TWEETS N TWEETS

We must learn to live with divergence of opinion but that does mean we must take a hypocritical stand on open religious proselytization.

One religion alone is true and all others false or partially true. What sort of philosophy is this and how may peace on Earth ever ensue thus?

The only way to harmony and peace is to take a liberal stand on life and living, respecting others and not adhering to blind authority. Awake!

Vivekananda preached strength and not paralyzing principles that debilitate man. Purity, patience, perseverance---these were his precepts.

Man must no more subscribe to archaic superstition or submit to authoritarian faith. He must reason out his philosophical position in life.

The world is in the throes of the emergence of a revolutionary new order when humanity will take control of affairs free of dogma.

The only way ahead in this violent world is to cultivate character, intelligence and spiritual strength. Only then may we combat barbarism.

Festivities are fine, they have their place in life. But love for all is the essence of it, it is life itself. But then, who cares to love?

When Netaji was betrayed by Congressmen and the nation sent reeling down the precipice to destruction, how he must have felt! To see India die in fratricidal war!

Humans are derived from anthropoid apes. Is this the genetic reason for so much of hatred that subsists in the world? Whither humanity?

As long as I live, so long I work for the evolution of humankind. When the final moment comes, I shall rest in peace. But now it is struggle all the way and no time for rest.

Futile will be any development Mr.Prime Minister unless the country's defence is first taken care of. Military strength a must if we are to move ahead.

The martial spirit of the country needs to be awakened. Manifestation of military strength an imperative in today's world, else, peril for sure.

How long will the Congress steeped in conspiracy against Netaji pose to be supporters of declassification? Hypocrisy has its limits but evidently not with the Congress.

India paid badly for the Congress conspiracy to keep Netaji out of the nation. Partition, Kashmir and Arunachal have been the consequences.

How is capitalistic exploitation that creates and perpetuates poverty among the masses and induces rampant corruption in society peaceful and non-violent in any way?

Gandhiji's philosophy of non-violence had debilitated our armed forces leading to our capitulation to China in 1962. Did he have any statesman-like vision?

Gandhian non-violence has led to India losing territory to Pakistan and China and unnumbered jawans. He injected weakness into the nation.

How is it that western nations have got away with impunity after committing colossal colonial atrocities over Asiatic and African countries?

Can USA in all conscience justify Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Can Britain condemn communism and fascism and yet fail to condemn imperialism?

We offer lip-service to Gandhi but are we Gandhians by any stretch of imagination? And is it feasible that we be so any more as a nation?

Politicians,wake up! Time to cultivate character a bit if welfare of the nation is at all on your agenda. Else, your days are numbered. Jai Hind!

Make the means the end so that the end may be the means. To think is one, to be anxious another. Thought refreshes, anxiety drains.

Nehru's allegiance to the British in keeping independent India in the Commonwealth robbed India of the sheen of freedom in a way.

The youth must be protected from decadence of all sorts so that their idealism does not suffer irreparably. Vivekananda and Netaji are the way.

Now is the time to remember Krishna's doctrine of karma-yoga and plunge into the work of nation reconstruction. Women and the masses, awake!

Is muslin weaving possible to revive or is it a dead art gone beyond redemption? May the Governments of India and Bangladesh find avenues of research to restore it!

The history of the nation must be re-written in the light of the findings from the declassified files on Netaji. Let truth prevail! Jai Hind!

There is but one way ahead for the Congress to survive extinction and that is to place the Party above the personality. Let them do so now.

On the auspicious occasion of Lakshmi Puja may I remind my countrymen to consider the well-being of our less privileged brethren. Jai Ma!

Share your views please. Shed some light on these issues.

1.What has the Government of India done till date to absolve Netaji of the Allied tag of War Criminal? Are we a self-respecting nation? Answer.

2.Why did the Congress Government destroy two classified files on Netaji while the Khosla Commission was going on? Is it not a criminal offence?

I invite opinion on this issue:

Had Netaji returned to India prior to independence, what would have been the likely scenario thereafter?

Although stratification of society into the four varnas has served its usefulness and must be done away with, its best elements must be retained.

We offer lip-service to Gandhi but are we Gandhians by any stretch of imagination? And is it feasible that we be so any more as a nation?

We must have a clear-cut national consciousness without the cobwebs of false idealism, weakening and paralysing notions of non-violence.

The problem that faces India is how to translate her lofty spiritual ideals into living reality for her people, giving them a secure life.

All contrary ideals and ideologies meet in the Vedanta, the rationale of all divergent philosophies. Oneness is at the heart of things.

Character-formation in large numbers of people is the key to uplift of the nation.The cultivation of spiritual values is mandatory for such.

Study of Sanskrit must be encouraged. In its literature are contained glorious principles of life and living that can revolutionize the world.

Humanity ought to address its problems at a fundamental human level and not at the superficial level termed fundamentalist. That is the way.

The British successfully divided India on the basis of religion. Are we now attempting a similar divide on the basis of both religion and caste?

Unless fanatical ideologies are effectively combated by liberal thinking by vast numbers of people, the country is headed towards anarchy.

The armed forces must be strengthened. Only then will our nefarious neighbours be kept within bounds of decency. The law of force they well appreciate.

Was Lal Bahadur Shastri murdered? If so, why and by whom? The Union Government must declassify the Shastri files forthwith to reveal the truth.

Will we never raise the question before the international community of reclamation of our lost land to China in Kashmir and in Arunachal?

Intolerance cannot be tolerated. Freedom of literary expression cannot be curtailed. Censoring literature amounts to killing democracy.

India should worry more about developing her defence against China than Pakistan. We should give topmost priority to defence when we frame our budget.

We are wishing Bijoya greetings now that the demon has been annihilated by Devi Durga. But have we gained any significant victory over ourselves?

When will the Indian intelligentsia give up allegiance to the West for a pat on the back by them and turn patriotic instead? Shame on sycophancy!

Declassification of Netaji files on 23 Jan, 2016. Hopefully it will be a Republic Day of a different flavour to follow 3 days later. Jai Hind!

The sun rises on the eastern horizon, the Netaji files are about to be declassified. O nation of mine, are you ready to receive the hero?

