MADHURI BOSE, WHAT FELICITY WITH THE PEN!

What an essay! An incisive documentation of historical facts and possibilities that clarify vision about the Indian independence movement, its interpersonal dynamics and ultimate perfidies that ruined the chances of a strong united nation emerging from the ruins of the Empire instead of the divided house that masqueraded as the fruit of freedom with a million lives lost to communal carnage and ten million rendered destitute through displacement. The authoress' felicity with the pen makes for delightful reading, the lucidity of language leading the reader in an effortless flow unto the final word whence comes understanding of the larger imperatives facing our nation today and comprehension of the unintelligible issues of our national life post-independence.

The relative obscurity of the senior of the Bose brothers in the effulgence of the more radical revolutionary scion of the family makes for an unclear picture of the duo in our understanding of their struggle for India's independence which was ever in unison in point of planning, programming, principle and philosophy and never a disjointed, separate, mutually opposed, inharmonious endeavour. Subhas and Sarat must be seen as a single soul singing the hymn of revolution to free India and must not be segregated in our vision as we study them, for they were complementary aspects of a single-minded aspiration for freedom that animated them through their entire lives. And this is an assertion that has a profound significance for our understanding of the brothers Bose who in life and in death remained inseparable, such was the bond that forged them into a unified utterance of the Mother-heart that yearned for freedom.

So far as the perfidies of Nehru are concerned, the essay is strongly suggestive of his deceit, his duplicity and his double-dealing that spelled the doom of our nation and engendered in its wake the long dynastic disaster that made a mockery of all that the revolutionaries had lived and died for.

The martyrs' blood must be avenged. Subhas and Sarat await the day yet for the fullest fruition of freedom as they live on in the bleeding hearts of countless souls as beacons of inspiration, as the flame of undying hope in the destiny of a resurgent nation. Vande Mataram! Jai Hind!