It is a such a shame that so many intellectuals in independent India feel a certain sense of hesitancy in accepting Netaji as the iconic liberator of India. Fortunately, this does not affect the common man much who ardently accepts Netaji as his leader nonpareil but for whom we would not have seen the light of freedom. It is interesting to note how governmental patronage can buy the intelligentsia to its fold and thwart the free flow of the chronicling of history, how leaders not to the liking of the dispensation in power can thereby be marginalised and reduced to becoming footnotes in history, how seminal figures of the freedom movement, the very titans who fought for and eventually liberated India can be ignored, maligned and made to die in mid-air so that the Crown of India may carry on its passage from father to daughter, daughter to son and so on. And, I reiterate, it is a shame that intellectuals play party to this grand design, this national conspiracy that would have deserved the guillotine in revolutionary France. Yet, the saga continues as generations afresh take up the mantle from their predecessors to perpetuate the myth of the foisted history of the freedom struggle even as hapless citizens galore keep watching in dismay and despair the plight of the revolutionaries they care for at the hands of these hangmen of history.
Is there then a way out? Of course, there is and it lies in the scientific research on the freedom movement by interested and unbiased citizens armed in not merely emotion but in reason as well, for an objective study is the need of the hour and not emotional effusion in the name of research. That suits the common man who knows no better a way to do justice to the cause than to express his anguish and frustration in terms emotional alone for his heroes have been wronged and he can scarce bear it. But the intelligentsia that is working for the government and the foreign powers that seek to keep India in a state of passivity, the hired historians and the purchased press, they will have to be countered effectively by a parallel movement in the reverse current that will seek to redress these wrongs of history. It is here that our thoughts must be focused and it is here that work needs to be done if we are patriots pure and love our leaders who gave their all and lost their lives to free us from British bondage. Citizens, awake to this responsibility instead of merely rabble-rousing till kingdom come.
Written by Sugata Bose
No comments:
Post a Comment