Why don't politicians across the spectrum rejoice that the Netaji files are being declassified? Why such apathy? Who loses from this one wonders?

As education spreads, as the media becomes more active, governmental high-handedness is on the decline despite incidents. This is democracy.

This is the glorious woman who gave India her greatest son. Prabhabati Bose, mother of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.

The history of a nation hidden in secret files, shame on the Congress governments of the past! Declassify Netaji, rewrite history. Jai Hind!

Did Gandhi make a mistake in choosing Nehru as successor? Did the realization dawn too late when Bose's ouster had precipitated partition?

70 years after the disappearance, Netaji grips the imagination of the masses in India. The effect of declassification of the files will be electrifying.

Followers of Netaji, make a serious study of his writings. You will then be able to serve his cause better.

Dalits are not dogs neither are dogs undivine as may be slighted. Gen.V.K.Singh's remark is reprehensible and unbecoming of an ex-army chief.

Today Gen. V.K.Singh's adverse comment makes Brinda Karat react. Yet, the CPI had the temerity and foul taste to call Netaji Tojo's dog.

If India wants to rise as a nation, she'll have to drink deep of her ancient traditions rooted in her Sanskrit literature and Vedanta philosophy.

We have to build India, not any favoured section of it save the dispossessed and the underprivileged, purely on humanitarian grounds.

While we are rooted in tradition, its glories and its pitfalls, let us also shoot upward in rational enlightenment to foster peace on earth.

India will rise with Vedanta brain and Islam body. This is the prophecy of Swami Vivekananda that shall come to fulfil.

May we immerse Mother Durga today in our hearts full of love for all Her children of all communities and climes!

Netaji would never have had to leave India and seek Axis help had Gandhi and his followers not traitorously expelled him from Congress.

Unless religious absolutism is replaced by rational pluralism, peace on Earth is a distant call.

Secularists, denounce all religious fundamentalism and not merely Hindu fundamentalism. Take your stand against Muslim fanaticism as well.

Spread Vedanta to combat communalism the world over. Read Ramakrishna-Vivekananda to appreciate religious pluralism.

Netaji files are being declassified.History will be rewritten.Friends,unite to bring about revelation about Netaji.

Indians, shake off this colonial hangover of yours and rightfully reclaim your own heritage. Salute the INA martyrs and Netaji. Jai Hind!

Children, study hard and rebuild our broken world. You are the fairest flowers of humanity. Upon you depends the future of the world.

Indians must cultivate self-respect and not continue to have the colonial hangover. We must brighten our national culture and be proud of it.

Only when society as a whole rises in spiritual consciousness with love as the integral basis of life will war end and peace reign on Earth.

We are a strange self-deluded nation revelling in historical untruths. Ingratitude seems ingrained in us as we choose to forget our heroes.

NETAJI FORGOTTEN, NETAJI REMEMBERED?

We as a nation must learn to take a long-view of the consequences of our short-term policies. Temporary gain must never mar our permanent goals. Foreign policy must stretch across the century and not just career over the immediate hour to the nation's detriment. Time to remember Netaji as we shape our nation's destiny. With him somehow our motherland's fate lies inextricably linked. Jai Hind!

We are a strange self-deluded nation revelling in historical untruths. Ingratitude seems to be ingrained in us as we choose to forget the heroes who bled to give birth to free India. Else, how on earth do we still subscribe to Anglo-American propaganda about Netaji and the INA that denigrates him and his movement to liberate India from colonialism and its foster-brother imperialism? Or, has it now become staple to us who may rightly be dubbed Macaulay's children? My countrymen, wake up!

HEAR YE, O HIRED HISTORIANS!

It is a well-known fact that ‘history is a host of lies agreed upon’ for it is ever the victor in a battle or a war who commissions his hired historians to chronicle history from his vantage point to suit his ends and to perpetuate his name and glory. Yet, history emerges through the passage of time in its truer colour when regimes change, dynasties fall, an age ends and another unfolds with newer visions, fresher aspirations and a discerning generation that cares to see through the cover-ups of earlier ages. In such a time zone we are. Our independence is well nigh seven decades old, yet, we are entrapped in the colonial hangover, the Nehruvian legacy of Commonwealth and British belonging, Macaulay’s children, deluded and devoid of national self-identity and self-respect, self-besmirched through self-oblivion, ‘skeletons of the past’ without substance or source of sustenance. Time, indeed, it is that we veer around and take a fresher stance to alter the course of our national life and march ahead in true national colour without the blemish of foreign contamination.

And for this, we need historians bred at home who are fired by national zeal and not fuelled by foreign adulation or hired by perfidious parties plotting perdition of patriots. Then only will the nation awake when its true history is recounted to its people replete with the saga of the sacrifice of its martyrs and redolent of the narratives of fearlessness and fortitude in fighting for the national cause of freedom from the foreign yoke. Such a day has come. History is at the crossroads and a departure that will radically shift the focus from established falsities to truths buried in the tomb of hidden files is about to take place. Now is the hour of reckoning when our nation’s history will have to be rewritten in the light of declassified material on Netaji and his men. Historians, wake up!

We are a queer people who do not know how to honour our heroes and settle for our information and estimate about them from the very adversaries they had fought to release us into freedom. Necessarily, their accounts are coloured by their biased judgement, their prejudiced views founded on their national self-interest and their narrative flawed and partial. Such is the predicament in which the Indian child finds itself when it comes to learning about the history of its forefathers, the history of the freedom movement no less. The Indian student grows up with a bizarre narrative of the freedom struggle where omission of vital historical happenings is routine and interpretation of the mentioned fact distorted. Crucial events such as Bose’s great escape to the West, his sojourn in the Far East and his epic armed struggle that led to the eviction of the British from India are either marginalized in their mention or are denigrated as sort of seditious to the nation in their ultimate connotation. These are the machinations of the Anglo-American consortium with seditious support by substantial sections of the Indian government in the days gone by.

The poison injected in the minds of generations of free Indians through calculated indoctrination of falsified history has bred a nation of unpatriotic people who care more for their petty self-interest than for the larger cause of the nation and this is evident in the rampant corruption that plagues the Indian polity. The people, having been denied access to the entire narrative of the freedom struggle---the sacrifices of the extremist martyrs, the gallantry of the INA and their victorious march into Indian terrain before beating retreat into the jungles of Burma, the titanic effort of Netaji to liberate India against all odds, these and so many other episodes fraught with the virility of patriotic fervour and life-giving love---, have lost contact with their heritage and have been shorn of the vitality that sustains a nation.

