21 OCT., 1943 -- 21 OCT., 2018 --- 75 YEARS IN THE WILDERNESS ... 1

21 OCT., 1943 -- 21 OCT., 2018 --- 75 YEARS IN THE WILDERNESS ... 1

On the eve of the 75th anniversary of the formation of the Provisional Govt. of Free India by Netaji let us gear up for this momentous occasion. It was on 21 Oct., 1943 that Netaji declared India's independence from colonial rule and yet this date remains largely unknown to the general public here and elsewhere on account of misinformation, lack of education, gross unconcern by the multitude on account of other preoccupations of life and simply a continuous engagement in the struggle for survival in a brutal world of necessity and want. But it is the failing of the Govt. of India ever since independence, rather a planned manoeuvring of governmental power, to keep the masses in the dark about this epochal event that was the high-water mark of our freedom movement.

When Netaji declared India's independence on 21 Oct., 1943, it was an undivided dependent India that was struggling for freedom. What came to be called eventually in the unfolding historical context as India's independence on 15 Aug., 1947 was but the Transfer of Power to two dependent dominions in divided India and emergent Pakistan which was given the status a day earlier on 14 Aug., 1947. India, thus, divided and debilitated, became a Dominion of the British Empire on 15 Aug., 1947 and remained so till 26 Jan., 1950 when the Constitution of India was promulgated and declared India a sovereign democratic republic.

But this was not the independence Netaji had declared on 21 Oct., 1943. It was a complete freedom from the British Raj of an undivided India with no legal strings attached in the form of a Transfer of Power Agreement or the clippings of power consequent on affiliation to the British Commonwealth of Nations that he had enshrined in the Independence Act of his Provisional Govt. of Free India. His was a complete sovereignty of India with all power knots of the British sundered for good, a la American Declaration of Independence from their erstwhile colonial masters in Great Britain.

That India continues to harbour this mental dependency on the British and accepts the Queen of England, the sovereign head of the British Commonwealth of Nations, as the leader in spirit at least of her own self as well, is far removed from what Netaji and the revolutionaries had aspired for by way of India's independence. That our children are so prone to settling abroad, to imitating western modes and manners, and to remaining oblivious of their own culture and historical past has a lot to do with this dastardly act of dividing the motherland along communal lines and acceptance in spirit at least the continuance of British rule in India in Commonwealth cultural terms. This is completely antithetical to everything that was there in the clauses of the Independence Act Netaji had brought into effect on 21 Oct., 1943.

End of Part 1

To be continued...

Written by Sugata Bose