IN RESPONSE TO KANCHAN GHOSH'S COMMENTS ABOUT THE VOID TO BE FILLED IN MY WRITING VIS-A-VIS AUROBINDO GHOSE

I will try and write in the future about Aurobindo Ghose's contribution in the early phase of our freedom struggle. I am happy to hear from you, Kanchan Ghosh, for it is this concern for the nationalist cause that is needed today. Hope to soon fill in this void in my writing. Thanks for the suggestion indeed.

Not at all brother, Kanchan Ghosh. Why criticise you for inadvertently overstepping the delicate line of propriety, as you put it, why censure you who are such a conscientious lover of the motherland who we adore as our mother, and this was first stated by Aurobindo Ghose when he redefined the concept of 'motherland' as being not merely a geographical terrain but the vast body of people inhabiting the landmass with their hopes and aspirations, their history, culture and civilisation? You are a blessed soul, my friend, and you must keep contributing to this group page with your inputs and insights for all to benefit from and gain enlightenment. May Ramakrishna-Vivekananda bless you with vision and fulfilment!

BHASKAR SEN SHARMA, AN INTREPID CRUSADER FOR NETAJI'S CAUSE

What a brilliant assessment Bhaskar! Sheer illumination! Post this on my 'Netaji' group as an independent essay of yours and it will gain wide circulation. You are a genius. Each time I write on you, I feel humbled to realise how little justice I did to your enormous understanding of the events of those heady days of the freedom struggle. What lucidity! What profundity! Unparalleled.

REMEMBER, THE NATION MATTERS MORE THAN YOUR SELF-INTEREST

What more can I say, just this much, live for India. There is so much to do to build India. Stop exploiting the poor and the middle classes, O prosperous ones of our land, and, instead, serve all in the spirit that they are your very own, your flesh and blood, your heart and soul, the very essence of your being.

Doctors, do not think that you have acquitted yourselves well on your Hippocratic Oath if you are self-serving in profession in alliance with the medical barons who run posh private hospitals with grandiloquent claims and grander names but whose only intention is to squeeze money out of the pockets of the hapless patients in connivance with you all. Vivekananda will not forgive you.

Lawyers, do not tell a hundred lies to win cases for criminals justifying your action on the basis of your professional principle to win a case at any rate. Lying, bringing false witness and resorting to a host of other unscrupulous acts to further your narrow professional interests do not conduce to the well-being of our nation.

Brokers, do not think that there is no higher principle of karma operating that can punish you for your unscrupulous monetary transactions. There is a higher law for certain and it will take you to account for every act of treachery to the people of our glorious motherland. You are to be the safe-keeper of transaction, not its violator through dubious means that ruins the economic health of the nation.

Teachers, unto you belongs the most sacred task of generating shraddha (the intense mood of reverential pursuit of excellence even unto perfection) in your pupils who are the future of our nation, a shraddha akin to what Nachiketa had, as is depicted in the Kathopanishad, when he defied the snares of the world, the ephemeral pleasures, to attain to the highest spiritual perfection in the knowledge of the Self.

And, now my friends who are in business. Unto you lies the heavy responsibility of eradicating poverty from this land and not filling up your own coffers nor pandering to the vanities of your immediate kith and kin while squeezing the life-blood of the nation. What you draw from the nation in terms of acquired wealth, you must give back in equal measure to the nation and not by way of an insignificant sum in much-publicised 'laudable charity'. What you have in your possession, truly belongs to the people of this land and you cannot lay exclusive claim to it. Also, your means of earning must be fair and your profit-making not bordering on profiteering. How can you enjoy luxuries in life when hundreds of millions of your fellow countrymen, who pay for your wealth, live lives of abject poverty and misery? Reflect and turn on a new leaf. Serve brothers, serve, do not exploit.

And finally, our worst offenders, our politicians who are running a circus in Parliament these days. What to speak of you, brothers, and why not, sisters too, you need a holy dip daily in the Ganga to cleanse off your accumulated sins but one shudders to think of the state of the holy river burning with your horrendous sins! I charge you with destroying our nation, the hopes of a billion people, their dreams, their lives, their past, present and future. You have to account for your karma, I say, you cannot escape the ire of the very God who is the author and preserver of our beloved motherland. Corrupt souls of our motherland, it is time, indeed, to rectify your horrific stance, your despicable character, else, history will avenge the wrongs you perpetrate daily on a desolate, destitute people. Beware! Rectify! Save your hereafter. My best wishes, yet, go with you, for you, the benighted of all, need them the most. Jai Hind!

