctively realised who their most formidable enemies were, and concentrated on neutralizing them.

(To be concluded)

The writer is ex-dean and emeritus professor of Applied Mathematics, University of Twente, The Netherlands.)

Read more at http://www.thestatesman.com/news/opinion/netaji-and-the-mahatma-i/118085.html#TIJpOhB9GiH1dBUZ.99

[Ths Statesman]