UNITE, MY FRIENDS, AND COLLECTIVELY FIGHT

We won our freedom because of the war waged against the British Crown by the Indian National Army. Let us never forget it and let us gratefully acknowledge it. With this recognition of the momentous achievements of Netaji and his INA, let us unitedly fight for the resurrection of the true history of our freedom struggle, tracing its political course from 1857 when the First War of Indian Independence was waged to 1947 when the Transfer of Power was staged amidst the horrors of Partition. For this we must unitedly struggle but, alas, each one of the factions already in action are attempting to steal the show for themselves, for men are men and cannot give up their petty claims of the passionate self and rise beyond personal considerations to the attainment of a higher ideal easily.

Money, power, fame and specific political allegiance continue to vitiate the atmosphere of this self-discovery of the nation in Netaji and so easily is being forgotten the essential message of national well-being that he stood for. To top it all, there are divergent narratives of what happened to Netaji post 18 Aug, 1947 when he disappeared as if into the morning mist, and this causes significant friction among the diverse groups, upholding their specific schools of thinking related to this subject, which debilitates the movement for discovery of the truth. All these are seemingly intractable issues and have kept the acrimony between the rival factions of the same movement alive and precipitating often to abysmal lows.

The appeal from this writer is to all these warring factions to rise above individual preferences, prejudices and political compulsions, and, so, to combine forces into a mighty resolution that will pressurise the governments of pertinent nations into revealing what yet remains classified in their secret files on Netaji. Once this is achieved, let us all recede into the background and let truth take centre stage and speak for itself.