IN RESPONSE TO MY FRIEND BHASKAR SEN SHARMA'S COMMENT ON THE SAD GOVERNMENTAL NEGLECT OF NETAJI

Ever the hammer on the head from you, dear Bhaskar Sen Sharma. Your intrepid voice is a beacon for us in these dark days of diabolic distortion of deeds desperate and daring, redolent of the valorous kshatriya traditions which, debilitated India had well-nigh forgotten owing to the injection of a weakening brand of totalitarian non-violence by Gandhi, an effective method of paralysing the civil machinery of the British Indian Government for a day or two, no doubt, but utterly incapable of bodily evicting the British from the Indian soil. Netaji read the situation well for he had the penetrative intellect which Gandhi lacked. He understood that the source of British power with which they subjected 38 crore Indians was the British Indian Army composed principally of Indian soldiers working for the British. If he could somehow undermine the loyalty of these soldiers to the British Crown by quickening patriotic feelings in their hearts, then the British would lose their grip over India and would be gone in no time. At no point of time in their gory history in India did the British have a sizeable physical presence in terms of man-power either in their civil or in their military machinery that could have faced the raw might of the vast Indian population in direct combat and, it must be admitted, they yet kept their control over their Indian affairs with superb execution of administrative skills by employing Indians in their service to hold down India in bondage. Gandhi made many a hollow declaration of his intent to free India within a stipulated period of time but ever failed to fulfil the truth of his statement as his promises based on an unrealistic approach to the world of realpolitik inevitably failed. But when Netaji knocked on the doors of Gandhian truth-tranquillised India with his INA forcing its way through the north-east, India 'awoke to life and freedom' in no time. Andaman and Nicobar were the first to be freed and they were the first to throw off the colonial hangover when Netaji renamed them Swaraj and Shaheed. Next came Moirang and then the betrayal of Nehru, Gandhi and Jinnah to seal the fate of our motherland as the perfidious British, in a last-ditch attempt to weaken India for good, made common cause with Nehru and Jinnah to partition India while the Mahatma, now conscious of his damaging limitations, watched the proceedings helplessly. His plethora of blunders cost India dear as he truly oversaw the birth of Pakistan, the first Islamic State after the dissolution of the Caliphate, the seed of all future troubles for India and the world, the hub of terror and all that goes by the way of theocratic barbarism. That much for the Mahatma's contribution, by way of final resolution, to the cause of India's freedom which we owe, truly, to the gallant soldiers of the INA led by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.

Thanks a lot, dear Bhaskar, and keep enlightening us with your illumined inputs of knowledge and their interpretation, and so inspire others to take the cue from you to carry forward the work of the resurrection of Netaji and the INA.

PRIME MINISTER, WAKE UP! RENAME THE ANDAMAN AND NICOBAR ISLANDS, SWARAJ AND SHAHEED AS NAMED BY NETAJI AS PRESIDENT OF THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT OF FREE INDIA.

Why does Narendra Modi not restore the names SWARAJ and SHAHEED which NETAJI had given to ANDAMAN and NICOBAR ISLANDS, thus earlier named by Imperial Britain and renamed the same by them after erasing the names given by Netaji? These are small but significant steps towards de-Anglicising our nation and restoring her self-pride and dignity. There was a purpose to naming the islands 'Swaraj' and 'Shaheed' and that purpose remains thwarted in independent India. So long as the Congress ruled, it was understandable for Nehru and his ilk had everything to lose through the resurrection of Netaji. But the Congress is now out of power and it is time opportune to render justice to this episode of India's freedom struggle. The establishment of the Provisional Government of Free India in these two southern islands, notorious in India's history as the place of banishment and terrible torture of prisoners (freedom fighters) found guilty of sedition against the British government, is a glorious episode in our struggle for freedom and was the springboard from where freedom eventually came in 1947. Allowing the British names of these islands to continue and, thus, overriding the legacy of Netaji here is to sell our national dignity to the ones that tyrannised us here in the most inhuman manner. The British police used to put metal pins into the nails of the prisoners and drive them in before pulling the nails out in their bid to extract information from the political prisoners who were our brightest jewels, our bravest sons who gave their everything for the freedom of the nation we enjoy today. Shame on us that we allow this status quo on things which no other country in the world would have permitted, for we have become an emasculate lot devoid of feeling for our martyrs who liberated us! And a worse shame on our governments including the present one for its trepidation and undue circumspection on restoring the pride of our nation beyond mere lip-service of salutation to Netaji! We want concrete action and, that too, speedily. Rename the Andaman and Nicobar Islands SWARAJ and SHAHEED if you are a patriot worth your salt, Shree Narendra Modiji. I await the grand happening. It will send a shiver through the nation and our youth will rise up in unison with it singing : 

KADAM KADAM BADHAYE JA,
KHUSHI KA GEET GAYE JA,
YE ZINDAGI HAI KAUM KI,
WOH KAUM PE MITAYE JA.