If this nation wants to rise again, its people will have to be given back their rightful inheritance, the true history of their land written in bold words full of flowing love for the martyrs who bled, for the heroes who fought and for the countless millions that sacrificed their all for the cause of freedom. There must no more be pandering to the vanities of our erstwhile British masters in scripting our history. Our business is done with them and our sovereignty shall shine in our independence of thought and expression in so far as the chronicling of our nation’s life-story is concerned.

So, historians of free India, wake up, take the call of the hour and set about writing the narrative of the nation in colours truly Indian that may unbiased shine as the beacon for the furtherance of the career of this country. Declassification of the Netaji files in the offing, this is the right moment to set things right. Many of you, in alliance with the principal political party that ruled India over five decades, have betrayed the nation with falsities and fabrications that you have dished out as so much historical truth, your analyses coloured by political compulsions, your omission of facts glaring in their ingloriousness and your propensity to marginalize the contribution of whosoever fell on the wrong side of the powers that you so traitorously served. Time it is to rectify your stance as hired historians of the hierarchy and heroically veer around to hearken to the truth hideously hidden in these secret files that will see the light of day soon. Shame on your credentials as credible historians when you so serve anti-national interests and hinder the flow of free information, subvert the people’s power through misinformation and denial of an understanding of the nation’s history as it is and not as you fashion it to be under the auspices of the premier party post-independence. And salutations to those heroic historians who could thwart the malicious designs of the powers that be to write the glorious account of the freedom struggle in all its phases including valiant extremism which culminated in the INA march to freedom, despite opposition and opprobrium from the votaries of Gandhian non-violence and denial of access to classified information on such critical movements as brought India freedom in the final phase of her protracted struggle against her oppressive British masters.

We must conjointly build our motherland on the foundation of the true history of India. Declassification of all Netaji files the world over is the call of the hour as the nation rises up as a man with the vibrancy that animated it during the final hours of the Second World War when Netaji and his INA stormed the bastilles of British India. With fresh news coming in that the Russian Government is considering opening up the Netaji files in their custody, we once again send out the clarion call for the declaration of the true history of the freedom struggle, of Netaji and the INA on this, the 72^nd anniversary of the formation of the Provisional Government of Free India, an event so epochal but which so shamefully lies in utter neglect by the Government of Independent India that the nation is well-nigh oblivious of it. On this day in Singapore in 1943 did Netaji declare India’s independence from British colonial rule and form his Provisional Government of Free India before launching his final offensive, his armed onslaught on imperial Britain. We must honour this historic happening and seek inspiration from it to refresh our struggle for achieving true national independence in the form of making our nation militarily strong, eradicating poverty and bringing about cent percent literacy for our population, the three objectives Netaji had in mind to achieving post-independence. May we be full of the patriotic fervour that had animated our freedom fighters to sacrifice their all for the motherland and may we carry on with unmitigated vigour their unfinished struggle to build our nation!

Hired historians, polluted politicians, corrupt collaborators of concoctions, hear ye not the footsteps of the future? Upon ye they advance should thou not mend thy ways yet. Netaji arrives from everywhere, India, Russia, Britain, France, USA, Germany, Japan, Italy, Vietnam, China, Myanmar, from all corners of the world. A day there was when he had not a foothold in this wide world, when Japan had been bombed into submission, when his comrades in the Congress, having betrayed him, reaped the fruits of his liberation labour but disallowed him a hero’s entry into the motherland, dubbing him fascist aggressor and perpetuating the myth of his air-crash death, when the Allies hunted him the world over as Enemy Number One, when this leonine soul had no land of his own to stand on save his conviction about the impending freedom of his country which carried him on to a Siberian gulag to suffer torture, then to emerge in Red China, Vietnam, India, who knows where? Or, did he die in Stalinist Siberia of suffocation in a plastic bag? What happened to Netaji? These files will tell. This much for now, lest the vesper hour passes by and the hero goes abegging yet again. Jai Hind!  

      

        

 

 

   

          

  

DURGA, RAM, KRISHNA, NETAJI

Durga Puja is at our door-step, no irreverence there though, for Mother Durga is ever enshrined in our hearts. The demon of ignorance will soon be slain and so is it every year. But the demon resurfaces and the routine continues of the rise of evil and its destruction. Each time, though, Mother Durga slays the demon with her arms and ammunition and does not go pleading for mercy to the demon, enter into parleys with it or resort to passive resistance to do away with it. She declares an open war against the demon which will see no other reason but that of force, of armed resistance against it. The very method the demon applies to win victories against its adversaries, it responds to when applied against it and capitulates when war is valiantly waged against it. There is no attempt by the Divine Mother to convert Mahishaasur to the path of righteousness by appealing to its higher self through the practice of passive resistance, non-violent non-cooperation, civil disobedience or even bearing upon it the peremptory call to quit the terrain. Mother in her omniscience knows the limitations of the potency of passive struggle against the deep, dark ignorance of the demon and hence, does not foolishly resort to such trivial measures to attempt to annihilate evil. She annihilates the demon by the very means it applies against the gods and now against her. So much for Mother Durga’s winning independence for us through non-violence!

Now we come to Raghupati Raghava Raja Ram. Mother Seeta has been abducted by the Rakshas Ravan. Ram, her beloved husband is in inconsolable grief. Does he resort to prayers, petitions, pleas and parleys with Ravan through emissaries beyond diplomatic bounds? And do such passive methods work against the redoubtable Ravan? No, the wondrous discoveries of the future devotee of Ram fail miserably as Ravan throws the open challenge of war to Ram if he wishes to manfully rescue his beloved wife. Now what does he do? Does he stubbornly hang on to his feeble methods, foil friends who may be valorous enough to attempt the rescue of their Mother Seeta, conceive of opponents in friends and thwart them in their every bid to carry out the rescue mission, pretend to be the apostle of peace before his demonic adversary and try to move his heart to be a second apostle or does he with military vigour build up an alliance against Ravan and march on to Lanka to wage war? Does Ram stop till he has almost annihilated the entire Rakshas race that has sided with evil? Does he exhibit effeminacy in combating his counterpart in war or does he exude true kshatriya valour in eliminating evil that will remain as a beacon for future generations to seek direction from whenever a crisis of civilization confronts them consequent upon the rise of evil? Votaries of Gandhian non-violence, ponder!

