Subhas Chandra Bose and Rash Behari Bose ought to be studied together to gain a good insight into the workings of the revolutionary movement for freedom. While Netaji played the decisive role during the Second World War to effectively bring India freedom, Rash Behari Bose engineered plots to overthrow the British regime during both the World Wars and worked in the interwar years to build up Japanese support for India's freedom. However, while Netaji, despite great great perfidies perpetrated against him, has, after all, at long last, gained due prominence from a vast number of his followers nationwide, the elder Bose remains still in the shadow, his contributions remaining confined to the attention of a few scholars and researchers with little general circulation. And, yet, without the foundation laid by him in terms of formation of the Indian Independence League and the Indian National Army 1 under Capt. Mohan Singh, Netaji's coming to East Asia to garner armed support would have been an exercise in futility. It was Rash Behari's labour of love for his motherland, from where he had sought self-exile in 1915 following the Hardinge assassination attempt, that galvanised the forces culminating in the armed assault of the INA on the British, compelling them to eventually evict India. Hence, the revolutionary career of the two leaders, Netaji and Rash Behari, are, in the final analysis, intertwined and need conjoint study for comprehensive understanding.
Written by Sugata Bose
P.S. :
Some more observations :
1. Master of disguise -- both Rash Behari Bose and Subhas Chandra Bose. Masterda Surjya Sen was no less. But Rash Behari Bose, perhaps, was the most innovative, audacious and enterprising of the trio in this regard.
2. The two most enigmatic personalities of the freedom movement, each unique in his own way and, yet, connected by so many common bonds centring that core of concerns, the freedom of the motherland.
3. One more point. Both Subhas Chandra and Rash Behari were deeply inspired by Swami Vivekananda and held him to be their life's ideal. It was the galvanic shocks of Swamiji's writings that shook their frames and careered them onto the path of ultimate sacrifice for the motherland to free her from colonial fetters.
4. Rash Behari Bose's escape to Japan on hindsight seems providential as it gained eventual fruition in the final offensive that the redoubtable revolutionary launched against the British in alliance with his junior colleague Subhas Chandra Bose. Could Rash Behari have foreseen this climactic episode way back in 1915 when as P.N.Tagore he had hoodwinked the British to escape to Japan? Who can tell the answer?
5. Jatindranath Mukherjee alias Bagha Jatin had been blessed by Swami Vivekananda himself. While Rash Behari and Subhas Chandra idealised Swamiji and were inspired at a distance by the Master to pursue their revolutionary career, young Jatindranath was fortunate enough to meet the 'cyclonic monk', to pilfer the epithet from Hemchandra Ghosh's arsenal of words. Swamiji had mandated preservation of psycho-physical purity (brahmacharya / continence) for Jatin and sent him to Ambu Guha's gymnasium where he himself had as a youth practised wrestling. The Swami passed on the martyr's mantra to the youth, ''Die for an ideal since die we must." Jatin would live up to it when he himself made the revolutionary mantra 'Amra morbo, jagat jagbe" (We will die so that the world awakes). On the fateful battle of Buribalam, Balasore, Jatindranath Mukherjee alias Bagha Jatin had preserved his unspoken promise to the Swami and lived up to the promise the Swami had envisaged in him. He had not quit the battlefield in the name of reclusive revisionism.
6. Enigmatic though they both were, the younger Bose has outlived the elder by way of the perpetuating myths that have grown round him. And an endless number of conspiracy theories have mushroomed that have kept him alive in the public imagination more than his historically chronicled deeds. While Rash Behar Bose died a natural death in failing Japan in 1945, months before her final fall following Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose disappeared into thin air on 18 August, 1945 and never reappeared in public. This led to the weaving of a myriad myths about him with an ever-increasing number of adherents to fanciful stories so spun. Here lies the great departure between the two heroes. One had a natural end to his extraordinary life's saga while the other remains deified with supernatural attributes accorded to him by dint of his sudden disappearance and supernormal exploits as a 'dead ghost', whatever that may mean and however impossible such hyper-heroism may be in a world rigidly structured to contain such fanciful flow of events as the devout claim their hero habitually engineered and brought into being. Rash Behari lies largely in oblivion in so far as public memory is concerned. Not so Netaji whose hold on the imagination of the masses grows by the day on account of the fantastic myths that are being woven about him. Here lies the large difference in public perception about the two patriots. Rash Behari after all is a mortal man whereas Netaji is an immortal God as of now.
