AN IDEA ABORTED AND AN IDEA FULFILLED

This is the power of Theory as Marx puts it. It grips the consciousness of the masses but it needs a leader to direct its course and Netaji was one such leader, for us the only one who truly cared for freedom above everything else, far more than self or ideology or any spiritual or philosophical persuasion, dry and divorced from life or requiring relinquishment of national duty at a time when the motherland groaned under the terrible tyranny of the British imperialists who had made India fodder for the building up of their vaunted empire.

True it is that 'one individual may die for an idea; but that idea will, after his death, incarnate itself in a thousand lives', but it is also true that while thousands may, after the death of the progenitor of the idea, take to the idea itself in real earnest and dedicate their lives to it, yet, they may fail to produce that single seminal soul from among themselves who may lead them unto the fruition of the idea in turbulent times under constraining conditions. The leader is not everyday born who becomes a Netaji. These are rare personages and appear but seldom in history, when the life of a nation is ebbing out to the detriment of world civilisation or when civilisation itself is facing extinction from the barbarism of brutal elements within its broader ambit seeking homogeneity of horrendous primitive culture. At such times of terrible turmoil a Netaji appears as the saviour of an oppressed race and embodies in his being the hopes and aspirations of a subjected people.

So, it is clearly evident that while it may be Netaji's magnanimity to inspire his followers or his countrymen in general with this articulation of his, it remains a fact, though, that in the death of a Netaji such an idea remains in the realm of the idea alone even in the thousands in whom it seeks expression and dies, aborted, a premature death with its progenitor amidst the tumult of the times. Generations pass before similar propitious historical circumstances emerge giving birth to a lustrous leader again who lives out the idea to fruition with his men following in his heels.

My deference to Netaji notwithstanding, this remains my humble submission that the idea must simultaneously incarnate in a living leader and a thousand followers of his, willing to live it out and, if called for, willing to die for it gamely, before it may find fulfilment in reaching its emphatic end, its final fruition, its desired destination in the attainment of the cherished goal. Vande Mataram! Jai Hind!