REMARK OFF THE CUFF ... 4

1. Cowardice in escape may suit some but certainly not Netaji who was too valorous to hide incognito. Must imagination run wild?

2. Is Gumnami Baba's being Netaji a possibility? Remotely yes, but then credible evidence alone and not mere suppositions will suffice to drive home the issue.

3. Why would Stalin kill Netaji who had sought asylum with him? What purpose would it serve him to eliminate such a potentially powerful ally of the Soviet Union with pronounced socialistic leanings? Who did him in then?

4. Stalin may have incarcerated Netaji on account of his wartime fascist associations and may have executed him thereon on account of his paranoia thereof. But it is difficult to subscribe to such a theory simply because Stalin would at any rate have found in Netaji a great ally in his bid to arrest the growth of Anglo-American influence in Asia, knowing full well Netaji's anti-imperialist worldview. It is unlikely that Stalin would have not had the vision or the wisdom to appreciate the larger political gains in keeping Netaji alive as he extended the Soviet sphere of influence in fragile Asia. But all these remain in the realm of speculation and nothing definite may be said about these. A significant point to note here is that Stalin was terribly inimical to Nehru and did not once visit India nor did he invite Nehru on a State visit to Soviet Russia. Stalin did not give audience even once to the Indian ambassador, Smt. Vijaylakshmi Pandit (Nehru's sister), during her tenure in Moscow nor did he send a message of condolence on the assassination of Gandhi. Indo-Soviet relations changed for the better after Stalin's death when Khrushchev began the de-Stalinisation process and subsequently visited India along with Bulganin. Nehru also visited the Soviet Union likewise as Indo-Soviet bilateral ties continually strengthened. If Netaji was still alive then and was in Soviet Russia, could it have been that he was then done in by the Soviets in complicity with Great Britain and in the full knowledge of the Government of India? Or is it likelier that he had been eliminated much earlier by the paranoid dictator who had spelled the doom of so many?

5. Saraswathi Rajamani has not been honoured with the Bharat Ratna or any Padma Prize. Shall we hang our heads in shame?

6. Call we ourselves men when shamelessly we have lived in luxury while the INA ex-servicemen lived lives of penury?

7. Netaji has to be understood in terms of his lifelong celibacy if he is to be understood at all. All other projections are in vain. The fire which Swamiji ignited in his adolescent mind consumed his carnal desires for good and set him free in the sphere of sublime love for his motherland which led his intrepid being into strange alliances across the wide world in his bid to unshackle her of her colonial bondage.