7. @ Prodipto Bhattacharya : Does Srijit Mukherjee think so, that Gumnami Baba was Netaji? On television he remained non-committal though. I am yet to either see his film or come to any definite conclusion about this most inconclusive affair where counter-arguments abound and a plethora of claims, misinformation, flawed analysis and ludicrous logic cloud clear judgement. I am open to all information, privy to few, ignorant of most and in consequence totally undecided, although loaded by doubt heavily as to the truth of most of the fantastic superhuman feats attributed to the monk incognito of Faizabad. But I reserve my respect for all such despite it all for they are by claims of the ardent linked to Netaji whom I deeply love and adore. As I read more, my confusion clears a bit but some irrational propositions of reputed researchers and their unseemly diatribe against contrary opinion crystallises copious confusion and deliberate doubt again, unsettling my whole understanding. It seems this murky matter must induce misapprehension unless one exerts oneself to the utmost with an open, rational and a curious mind geared at gleaning data, sifting them with diligence and arriving at inferences, and that too with a steadfast, almost 'religious' devotion to plumbing its depths. To tell you the truth, I have not had the occasion to delve so deep and draw my own definite conclusions, although I, nonetheless and quite naturally, maintain my predilections and preconceptions about the entire issue which is indefinite, inconclusive and oscillating like the bob of a pendulum between contrarily disposed ends. I will keep apprising about my status in this regard through my copious posts, maintaining ever my neutrality by all means, for I am a writer and, as such, merely a reporter of events, thoughts, observations and analyses but not quite a conclusion about such a murky affair unless plumb it to a sufficient solid depth where I touch its bedrock and realise the truth for certain. Thank you for asking this question and helping me to self-analyse my thinking, thereby clarifying my thoughts and standpoint on this entire affair.
8. Journalist Susmita Yes, right you are. But eminent British face-mapping expert, Neil Millar, thinks otherwise. He cites in his analysis a striking resemblance between the Tashkent Man's face and that of Netaji. He rates the similarity at a high grade, although he does not pronounce his verdict at near 100% identity. My untrained eye detects pronounced dissimilarities between the Row 2 Column 2 photograph with all other photographs exhibited here except the one on Row 2 Column 3 with which there are similarities. (Refer : Tashkent Man photo in exhibit of 9 photos, 8 of Netaji and 1 of the Tashkent Man)
One more point. Netaji would have been 69 years at the time of the Tashkent Pact and was unlikely to look younger than when he was 48 at the time of his sudden disappearance prior to which he had been copiously photographed as Supreme Commander of the INA. To this objection the protagonists of the Tashkent Man being Netaji aver that by use of make-up such youthful appearance is legitimately possible. As to the marked difference in features they cite that such distinctive differences were deliberately brought about by 'Netaji' to keep his person clear of possible identification at such a high-profile meet as Tashkent where such an eventuality would have inevitably led to his arrest as 'war criminal' (refer WW II) and subsequent trial and execution, a fate that was thus avoided by this youthful distinctive make-up which only the expert eye of a face-mapper could fathom. Thus, there is logic straight and logic convoluted to establish the said unlikely identity of the Tashkent Man with Netaji which leaves both belief and doubt equally suspended on even scales for the devout and the doubtful to draw their respective conclusions.
9. We get some account of Rash Behari Bose's multiple disguise from Narayan Sanyal's book 'Ami Rash Behari ke dekhechhi'. But the account is incomplete as Bose's life has been incompletely chronicled till date. And all of it was historical and not heresay. Those associates in revolution are but gone and gone with it, perhaps, the chance of recording those daring escapades in disguise when Bose hoodwinked the British police and military personnel at will with his seemingly inexhaustible ingenuity.
10. Subroto Mitro And this monk, who lived incognito and was variously known as Bhagavanji, Pardewale Baba, Gumnami Baba and the like, did maintain (a) that Netaji had no romantic / marital relation with his Austrian secretary by the name Emilie Schenkl and had no progeny thereof, and (b) that the great escape was not effected with the help of Sisir Bose in the seat of the chauffeur.
11. Another point of claimed but unsubstantiated similarity between the two revolutionaries is that both married foreigners, Rash Behari Bose a Japanese woman and Subhas Chandra Bose an Austrian woman. While the former's marriage is duly documented, recorded and certified, that is, the latter's was claimed post his disappearance and has no authenticity to it in terms of documentary evidence. Rival parties assume rival stance regarding this and the matter till date remains unresolved in the minds of the masses.
12. @ Aneish Bhattacharya : That is the Tashkent Man who British face-mapping expert Neil Millar said bore striking facial similarities with Netaji, although, nowhere near absolute similarity as such. And yet legends grow and theories abound and the truth becomes more and more inaccessible to the masses amidst the plethora of unconnected episodes all attributed to the central personality through fantastic conceptions without rational support to substantiate their validity. Thus Netaji remains shrouded more and more amidst thickening cover beneath heaps of ever-accumulating myths and magic. The rational discourse is lost or is at best lopsided and disbalanced on contrary ends with rival parties to this perplexing position assuming a curious mixture of reason and assumption to force-feed the people their version of the truth. Who knows for sure the truth though?