Finally, the flautist perennial. The Kauravs have committed unnumbered blasphemy against their cousins, disrobing sister-in-law Draupadi, daring to burn alive the Pandavs and depriving them of their legitimate right to kingship through the dice-deceit. War is imminent. Yet, last minute deliberations for peace are on. Krishna, as ambassador for the Pandavs, tries appeasement with a most unequal offer, seeking a mere five villages for the five Pandavs, in the bargain giving away the rest of the kingdom to Duryodhan. But the latter does not budge an inch and threatens to imprison the diplomatically immune ambassador. War is declared between brothers.

On the battlefield of Kurukshetra Arjun turns timid at the sight of the huge Kaurav army commanded by the ablest generals of the land. He cites many a reason to support his cause of abstinence from war but Krishna sees through the trick. He strongly advises Arjun to take up arms and manfully destroy the enemy. After a prolonged debate the disciple is convinced and rises to deliver death-blow to the enemies of civilization. Why does Krishna not advocate non-violence through and through to set up order in the decadent India of his times? Why does he not advise Arjun to take up passive resistance as the righteous method of setting things straight with the Kauravs? Why does he allow the carnage of war as the legitimate means of establishing righteousness on Earth? Is he then wrong? What is the position of Gandhians on this?

When all peaceful means to bring about reconciliation between adversaries fail as if so the often the case in history, war remains the only option to bringing about the resolution of many a contentious issue. Not that it does not have its terrible consequences but that a war that is fought in national defence against foreign aggressors or that is waged against foreign occupiers of one’s nation to liberate the motherland cannot be simply dubbed as so much violence and nothing more. Such a war is the holy duty of a nation to wage and failure to do so is cowardice and irreligion. Netaji waged such a war against the British Raj with his Indian National Army.

Let the people of this land on the eve of Mother Durga’s war against Mahishaasur wake up to the fact that the British resembled the demonic forces of the day and Netaji was empowered by the gods, so to say, to crush them and evict them permanently from the holy soil of Bharat. Gandhian non-violence was, like Arjun’s plea, a cowardly capitulation before the might of the British Raj which was totally unjustifiable on the grounds of ethics, morality and spirituality, unsupported by the Ramayan, the Mahabharat and the Chandi and the great kshatriya tradition of this land. Netaji, however, listened to the call of the Krishna of the Age in the form of Vivekananda who had exhorted Tilak to blow off the British with bomb from India. He had famously said to him, “What India needs today is a bomb!” Netaji and his INA was that bomb that burst upon the British in 1944-45 to scurry them home like sick babies that needed the nursing of their mother. Jai Hind! Jai Durga Ma! Happy Durga Puja to all!

THE NATION REJOICES, TRUTH WILL TRIUMPH, NETAJI LIVES ON

What a day it has been! It felt like 15 August, 1947 when the news broke out that the Netaji files will be declassified at last. There was euphoria all over as the feeling sank in and one resonated to the vibrant descriptions of the first night of independence by one's mother long, long back when the whole nation was out there in the streets hugging each other, suffused with the emotion of redemption from slavery. 14 October, 2015 has been such a historic day. Memories of the midnight-hour, the first time over, will have flashed through the minds of old-timers who had witnessed it all. Verily, verily has this day been hailed as the true day of independence for our country by Netaji's grand-nephew Chandra Kumar Bose who in passionate terms spelt out the significance of this day whose import will only dawn on all with the passage of time as the day of final reckoning when history stood perplexed at the crossroads of its meandering course and then took a radical turn to seek its restoration. It is life to the nation, death to untruth and the resurrection of a billion souls who, like the phoenix from the ashes of the past, will yet arise, like the springing tiger, yet awake to take their destiny into their own hands and re-write the true history of their benighted motherland. It is a historic day, indeed. Netaji and his INA will be accorded their rightful place in the history of the freedom of this land. No more slighting, no more slandering, no more belittling their epic contribution to securing the freedom of hoary India long subjected to imperial tyranny. Today, the Prime Minister has won the hearts of a billion Indians and has aligned himself with the great revolutionaries of India that had bled for the freedom of their motherland. From the highest heavens are being showered on him graces by the martyrs who had given manhood to our movement before they spilled the blood of their veins to secure the release of their motherland from bondage. Glory unto all that had fought for the cause! Glory to Anuj Dhar, that leonine lone struggler in the formative years of the movement for declassification! Glory to his associates, one and all of that valiant enterprise, Mission Netaji! And glory to the countless millions of our sisters and brothers, our uncles and aunts, our departed ones, the deprived and the deceived, who have shed silent tears for the resurrection of their beloved Netaji, hoped against hope for his return as the government of the day spared no means to deny them access to these files that could have yet raised a revolution then and rescued the hero from his captivity unto death! Or perhaps, who knows, in what state he was? These files will tell.

And what a telling blow 'twill be for the perpetrators of this perfidy against the pre-eminent personality of the freedom struggle, its brightest star that had guided the course of the Indian revolution in distant land before assaulting itself in mighty vehemence against the tottering citadels of British imperialism to plant the Indian tricolour at Moirang in the summer of 1944! Jawaharlal Nehru and his Congress Party have done a deal of duplicity in complicity with the British against Netaji and his men. Shame on the founding fathers of our nation! Passing intelligence details on 'dead' Netaji and his family to MI5 even after Independence? Was that not treason? Indira Gandhi ordered the destruction of two Netaji documents. Was that not treason? What was the content of those papers, the nation demands to know? Nehru sat on the information of Netaji's being in captivity in Stalinist Russia, keeping it from Indians while passing it on to the British Prime Minister Clement Attlee, addressing Bose in his letter to Attlee as 'your war criminal' who ought to be dealt with by the British in any manner that suited them. Was this not perfidy of the most pernicious kind, the most malicious treachery to a comrade-in-arms who had sacrificed his all for the nation in the making? Was this not high treason? Ought Nehru not have used his Prime Ministerial powers vested in him by the people of this country to have brought Netaji back from Soviet confinement? But he did not do so. The country's first Prime Minister has much to answer for as history gets rewritten in the days to come post-declassification of the Netaji files.

