POINT TO PONDER
The leader who lifelong looked upon every woman as incarnation of the Divine Mother and would cast no carnal glance at any, could such a one ever engage in romantic alliance or in marital relation with any when the whole fabric of his character had been built upon the secure foundation of the principles of his preceptor at a distance, Swami Vivekananda?
When later during those tumultuous day of the Second World War he formed the Rani Jhnasi Regiment in honour of the great heroine of the 1857 Revolt, he looked upon every young girl in the regiment as his own daughter and they also reciprocated daughter's reverence and affection to their beloved leader. He called them Ranis, indicative of the honour in which he held them, and charged a responsible male soldier to look to their personal safety throughout the period of the war.
Such a pure soul, could he have blasphemed his self-avowed continence and cross over to carnal connections? I dare say, no. Providence alone knows best what may or may not have chanced, for 'inscrutable are the ways of the Lord', or, as we in Indian spiritual parlance say, 'the Mother is an adept in the art of making the impossible possible.' But to my gut feeling and to my rationalised conviction Netaji remained celibate and spotlessly pure throughout the tenure of his known life and no woman could have trespassed into that forbidden zone of his personal sanctity of body and mind where even the gods dared not tempt him.
Written by Sugata Bose
The leader who lifelong looked upon every woman as incarnation of the Divine Mother and would cast no carnal glance at any, could such a one ever engage in romantic alliance or in marital relation with any when the whole fabric of his character had been built upon the secure foundation of the principles of his preceptor at a distance, Swami Vivekananda?
When later during those tumultuous day of the Second World War he formed the Rani Jhnasi Regiment in honour of the great heroine of the 1857 Revolt, he looked upon every young girl in the regiment as his own daughter and they also reciprocated daughter's reverence and affection to their beloved leader. He called them Ranis, indicative of the honour in which he held them, and charged a responsible male soldier to look to their personal safety throughout the period of the war.
Such a pure soul, could he have blasphemed his self-avowed continence and cross over to carnal connections? I dare say, no. Providence alone knows best what may or may not have chanced, for 'inscrutable are the ways of the Lord', or, as we in Indian spiritual parlance say, 'the Mother is an adept in the art of making the impossible possible.' But to my gut feeling and to my rationalised conviction Netaji remained celibate and spotlessly pure throughout the tenure of his known life and no woman could have trespassed into that forbidden zone of his personal sanctity of body and mind where even the gods dared not tempt him.
Written by Sugata Bose
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