BOSE S STATURE REDUCED ( GANDHI WAS

NEVER NON-VIOLENT)
BY M.J AKBAR (DAWN
27-1-2013)
We measure power through size. Check any poliltical
poster. The boss gets the biggest face. Others in the
pecking order descend till the miniature at the end.
Why was Subash Chandra Bose struggling among the
also ran in the Bengal Republic Day tablaeu? Sawami
Vivekananda, understandably, had pride of place. But
it might have been better to keep Bose out of the
jumble rather than literally reduce his stature. If
Bengal forgets, how long will India remember the only
Indian to head a Government of united India?
Bose declared indenpence before the British gave it in
1947. His government in exile did not have Gandhis
sanction. It fought on the wrong side of the Second
World War; but it was proud and free government
whose contribution to our freedom has been reduced
by the domestic political forces he challenged.
Bose is an embarrassment to congress because he
challenged Gandhi, and was a powerful parallel icon to
Nehru. Bose asked Indains to give him their blood, and
he would give them freedom. Gandhi promised
freedom without violence. Gandhi refused to join the
British war effort in 1939; Bose went a step further,

and led Indian troops on the side of the GermanyItlay-Japan axis.However, their horion, freedom, was
the same.
More than six decades later the argument might seem
pedantic, and yet it is worth revisiting.Invlauable
Indian of dominion status, Indians got vicious brutality
at Jallianwala Bagh and the pernicious Rowlatt Act.
It is generally known that Gandhi was not a pacifist:
he served on British frontlines in the Boer and Zulu
wars in South Africa, and was very eager to lead a
medical unit to the killing fields of France in 1914, at
the onset of the First World War. In 1918, Gandhi
worked so hard as a recruiting agent for the British
army, urging Gujaratis to prove they were not
effeminate by picking up a gun, that he almost died
of exhaustion.Farewell bhajans began to be sung
before he recovered.Gandhi lost hope in Britain.
Britain had as much to protect in 1945 as in 1918.
London knew that its empire would unravel at the
point where it had began, in India, once India became
independent.What pushed Britain towards the exit
gate? Of course there was the irresistable momentum
of Gandhis nationwide struggle. But the British had
faced this challenge before, in the non-co-operation
movement 25 years before.

The significant difference was the nationalist

sentiment unleashed by Bose among Indians in
uniform.Boses Indian National Army
(INA)
showed them where their national loyaties should lie.
Boses war also inspired the young to surge beyound
the confines of congress.
Even Gandhi, who only had faint praise for Bose in a
1945 obituary
(subash Bose has died
well. He was undoubtly a patriot though misguided),
had to admit in an article published on Feb 15, 1946;
The hypnotism of the Indian National Army has cast
its spell on us[Netajis] patriotism is second to
none.he aimed high but failed. Who has not
failed?.... The lesson that Netaji and his army brings to
us is one of self-sacrifice, unity irrespective of class
and community, and discipline.
When the British put three INA officers-Shah Nawaz,
aMuslim, Saghal, a Hindu, Dhillion, a Sikh-on trial for
sedition, India exploded in wrath. Nehru said on Dec
24, 1945:The INA trial has created a mass upheaval.
Bose broke the backbone of British rule when he
destroyed trust between the British Raj and its armed
forces.The eminently sensible Sir Claude Auchinleck,
commander in chief, accepted that any extreme
punishment for INA officers would make governance
impossible, because Indians adored them as national
heroes.This, he said was the general Opinion held In

India, not only by the Public, butby quite a

considerable part of the Indian Army as well
Subash Boses contribution to the formation of a
Republic of India was no less than that of the very
greatest of our founding fathers.Bose proved in
practice what an Indian secular state would be. At a
time when the Musllim League was in ascendent, he
had the love and trust of Muslims.
He lived his dream of gender equality when he set up
the Rani of Jhansi regiment,under the fiery and
beautiful Lakshmi Swaminathan.When Bose told the
Japanese he was setting up a womens-only force,
they thought he was joking.
I donot believe Bose could have fought alongside
Hitler, who advised the British to shoot Gandhi dead,
and resented the Japanese advance because he
thought Asia was being lost to White Europeans. Hitler
was an undisguised racist, as were all Nazis.
Perhaps India can survive without Bose. But such
amnesia will only diminish India.