The list of perfidious personalities is not yet over. The petty politicking of Gandhi in 1939, his tacit support of the pernicious Pant Resolution passed at Tripuri with the aim of crippling the duly elected Congress President and relegating him, thereby, to be a puppet in the hands of the great puppeteer, the Mahatma, his malicious manoeuvring of the members of the Congress Working Committee to the effect that Bose had eventually to resign from his Presidency and was thereafter expelled from Congress itself, all these proved to be disastrous for the country as it inexorably sank into the divisive bait of the British and suffered the horror of Partition. Does a Mahatma cling to temporal power in this mean fashion and betray the trust of a nation to bring about its terrible ruin when a brighter soul, 'young in age but ages in civilization', legitimately empowered by the Congress, seeks to unite the disparate forces within the polity at a moment of critical historical significance on the eve of the Second World War when a single sledgehammer blow by a united front could have sounded the death-knell for British imperialism and liberated the land these rapacious rogues had sought to desecrate and denude of wealth, culture and civilization? How perfidious does it seem in hindsight, even more now than when the hero of the nation, the 'Deshanayak' in the poet's peerless ascription, was betrayed by Congressmen at the behest of Gandhi and was, so, ousted from the Congress by the most malicious manoeuvring of the Mahatma that would put to shame the malevolent machinations of the British as well! And so were sown the seeds of dissension of a vicious kind in Indian politics to maintain a stranglehold over power that wrecked the life of this glorious nation for good, truncating it in freedom causing catastrophic communal carnage and ruining its run as a free nation fraught with hideous power-mongers who followed in the factious footsteps of the founding fathers of the nation. Hail Mahatma! Unto thee lies thy legacy from Tripuri!

But now, let us rejoice. History is being rewritten. The INA emerges from the forests of Burma, across the Chindwin, up the hills of Manipur on to Moirang once more to hoist this day the tri-colour of India's liberation from the tyranny of her own people at the helm of affairs. Once more the clarion call sounds, 'Chalo Dilli'. Netaji's shadow looms large on the perpetrators of perfidy, the ghost of history tracks down its suppressors. But for us, this is the hour of celebration, the moment of reckoning when the curtain on truth is being finally lifted and the sunshine of hope and light beginning to gleam through the dense dark of obscurity, of oblivion of our beloved Netaji and his children, the valiant soldiers of the INA. Let us rejoice even as we shed tears in pride and pain as we remember the triumphs and tribulations of the marching INA with the merriment of sacrifice writ large on their youthful faces. Who will forget thee, valiant martyrs for the cause? Not us, not us, we who have dedicated our body and soul to carry on the struggle started and sustained by you. Every drop of your blood will be avenged as we surge ahead to build the beloved motherland of your dreams, O heroic ones. Unto thee lies the future of India in us, the carriers of thy charge. We pledge to fulfil, we seek thy blessings, we prostrate at thy feet, Netaji.          
          

BRAVO, THE BOSES!

Who knows what will chance today? The evening holds the key to what lies ahead, the enveloping dark of the ensuing night or the lustre of the morn to follow? India lies in wait for the unfolding of the destiny of the Netaji files. Now it is up to the Prime Minister to determine the future course of action. Should he exhibit character enough, as his high office warrants him to do, and fulfil his pledge to the nation to declassify all Netaji files, then he will have aligned himself with the great freedom fighters this country has given birth to --- for even today we are fighting a collective battle for freedom, freedom from the seven-decade long injustice meted out to Netaji and his INA associates, freedom from the distortion of history, its suppression and utter concoction to suit nefarious political ends --- and will have been the worthy successor of the martyrs who have bled for the motherland's freedom. Mr. Modi will have secured his place in history and a permanent place in the hearts of his people if, today, he reaches out to the truth that lies hidden under the cover of closed files and unfolds before the nation what it is her legitimate right to know, her true history and the glorious saga of her greatest son. Should he fail to summon such courage, though, on whatsoever ground, be it political expediency or diplomatic necessity, he will have exposed himself as a man of infirm will, inconstancy of purpose, irresolute mind and, worst of all, as one more politician who placed his self-interest above the national cause. In which case, Mr. Modi will have actually slighted the Bose family by inviting them to his parlour and returning them with flimsy presents fraught with empty promises yet again, words as hollow as only politicians are wont to making, and so incurred the wrath of a nation that even today adores the 'forgotten hero' and may yet in his name en masse seek redress in whatever manner history has in store, I know not.

The hour is on, the Boses are on the way to 7, Race Course Road, the leader of the nation is thrilling in his very veins to receive the line of the one that was throughout East Asia hailed as the leader (Netaji) by expatriate Indians. It is the hour of reckoning. Now, Mr. Prime Minister, greet the Boses not merely with smiles and hugs, coffee and cakes, but hand them over their heritage, the history of their family in finality with respect to their beloved Rangakakababu (Netaji) and settle the dust, once and for all, over this murky business begun by the founding fathers of our benighted nation.

What more can I say than to bid good luck to the Bose family, offer my heart's ardour for the cause and strength of distant willing which may as yet reach them in this momentous hour when history, perplexed, stands at the crossroads to muse over her future meandering! Bravo, my friends, bravo! Unto thee was given the right to the restoration of history and the resurrection of her greatest son, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. Fare thee well, brave ones, the nation is with you. Jai Netaji! Jai Hind!

MR. PRIME MINISTER, 'TIS TIME TO DELIVER

The day of reckoning is fast approaching. Less than 24 hours to go before Netaji comes alive in the discussions at 7, Race Course Road at the Prime Minister's residence. History will be relived. Memories will flash along the tumultuous terrain of the Second World War in those turbulent final hours when the hero disappeared in a mist of uncertainty. Where, who can tell? Prior to the vesper hour deliberations will be on, the shame of a nation unfolded, the call for resurrection sounded. ‘twill be 5 in the evening when history will seek redress for unforgivable offences perpetrated in the name of patriotism by the politicians of the day, then and now, against one of the greatest patriots this country has ever seen.