13. But the Tashkent Man does resemble a man from the subcontinent, I would even hazard, a Bengali. Mihir Bose, a biographer of Netaji, categorically affirmed before Siddharth Satbhai and several others in a programme called 'Chaye pe charcha' that the Tashkent Man was a Pakistani diplomat who had accompanied General Ayub Khan to the Tashkent Peace Summit. The name of this person he had been told by the Pakistani authorities but he could not then recall off-hand. This is a significant lead that needs exploration.
14. One point of difference between the two Boses. While Rash Behari knew how to make bombs in doing which he even accidentally lost a finger, one does not hear of Subhas Chandra having had the occasion to make bombs or having ever thrown them at an adversary like his senior leader did when he debatably hurled one at Hardinge in December 1912.
Another point of marked distinction was Subhas Chandra's prolonged participation in Gandhian passive politics owing to the exigencies of the times which Rash Behari never had to suffer. The latter was out and out a hard-core militant nationalist with armed insurrection as his guiding goal which goaded him on throughout his protracted revolutionary career.
15. In all these discussions on Netaji, strangely, Rash Behari Bose does not feature much, for he remains unconnected to the disappearance mystery of his younger comrade-in-arms. Rash Behari died several months before Netaji's disappearance and, thus, there is almost no discussion on him in this regard. And it is naturally so. But, if this be the situation, one must consider whether the historical Netaji also finds much space in this public deliberation. It is a sad spectacle that these revolutionaries are today more cast into oblivion by their most ardent and vocal supporters who spend all energy in, more often than not, chasing wild geese, the fantastic tales that abound about the hero of disappeared dreams as well. For how many truly care to study carefully his historically chronicled feats of epic proportions? More attention is drawn by magical mythical claims of global operations which are least credible. The man Netaji is, thus, being lost in the myth Netaji and history is being neglected to accommodate farcical fanciful tales bred more in gullible acceptance of anything fantastic without an iota of rational reservation.
Rash Behari is lost in the process, too, and his almost magical feats of revolutionary activity in reality is relegated to a footnote in the minds of the masses who are more consumed by free-flowing imagination than concrete episodes enacted by the redoubtable revolutionary in real. Sad, sad indeed is the degeneration of the intellectual climate of the nation, especially, that of much-wounded Bengal.
A reversal of this unhealthy trend in overbearing irrationality is the crying need of the hour for the resurrection of the revolutionaries in the public imagination and for the endurance of their legacy in the common consciousness. Rash Behari Bose and Subhas Chandra Bose must both lead the way here in the re-establishment of the revolutionary legacy. And it must be their historically chronicled achievements that must show the path. Let us study these two heroes in conjunction in our bid to comprehend colonial consequences and their antidote. May Bose and Bose deal the death-knell to the unholy alliance of truth and myth !
16. Himadri Tarafder Read 'Ami Rash Behari ke dekhechhi' by Narayan Sanyal. Breathtaking account of the revolutionary's life in motherland prior to his escape to and self-exile in Japan.
17. The study of Rash Behari Bose will automatically bring in A.M.Nair, his able lieutenant in Japan. Nair's escape from India to save himself from British wrath and subsequent protracted activity for the cause of India's freedom must be studied to get a clearer picture of the overseas efforts by the Indian diaspora to liberate India. How relations subsequently developed between Netaji and Nair is also one of intriguing interest and throws an alternate light to the evolving scenario.
18. Rash Behari Bose handed over the reins of the revolutionary movement for India's freedom overseas into the hands of the Netaji, freshly arrived from Germany. Singapore welcomed the charismatic leader and East Asia helped him in his mission as men, money and materials poured in at the Netaji's behest to help launch the liberation struggle. The expatriate Indians, most of whom had never seen their ancestral motherland but had dreamt of their association with her, now gave their all as they plunged into the struggle at the Netaji's call. They proved by their spontaneous response that umbilical links with the mother are never sundered despite generations of distant lodgement. And when they marched unto Imphal through the forests of Burma and across the rivers Chindwin and the Irrawady, their patriotism won divine audience, what to speak of men.
Is it not a shame that there is so little recognition of their supreme sacrifice for the motherland of their distant dreams even today in independent India? Is this not a terrible ingratitude on our part towards these valorous ones for the blood they spilled at the clarion call of the Netaji, "Give me blood and I shall give you freedom?" Time it is to remember them and glorify their sacrifices by declaring 21 October, 1943, the foundation day of the Provisional Government of Free India, as the Independence Day of India in line with the American and the Irish Republics. That done, with an electric effect India will truly 'spring to life and freedom' instead of feigning it as such as of now with a load of dominion status masquerading as genuine independence. Else, pray tell me what compels us to continue as a member of the British Commonwealth of Nations despite breaking free of colonial shackles? Why must the Indian Head of State pay special respects to the British monarch who is the sovereign head of the aforementioned Commonwealth? Did Rash Behari Bose, Subhas Chandra Bose and unnumbered other revolutionaries struggle to achieve this cowardly compromised transference of administrative power in the name of their aspired for complete and unconditional independence?
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