NETAJI -- AN ALTERNATE UNDERSTANDING
Netaji criticised Hitler on his face about the disparaging remarks he had made about India in his book 'Mein Kampf', but was silent about the same the Fuhrer had made about the Jews and the Slavs and other races he considered sub-human. This is understandable as Netaji had gone to Germany not to seek redresses for the Jewish situation there but to seek help for the liberation of India from the British. This may not be a satisfactory answer for surface internationalists and humanists who would have liked to have seen in the uncompromising Indian leader a vehement repudiation of Nazism on the face of Hitler that day. But historical compulsions are complex and often tortuous in their workings and allowances must be made on that count to Netaji in this regard. His singular concern was the liberation of India and not world liberation as might have been the mission of a prophet like Swamiji.
The greatness of individual action while being related to its altitude in conception and execution is also intimately connected to the imperatives of the situation in which it unfolds, its prior motivations, aims and objectives and the means adopted to arrive at its fulfilment. But there is also one more consideration that ought to govern our judgement before we pass verdict on such action and that is the level of consciousness from which the act is being performed and the sacrifices involved in the process. Human welfare is not a homogeneous affair that can be achieved by a singular act of greatness or even a series of acts along a definite line, invariable and intransigent. The dynamics of society shifting focus with time and the circumstances altering with it, the need of the moment dictated by the imperatives of longstanding history and of the compulsions of the hour also shift and must be understood in their proper context if errors in analysis are not be incurred and verdict passed on an event not to miss the mark.
The problem of appreciation and criticism of a historical personality is complex and demands a training in rational rigour that eludes the common man who is prone to hazard opinions based on preferences and prejudices, preconditioning and positional stance that is dictated by the exigencies of the hour. And in so doing, the critic so easily forgets that the very considerations that bind him and often blind him in judgement were the conditions that had dictated the hero's actions within the parametric bounds of the historical situation then and that such contextual understanding must never be forsaken if one is to arrive at a sympathetic and more accurate appreciation of the motives and methods that had dictated the hero's actions in his liberation endeavour.
The premier attribute in Netaji was his love for the motherland, something that was innate in him, yet was kindled into a conflagration by his contact with the literature of Swami Vivekananda. The young lad had stumbled upon the Complete Works of Swamiji and proceeded to devour its contents till he himself was consumed by it. The ignition started early but lasted a lifetime as Subhas Chandra had promised it would in his confession to Swami Sundarananda, editor of the Ramakrishna Mission's Bengali monthly magazine, Udbodhan.
The contact of Subhas Chandra with Vivekananda was not fortuitous as it might apparently seem. It was Providential. The Swami had prophesied that he would after casting off his mortal coil continue to work for mankind and inspire men everywhere till it would know that it is one with God. And so he did after entering mahasamadhi on 4 July, 1902. Subhas was then 5 years 5 months and 9 days old. The news must have reached him from elders and his child mind, precocious and prodigous as it was, must have felt the tremors of the great departure of the seminal sage from the ambit of this earth. Born and brought up in Cuttack, Subhas had not the occasion to see the sage from close quarters or even from a distance and had to be content with hearing about him vaguely should someone in that illumined house of the Boses mentioned the Swami's name or deeds. Subhas had yet to grow up into youthful maturity before Providence would bring him face to face with the prophet patriot (ref. Bhupendranath Dutta's book by that name) and alter his life for good.
When at age 15, Subhas, now in his 10th standard in school, came upon Vivekananda's works, he was lightning struck by the vigour of the words. Only in his case he was saved and not killed by the immortal words of the Swami and his career was altered for good in its direction by the magnetic personality and message of the cyclonic monk (ref. Hemchandra Ghosh's submission post meeting Swamiji at Dhaka in 1901). The fire had been kindled and it had found its substance in the powder that was Subhas. And now the search began, the quest for God and Truth which eventually led him to the Himalayas in search of the Guru, the spiritual preceptor who could illumine his path for the finding of Truth.
