I have one question which has bugged me often. Perhaps, the answer is known to many but not known to me. I can only hazard an educated guess at most which I desist from doing here. I rather request all to come up with a satisfactory answer to my following query. And the question runs thus :
Why did Sarat Chandra Bose continue to be a member of Congress after Netaji had been so unceremoniously expelled from it? Ought he not to have quit the Congress immediately and joined the Forward Block in solidarity with his brother's cause? Or, was it on Netaji's express suggestion that Sarat Bose continued in the Congress so that Netaji would get to know through him the details of the meetings of the Party to which he was no more privy post expulsion? Or could it have been in the larger national interest overriding familial interest, personal considerations and the like which prompted the elder Bose to remain in Congress even after his younger brother had been expelled, a move prompted by the thought that Sarat Chandra Bose could be of greater service to the nation from within the Congress than from without?
Must it then be assumed, and rationally so, that the brothers Bose had already charted out different political paths and that Sarat Chandra had no clue as to Subhas Chandra's plans of action? Or was it, as already stated, a carefully crafted political move by the Bose brothers to utilise the platform of the Congress still through Sarat's presence as yet there to muster support for Subhas's cause of freedom, especially in the emerging altered situation of independence that would ensue soon as Subhas may have reckoned?
But, considering the proximity in relations between the brothers, was it not natural for Sarat Chandra Bose to rise up in protest against the massive injustice meted out to Subhas Chandra Bose and to forthwith join his younger brother in his new party and taking over the task of organising it? Could it be then Sarat Bose was no more privy to Subhas Bose's deepest plans that would merit his leaving Congress and organising the next phase of revolutionary movement from the Forward Bloc?
Subhas Chandra's failure to persuade his elder brother to sack his secretary, Nirad Chandra Chaudhury, who allegedly was passing on vital information on Subhas to the British, and the younger Bose's altering residence from 1, Woodburn Park to 38/2, Elgin Road prior to the great escape also raise pertinent questions that I seek clarification on.
I exhort you all to give your informed responses to the fundamental question raised by me and all associated questions that have lingered in my mind long but have claimed no satisfactory answers to them as yet. If, in asking them, as I duly feel I am well within my rights to do so, I have hurt sentiments unwittingly of concerned persons, I seek their prior pardon and wish to assure them that my reverence for Sarat Chandra Bose is in no way diminished by my posing these questions thus and that I duly regard his enormous contributions to the cause of the motherland's freedom. But a student of history must be dispassionate in his study of it and must attempt to understand all facets of it in an objective manner without fear or favour, preconceptions or predilections, and without inhibition in exploring any angle pertaining to the case as it may be. Hence these questions. Thank you.
Jai Hind !
Written by Sugata Bose
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