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 14th 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!
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