The search ended at Kashi where Subhas met Swami Brahmananda, the President of the Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission. The Abbot, who was well known in the Bose family of Cuttack, divined Subhas' mission, affectionately addressed him, blessed him and graciously set his thinking along the line of patriotic service for the motherland. He then the lad back home to the waiting arms of the mother. Subhas, in his wanderjahre for three months in the plains, plateaus and the hills of India, had had his first encounter with the pathetic state of his conquered and colonised motherland. And he was determined to redress the situation. And he carried the charge of Ramakrishna in this his freedom mission, for who was Swami Brahmananda but the spiritual son of the Prophet of Dakshineshwar. Verily has it been said that the movement for freedom began with the Master in Dakshineshwar.
Subhas in college soon attracted to him a band of devoted followers who he led in the service of suffering humanity, with whom he debated and deliberated the problematic issues of the day and sought solutions in his philosophic readings, especially those of Ramakrishna-Vivekananda. Sometimes the fire of renunciation as yet seized him with a fervour that led him out with his friends, himself donning the saffron, to locations near and far in search of that stability of understanding that eluded him.
But those were tumultuous days of an entire world in strife as the Great War (World War I) raged and the fire spread to the colonies of the European imperial powers as well. Here in India the revolutionaries were plotting to overthrow the British Indian Government as the Ghadarites and the Berlin Committee advanced to the hour of an armed revolution that would end the British rule in India. But betrayals aborted both the episodes at Balasore and the Punjab and Bagha Jatin and his associates were martyred and Rash Behari Bose had to flee the country to distant Japan, never to see his motherland again.
A star had faded in the firmament of Indian freedom and another was rising from beyond the horizons that would herald a new beginning to this ever-intensifying battle for freedom. And this rising star was Subhas.
Soon, events took a precipitous turn as Subhas led a protest against a disparaging Professor Oaten of Presidency College that unfortunately led to a physical assault of sorts which Subhas was not a party to but, nonetheless, took upon himself the responsibility for the episode to save the errant friend from official retribution. The consequence was quick and sharp. Subhas was expelled from college and had to sit at home for over a year and a half before managing readmission in Scottish Church College through the intervention of the Vice Chancellor of the Calcutta University, Sir Ashutosh Mukerjee. Subhas stood second yet again in his Bachelor's Degree Examination following up on his like performance in the Matriculation Examination where he had also stood second. He was now set to sail abroad to study in Cambridge University for the coveted Indian Civil Service Examination.
There in England Subhas Chandra covered a course of two years in a mere eight months and yet stood fourth among all the candidates for the Indian Civil Service Examination. But now the dramatic part happened which gives us a massive insight into the young man's psychological make-up. Subhas refused his ICS placement to the shock of an entire empire. The most coveted post of a civil servant in those days which had no parallel in position or prestige or power among administrative jobs in the Empire he spurned like so much dust for it was not in his nerve fibre to serve the dastardly British and oil their machinery that had kept 300 million of colonised Indians in perpetual servitude. The tremors were felt from London to New Delhi as Subhas catapulted to instant fame as the hero of the hour and the hope of a new awakening that was in the germ, ready to sprout and grow into the mighty tree that would shake up the citadels of the British Crown in times to come. The hero returned to India and went straight to meet the Mahatma who had already started making grandiloquent claims that he would bring freedom to the country within a year.
The meeting took place as the young eagle met the seasoned politician wearing the spiritual garb and got into the business straightaway as to what plans and programmes the Mahatma had in mind regarding the long-term consequences of his campaign of passive resistance. The answers being unsatisfactory as the Mahatma floundered in answering every question of Bose, the youth returned to Calcutta to take up tutelage under Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das, an association that was to leave a lasting impression on the young leader who was as yet in bud.
But the blossom was soon to be. Subhas immersed himself in political and civic work like a man possessed, making contacts with the revolutionaries for good measure even as he worked under the banner of Gandhian non-violent passive resistance which he deemed as the imperative of the hour for the country was completely unarmed and, so, not in a position to take up arms in general insurrection against the existent order of things.
Netaji understood the importance of the Gandhian movement of mass consolidation against the British. He was a thinker of the highest order and realised that the entrenched British administration could not be uprooted by sporadic acts of revolutionary terrorism. Nor was the half-starved population in a position to take up arms in revolution against the imperial colonial order in place. He clearly read into the mind of the masses who were as yet dormant in terms of political consciousness, leave aside psychological preparedness for armed revolution.
Unfinished and expanding ...