  

There is a vibrancy in the air, a deal of expectancy, a feverish excitation building up in the minds of all who care for the cause of declassification, hectic activity along the corridors of power for good or for ill and a foreboding in the minds of the culpable ones who spared no means to erase the very memory of those whose remembrance even today brings tears to the eyes, a thrill in the fabric of one’s being and a nervous current that enthuses one to once more live for the land of one’s birth and die each moment for its eternal beatitude.

I wonder how Netaji must have felt when the nation let him down, when the Mahatma, who he so admired despite the latter’s terrible idiosyncrasies, simply rejected him and got him ousted from the Congress, when Nehru, his once comrade-in-arms in the Congress, did not let him return to his homeland and perhaps let him rot in a Stalinist gulag in Siberia, I wonder how the hero, forlorn and forgotten, must have felt as his country slipped from the ideals he and his fellow revolutionaries had fought for and valiantly died for on the battlefields of Asia. It is the worst perfidy perpetrated on patriots in the annals of history, not so much by the British as by the very countrymen they liberated from the tentacles of their tyranny. History, when fully revealed, if ever such a blessed day dawns on our beloved Motherland, will bring to book these perpetrators of the most horrendous offence to the freedom movement and the national life thereafter, that of plotting to keep away India’s brightest star from the current of national life and so depriving the Motherland of the services of her greatest son. Who knows what might have happened had the Mahatma and his men not hatched this conspiracy to keep Bose at bay and so self-advance the programme of perverted politics that would partition the nation and apportion power to the plight of the people of this benighted land?

But more of these we may muse on when the parley with the PM will be over and the nation will rejoice or mourn the life or the death of democracy that remains enshrined in her representative leadership. Till then, my countrymen, hold your hearts in the highest hope that truth will triumph, that the Prime Minister will see reason to declassify the Netaji Files and so enshrine his name along with all that have loved and died for Netaji and those that have lived on to carry on the struggle for the establishment of truth, justice and the restoration of history. Jai Hind!

                

'TIS TIME TO TAKE A CALL, MR. PRIME MINISTER

The Prime Minister Shree Narendra Modi is to be lauded for his attempt to clean up India through his ‘Swachh Bharat Abhiyan’ but for us, ardent followers of Netaji, it would be wonderful if he were to include the declassification of all Netaji Files lying with the Central Government and its Intelligence Agencies as an integral part of this transparency programme. Mere dust-riddance from streets by Ministers including the PM may be good for the camera but not so very good for the nation which is reality-bound and not photo-founded. The dust accumulating on these Secret Files for the last seven decades needs first to be wiped off before the streets are cleaned for it is always better to water the roots of a tree than its branches. The roots being nourished, the entire tree is rendered healthy with sufficient supply of fluid and nutrients.

Netaji remains an obscure character in governmental estimation despite hypocritical portrait-hanging and garlanding thereof in countless institutions once a year on his birthday. Hired historians of political parties and one party in particular that had unceremoniously expelled its duly elected President  for no crime of his save to have had the character to rise in national interest against the tyranny of the Mahatma’s misapprehension of the impending historical situation on the eve of the Second World War, continue to paint colourful untruths on the canvas on the young Indian mind, that of the all-encompassing influence of Gandhian non-violence towards the attainment of freedom from British imperialism with a few oblique references to this leonine patriot, Netaji, as one of those side factors that marginally contributed to the failed radicalism of the Indian Freedom Movement. Such deliberate half-truths and utter lies baked in malice against the greatest revolutionary of the freedom struggle and injected into the academic curriculum over decades has resulted in the utter loss of manhood in millions who have been shorn of a true valorous feeling for the country, a genuine Kshatriya spirit of service and sacrifice, and an abounding love for the nation with a self-dignity that comes from being rooted in its true history and not a fabricated one. Now it is time, indeed, to rectify the mischief of the past and, instead of passive atonement, bring about radical changes to the academic programme so that the children of the land are taught the history of their forefathers in truth and not as a bundle of lies agreed upon. To this end the Modi Government may do yeoman’s service by bringing to light all Secret Files on Netaji and do justice to the national cause. Only when such heroic souls are accorded centre-stage may we as a nation recover our lost vitality and march ahead with the tide of times even unto our eternal abode, the realm of infinity.

Now it is time indeed that the Prime Minister redeems his pledge to the nation that on assumption of power he would declassify all Netaji Files in his custody. He has invited the Bose family for a meeting with him at 7, Race Course Road at 5 P.M. on 14 Oct, 2015 presumably to discuss the declassification issue. The nation looks on to see what transpires from this meeting and ardently hopes that the Honourable Prime Minister will take the lead from here on to declassify all Netaji Files in the possession of New Delhi and proceed thereon to take up the issue with foreign governments to do likewise. Should he, however, fail to deliver and limit his efforts to mere socializing with the Boses on the 14^th of this month, offering them lip service as all politicians are adept at doing, but not going beyond to categorically announcing a time-bound programme for declassification, then he stands to lose credibility as the leader in whom the people of India have reposed faith for once after a long time of despair and disillusionment. However, these are all apprehensions of the hour of this writer and many more who may be echoing the same sentiments based on past experience of deceitful denial by governments, retracting of earlier stance taken and shameless citing of dubious reasons for hiding truth. It may also be a bit presumptuous at this point of time when the deliberations are yet in the womb of the possible for some of us to pretend prescience of its outcome. Let us wait a few more days in expectancy when we have already suffered a wait of seventy summers. What transpires will determine the future course of Indian politics. If the Files are released, Indian history will change and with it world perception about many of the so-called liberators of mankind in the dark hours of the Second World War, Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin et al, as their mischievous designs to plot and doom their arch enemy Bose will be laid bare. And neither will the old ploy of bypassing the issue on grounds of national security hold ground this time for the family is armed with legal luminaries and deft researchers who may parry such attempts with a fair measure of success we hope. May the Prime Minister hold on to his pledge, come what may, for a sovereign nation ought not to fear any force from within or without so much as to suppress the Voice of Truth for so long!