Written by Sugata Bose
Netaji criticised Hitler on his face about the disparaging remarks he had made about India in his book 'Mein Kampf', but was silent about the same the Fuhrer had made about the Jews and the Slavs and other races he considered sub-human. This is understandable as Netaji had gone to Germany not to seek redresses for the Jewish situation there but to seek help for the liberation of India from the British. This may not be a satisfactory answer for surface internationalists and humanists who would have liked to have seen in the uncompromising Indian leader a vehement repudiation of Nazism on the face of Hitler that day. But historical compulsions are complex and often tortuous in their workings and allowances must be made on that count to Netaji in this regard. His singular concern was the liberation of India and not world liberation as might have been the mission of a prophet like Swamiji.
The greatness of individual action while being related to its altitude in conception and execution is also intimately connected to the imperatives of the situation in which it unfolds, its prior motivations, aims and objectives and the means adopted to arrive at its fulfilment. But there is also one more consideration that ought to govern our judgement before we pass verdict on such action and that is the level of consciousness from which the act is being performed and the sacrifices involved in the process. Human welfare is not a homogeneous affair that can be achieved by a singular act of greatness or even a series of acts along a definite line, invariable and intransigent. The dynamics of society shifting focus with time and the circumstances altering with it, the need of the moment dictated by the imperatives of longstanding history and of the compulsions of the hour also shift and must be understood in their proper context if errors in analysis are not be incurred and verdict passed on an event not to miss the mark.
The problem of appreciation and criticism of a historical personality is complex and demands a training in rational rigour that eludes the common man who is prone to hazard opinions based on preferences and prejudices, preconditioning and positional stance that is dictated by the exigencies of the hour. And in so doing, the critic so easily forgets that the very considerations that bind him and often blind him in judgement were the conditions that had dictated the hero's actions within the parametric bounds of the historical situation then and that such contextual understanding must never be forsaken if one is to arrive at a sympathetic and more accurate appreciation of the motives and methods that had dictated the hero's actions in his liberation endeavour.
The premier attribute in Netaji was his love for the motherland, something that was innate in him, yet was kindled into a conflagration by his contact with the literature of Swami Vivekananda. The young lad had stumbled upon the Complete Works of Swamiji and proceeded to devour its contents till he himself was consumed by it. The ignition started early but lasted a lifetime as Subhas Chandra had promised it would in his confession to Swami Sundarananda, editor of the Ramakrishna Mission's Bengali monthly magazine, Udbodhan.
The contact of Subhas Chandra with Vivekananda was not fortuitous as it might apparently seem. It was Providential. The Swami had prophesied that he would after casting off his mortal coil continue to work for mankind and inspire men everywhere till it would know that it is one with God. And so he did after entering mahasamadhi on 4 July, 1902. Subhas was then 5 years 5 months and 9 days old. The news must have reached him from elders and his child mind, precocious and prodigous as it was, must have felt the tremors of the great departure of the seminal sage from the ambit of this earth. Born and brought up in Cuttack, Subhas had not the occasion to see the sage from close quarters or even from a distance and had to be content with hearing about him vaguely should someone in that illumined house of the Boses mentioned the Swami's name or deeds. Subhas had yet to grow up into youthful maturity before Providence would bring him face to face with the prophet patriot (ref. Bhupendranath Dutta's book by that name) and alter his life for good.
When at age 15, Subhas, now in his 10th standard in school, came upon Vivekananda's works, he was lightning struck by the vigour of the words. Only in his case he was saved and not killed by the immortal words of the Swami and his career was altered for good in its direction by the magnetic personality and message of the cyclonic monk (ref. Hemchandra Ghosh's submission post meeting Swamiji at Dhaka in 1901). The fire had been kindled and it had found its substance in the powder that was Subhas. And now the search began, the quest for God and Truth which eventually led him to the Himalayas in search of the Guru, the spiritual preceptor who could illumine his path for the finding of Truth.
The search ended at Kashi where Subhas met Swami Brahmananda, the President of the Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission. The Abbot, who was well known in the Bose family of Cuttack, divined Subhas' mission, affectionately addressed him, blessed him and graciously set his thinking along the line of patriotic service for the motherland. He then the lad back home to the waiting arms of the mother. Subhas, in his wanderjahre for three months in the plains, plateaus and the hills of India, had had his first encounter with the pathetic state of his conquered and colonised motherland. And he was determined to redress the situation. And he carried the charge of Ramakrishna in this his freedom mission, for who was Swami Brahmananda but the spiritual son of the Prophet of Dakshineshwar. Verily has it been said that the movement for freedom began with the Master in Dakshineshwar.