Transparency, I had noted at the onset of this essay, is the call of the hour. ‘Swachh Bharat Abhiyan’ is not a mere slogan nor is it an attempt, I guess, to merely clean up the streets of dirt but it has a deeper significance. The Prime Minister has sounded a most powerful wake-up call for all to clean up India in all its phases. And we are ready to comply, to cooperate, to conjointly clear up the debris of the past, the accumulated filth that has clogged up the avenues of national life and rendered life sterile. But the leader ever showeth the way and we expect that the Government start the transparency programme with a charity-first-at-home. Let it clear the desks and racks where dust is deep-laden on some secret files of international interest wherein lies covered up India’s biggest conspiracy. Netaji has suffered, so has his family, many of whom are no more. The INA soldiers are mostly ascended and those that remain do so in their final hours on Earth. It is a travesty of justice that all these have had to suffer the agony, the anguish of uncertainty about their leader, their hero, their god, their well beloved one for all these years, hoping against hope for his return, for some news of him, while the Government, apparently in full knowledge of his whereabouts and his destiny, chose to sit on such information, all the while propagating the myth of his death in a concocted air-crash. If today we demand declassification of the Netaji Files, we do so with the certitude of belief in the final victory of our cause, that of the establishment of truth, the end of speculation and the rewriting of history in the light of the findings from the declassified files. We are reasonably sure, to understate things, that there were sinister forces working behind the scenes to undermine Netaji and his great mission of national liberation by the INA and these culpable ones ought to be exposed before the wide world for the rightful establishment of justice.  And there are the diabolic designs of devious ones devising modes and methods to suppress truth even today that need to be thwarted as we progress towards the final victory.

Less than three days to go before the historic meeting between the Prime Minister and the Bose family will have taken place. Our good wishes go with the chosen ones on this mission for they are the vanguard of our hopes and aspirations centred round Netaji. Let us all pray for the success of this mission and in so doing strengthen the hands of those that are steering the ship to safety. Our combined might will win the day, so we hope, so we pray. Jai Netaji! Jai Hind!           

THE DIALOGUE CONTINUES

So it was, Bhaskar, softer feelings of reverence and love that seem to have flown in their hearts for each other despite the tumult of the day, and, what a pity that the twain could not combine forces to evict the evil of British imperialism and prevent Partition of the Motherland! Netaji tried hard but failed to overcome the stubborn resistance of the old man and his brigade, rooted as they were in their opposition to him in principle, ideology and personal enmity, although one may only surmise these from apparent events and is not privy to deeper feelings which may have yet bonded them beyond considerations of earthly politics. For such is the folly of man that his actions fail to articulate quite his inactions that could never see the light of day.

A SNIPPET FROM A CONVERSATION WITH MY FRIEND BHASKAR MUKHERJEE

Gandhi was a curious mixture of genuine contradictions. Although he was very manipulative by nature, a master politician but a poor statesman, still, he did rise and fall alternately to create a confused legacy of political events that smashed India for good. Yet, he did rise to heights at times, as I said, for all could not have been fooled by manipulations unless there was a touch of greatness impelling him to act as he did, foolishly, perhaps, more often than not, but nonetheless, with a sincere love of man and the world. His fault was his desire to emerge the world teacher while leading the national struggle. He was not divinely ordained to do so but self-ordained, proceeded to fulfil the role of the Mahatma and fumbled so hard in the process that when history takes count of it, he will take quite a beating before the antithesis is followed by the inevitable synthesis by men and women centuries hence when he will be accorded his due place in history.This, dear Bhaskar, is the dialectical flow of historical episodes and personalities.

HOMECOMING OF THE HERO

The 64 classified files on Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose that lay in the custody of the West Bengal Government are out there for public scrutiny. This is a historic moment whose significance will best be understood in the coming months and years. Right now the euphoria may blur vision and things may not be seen in the right perspective for a historical attitude is not a common human trait but needs cultivation through the pursuit of academic rigour. Yet, it is the common man who is the architect of history and it is his emotion that carves out great episodes in the annals of history. The subject of our discussion is the hero, the leader, the path-finder of these mute millions whose hopes and aspirations were once pinned upon this valorous soul as he circuited the world in fever-stricken Europe and Asia to deliver his people from subjection. The sledgehammer blow that he struck British imperialism ruined its citadels in India and paved the way for its colossal collapse across the world. Liberator of India that he was, he, in effect, demolished the very foundation of the British Empire and so altered world history for good. Like a bolt from the blue he arrived on the very shore of captive India with his legions and sent through the Motherland a mighty thrill which quickened the pulse of a million souls and instilled fear in the hearts of her captors. In the Battle of Imphal that followed, in a protracted struggle redolent of valour nonpareil by the I.N.A. that shook the very foundation of the British Empire, the heroes lost as Japan, devastated by atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, unconditionally surrendered to the Allied Powers on 15 August, 1945. Three days later on 18 August, 1945, Netaji, the Supreme Commander of the Indian National Army, reportedly boarded an aeroplane at Taihoku Airport in erstwhile Formosa and crash-landed to death. No official records were found to substantiate the story, no photographs were taken of the dying man in the local hospital, only verbal testimony given by Habibur Rahman, Netaji's lieutenant and, supposedly, co-passenger in the fateful flight was accepted as sufficient evidence by the Indian authorities to substantiate the Japanese narrative of the death of Netaji by accident. Netaji was no more, or so it was given to all to believe, but Netaji's closest kith and kin refused to buy this narrative. Knowing Subhas as they did, they understood that it was another of Subhas' great escapes under the cover of the air-crash tale. No trace of Netaji could be found. He had just melted into thin air. The Anglo-American intelligence refused to believe that he had died, neither did the Soviet Union. Only Japan maintained the air-crash storyline and the Government of India post-independence led by Jawaharlal Nehru fell for it.

Then what followed was perfidy. Nehru and the Congress plotted to obliterate the very existence of this valiant son of the soil. Text-books taught children historical distortions where Netaji and his I.N.A. were sidelined as one of those many events that had happened leading to independence. The Air-crash Theory of the hero's death was drilled into the subconscious of the people by a systematic form of misinformation, clever manipulation of facts, employment of professional historians to serve the vested interests of the Government and the suppression of evidence and its destruction by successive Congress Governments at the Centre. Thus was Netaji allowed to gradually sink into oblivion as the dismembered nation ever engaged in fratricidal struggle lost character. Netaji was hushed into silence for good. Or so it seemed till the Justice Mukherjee Commission Report laid before the world some startling facts that sent the Central Government scurrying for cover. And as is so often the case with weakness, the Government in a most unceremonious manner dismissed the Mukherjee Commission Report as unacceptable without citing any sufficient reason, and there the case of Netaji remained in animated suspension, suppressed but never quite erased from public memory. What a massive cover-up of the crime of generations of Congressmen beginning with their patriarch Jawaharlal Nehru and what an unfolding to be!

The day of reckoning has come. The secret files on Netaji lying with the Government of West Bengal have all been declassified. What will be revealed in the final analysis is a matter of conjecture, hope, delight and the shame of a nation that chooses to forget its tallest figure of the freedom struggle but for whom its very nationhood would have had a different connotation today. And I do not lay the charge against the masses whose object of adoration Netaji is and has always been, the countless commoners who prayed and hoped and wept in silence for the return of the hero, the naval soldiers who had gone berserk against their oppressive British masters and the millions and millions of mute Indians who had upon the arrival of their leader found an utterance to their unspelt aspirations. They were the ones that sustained and moved the revolution that ejected the British from the Indian soil. They laboured to see glorious India rise but they were given a partitioned Motherland by the machinations of their Congress and Muslim League leaders while their great Netaji was betrayed by these when there was time enough to put up a united front against the merciless mercenaries, the British, and thwart their malicious designs. But the perfidious deed was done citing communal violence as justification, much against the Mahatma's wishes who gradually lost control of the political forces unleashed in the wake of the frenetic demand for Partition on the basis of religion. Curiously, he chose to fast indefinitely in his bid to stop communal violence which reportedly he succeeded in doing in specific cases but the pragmatist in him was careful not to indulge in the misadventure of fasting unto death to prevent Partition, for surely, for once he would have to carry out his resolve and lose his life in the bargain. No Mahatma of appellation or his spineless followers could have withstood the force of communal divide that had been carefully orchestrated and unleashed by the Machiavellian British and the 'Apostle of Non-violence' had to witness the most terrible carnage of his countrymen as the price of his feeble policies towards these malicious mercenaries who had throughout their evil reign only one objective, the economic drainage of India and her ultimate ruin if it came to that. The only one who had the necessary personality, political sagacity and patriotic zeal, who could have united a divided house and thwarted British aims of breaking India was twice betrayed by the Mahatma and his Congressmen, first at Tripuri in 1939 and then on the borders of India in 1945. History always exacts its price for misdeeds done and avenges all injustice meted out to its heroes and this was the price we paid---India partitioned, the Mahatma shot, tens of millions butchered by communal violence across the borders and fratricidal  fight over the last 68 years between India and Pakistan costing millions of lives, not to mention the terrible loss of life and liberty of the annexed Arunachal and Aksai Chin following the Chinese aggression in 1962 and earlier, shortly after India's independence. A non-violent revolution indeed!

But even now there is hope of recovery if we have learnt our lessons from the retribution received at the hands of history for mischief done to our foremost son, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. Let us then rededicate ourselves to the Cause of the Motherland and welcome the hero back amidst us at this deferred date, a homecoming befitting his stature as the premier personality of the freedom movement in its final phase even as the Mahatma was in its formative years. The Secret Files at New Delhi, London, Washington DC, Moscow, Berlin, Rome, Tokyo, Hanoi, Singapore, Beijing and Yangon hold the keys to the sensational disclosure about the life and times of the most enigmatic political personality of the 20th century, the greatest patriot the world has seen and a figure so robust and charismatic and such an intense enemy of British imperialism that history will take a U-turn and rerecord facts once the secret documents stand declassified and reveal the malicious machinations of the Allied Powers in their bid to destroy their Enemy Number One, India's brightest hope, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. Let us then actively participate in this grand project of building up public opinion on such a scale that popular sovereignty will enforce declassification and the truth will be out. It has to be a sustained campaign and not an isolated effort of the hour. Followers of Netaji must exhibit a strength of purpose and character that will quicken the latent love for Netaji in the masses and make the movement for declassification mass-based. Only then will the Central Government be under considerable pressure to unveil the truth. The will of the masses no government can resist and in a democracy it also provides the ultimate legitimacy to the movement. Hence, all efforts must be geared towards propagation of the Word and awakening the people of this great country to a sense of urgency in unravelling the truth of the freedom struggle and with it the truth hidden in the secret files in the exclusive possession of the Governments of India and a host of other foreign powers as cited above.

The hour draws near when the Bose family along with a few researchers and a legal luminary will meet the Prime Minister of India to place their demand for a time-bound declassification of the Netaji Files. What transpires will be interesting to see for it will be an eye-opener to the benign or toxic nature of the contents in either case of its being declassified or not being so. It will also determine the future course of the movement for the struggle to arrive at the final truth about Netaji is not entirely dependent upon the present government's attitude but is a historical process that will unfold over the decades to come till the truth is eventually revealed. No government can stop the evolution of a movement founded in truth for the Declassification Movement is based indeed on the people's perception that the truth about Netaji is lying under governmental cover and this popular attitude stems from the enormous secrecy that has been maintained about the Netaji Files till date. Not only that, this movement is not a fleeting phenomenon founded in ephemeral effusions about a great hero but is the expression of a long-standing struggle of many individuals and organizations who have spent their lives and resources in unearthing the truth about the leader they love and adore, the Netaji who lives in them as an undying flame flickering through the smoke-cover of deception and denial of the powers that have thwarted the Indian nation and rendered its historical development sterile. But the momentum is on and we must set sail on this voyage of discovery, the true discovery of India, to pilfer a term from the literary arsenal of the arch adversary of our hero. May Modiji be quickened to the Cause! May the Truth reveal! May Netaji and his INA stand resplendent before the nation in their homecoming at last, in their final march onto the citadels of Delhi! And may our Motherland feel rejuvenated in the return of her valorous sons as she meanders in her course towards a glorious future that beckons her on!

To such a day when O you heroes rise,
I send these lines tonight.
They'll waft through the dark, the starry skies,
To welcome you with the light.