Subhas in college soon attracted to him a band of devoted followers who he led in the service of suffering humanity, with whom he debated and deliberated the problematic issues of the day and sought solutions in his philosophic readings, especially those of Ramakrishna-Vivekananda. Sometimes the fire of renunciation as yet seized him with a fervour that led him out with his friends, himself donning the saffron, to locations near and far in search of that stability of understanding that eluded him.
But those were tumultuous days of an entire world in strife as the Great War (World War I) raged and the fire spread to the colonies of the European imperial powers as well. Here in India the revolutionaries were plotting to overthrow the British Indian Government as the Ghadarites and the Berlin Committee advanced to the hour of an armed revolution that would end the British rule in India. But betrayals aborted both the episodes at Balasore and the Punjab and Bagha Jatin and his associates were martyred and Rash Behari Bose had to flee the country to distant Japan, never to see his motherland again.
A star had faded in the firmament of Indian freedom and another was rising from beyond the horizons that would herald a new beginning to this ever-intensifying battle for freedom. And this rising star was Subhas.
Soon, events took a precipitous turn as Subhas led a protest against a disparaging Professor Oaten of Presidency College that unfortunately led to a physical assault of sorts which Subhas was not a party to but, nonetheless, took upon himself the responsibility for the episode to save the errant friend from official retribution. The consequence was quick and sharp. Subhas was expelled from college and had to sit at home for over a year and a half before managing readmission in Scottish Church College through the intervention of the Vice Chancellor of the Calcutta University, Sir Ashutosh Mukerjee. Subhas stood second yet again in his Bachelor's Degree Examination following up on his like performance in the Matriculation Examination where he had also stood second. He was now set to sail abroad to study in Cambridge University for the coveted Indian Civil Service Examination.
There in England Subhas Chandra covered a course of two years in a mere eight months and yet stood fourth among all the candidates for the Indian Civil Service Examination. But now the dramatic part happened which gives us a massive insight into the young man's psychological make-up. Subhas refused his ICS placement to the shock of an entire empire. The most coveted post of a civil servant in those days which had no parallel in position or prestige or power among administrative jobs in the Empire he spurned like so much dust for it was not in his nerve fibre to serve the dastardly British and oil their machinery that had kept 300 million of colonised Indians in perpetual servitude. The tremors were felt from London to New Delhi as Subhas catapulted to instant fame as the hero of the hour and the hope of a new awakening that was in the germ, ready to sprout and grow into the mighty tree that would shake up the citadels of the British Crown in times to come. The hero returned to India and went straight to meet the Mahatma who had already started making grandiloquent claims that he would bring freedom to the country within a year.
The meeting took place as the young eagle met the seasoned politician wearing the spiritual garb and got into the business straightaway as to what plans and programmes the Mahatma had in mind regarding the long-term consequences of his campaign of passive resistance. The answers being unsatisfactory as the Mahatma floundered in answering every question of Bose, the youth returned to Calcutta to take up tutelage under Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das, an association that was to leave a lasting impression on the young leader who was as yet in bud.
But the blossom was soon to be. Subhas immersed himself in political and civic work like a man possessed, making contacts with the revolutionaries for good measure even as he worked under the banner of Gandhian non-violent passive resistance which he deemed as the imperative of the hour for the country was completely unarmed and, so, not in a position to take up arms in general insurrection against the existent order of things.
Netaji understood the importance of the Gandhian movement of mass consolidation against the British. He was a thinker of the highest order and realised that the entrenched British administration could not be uprooted by sporadic acts of revolutionary terrorism. Nor was the half-starved population in a position to take up arms in revolution against the imperial colonial order in place. He clearly read into the mind of the masses who were as yet dormant in terms of political consciousness, leave aside psychological preparedness for armed revolution.
Unfinished and expanding ...
Written by Sugata Bose
Shiv Kumar Iyer Such a beautiful article. Excellent read! 🇮🇳🌷
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