I solicit your response.

DESPOILED DIGNITY ... 1

The British, in enslaving us, took our dignity away. The Muslim invaders earlier had done the same. Today, in free India, our corrupt politicians have ruined us in health, wealth and spirit and their deed is not done yet. Ancient scriptures, along with sublime passages enunciated on humanity, have also passed terrible judgement on the infidel, women and the depressed classes at the lower end of the social spectrum. Dictators have tyrannised nations, sent continents to war and destroyed civilisations. The history of the world, despite the grand achievements of the arts and the sciences, has been a tale of continuous violence and war, tyranny and the ravaging of the spirit of man such that humanity has been dreadfully despoiled of dignity to the point of a despairing self-annihilation. And the same applies to the domestic front as well where men and women for their petty self-interest keep hurling abuse at each other and reduce themselves to brutes wittingly or unwittingly. Where comes humanity then? How may one reasonably justify the otherwise unjustifiable 'righteous anger' which is the cause of so much unhappiness at the grass-roots level of human society, the family? Where is the dignity of familial living if husbands and wives so mistrust and misjudge each other that anarchy reigns supreme at the root of society? Whither humanity? Hold on. Ramakrishna will show us the way out of our predicament. I have heard he has the solution to life's problems.

To be continued...

RESPONSES TO DIVERSE COMMENTS ON GANDHI'S SIDELINING BOSE

Photo : Bose at Tripuri as Congress President, in a critical state of health, forced into attendance by the intransigence of Congressmen over a deferment of date for the Session requested by him, the refusal being attended by some Congress leaders alleging that he was feigning sickness by way of a clever political ploy.

What do you feel about Gandhi's role in sidelining Subhas Chandra Bose from the mainstream of Indian politics in 1939? Do you think the Mahatma was justified in his action in his pursuit of his own brand of ideological politics? I solicit your opinion.

Right in a way you are. Let our emotions be transmuted into constructive action for the cause of the resurrection of Netaji. But again, if we do not have public discourse on the matter, then the issue will not get currency enough for the fruition of the very cause of the hero which lies in wait for so long. I appreciate your sentiment, though, Abhishikta.

Gandhi acted in an autocratic unethical manner, pulling political strings from behind the curtain and ousting Bose, first from the Congress Presidency which he was forced to abdicate, and then, from the party itself when he was unceremoniously expelled. The only way he could then serve the nation was from overseas which he did after his great escape from India.

The politicians of the day like Nehru, Patel, Azad and the like were in no way brainless. They lacked character enough, true, but they were shrewd custodians of self-interest which they realised by remaining loyal to Gandhi at any cost, even if it meant the fall of the nation to facilitate their rise.

These politicians, perfidious as they were, stooped to any length to suit their personal ends and literally sold the future of our motherland, in effect, to Britain, Pakistan and later, as an inertial consequence of dubious, debilitating Gandhian non-violence, to China.

Falsities and fabrications furthering familial ends, that of the Nehru-Gandhi descent, has literally ruined the manhood of the nation.

Gandhi, I hear, later rued the loss of Bose at the time of India's catastrophic independence amidst Partition when he himself had lost the rudder of the freedom movement and Nehru made common cause with Mountbatten while giving lip service to Gandhi in terms of his great devotion to him. Gandhi had, in effect, then felt let down by his protege and resigned to the state of affairs which had now gone beyond his mortal control.

Tanman Lahiri, I am a very ordinary person just like you and like everybody else. Thanks for your magnanimity but the issue is Netaji and not me.

Did Gandhi support Netaji's actions in Germany and East Asia, did he? Well, I am yet to be illumined to that effect on this issue as you put it across.

Perfect analysis and articulation, dear Mohit Babu. I remain beholden to you as well for the information you have given me regarding the Netaji documentaries.

I sometimes wonder whether there has been any psycho-analysis done on Gandhi's actions and motivations in life, especially, with regard to his idiosyncrasies which are galore and, often, quite grotesque.

Brother, do not hate Gandhiji; love Netaji instead. Do not waste your emotions on someone you do not like. Also, you will be doing a great service to yourself and to the world by releasing yourself from any such negative emotion which neither does good to you nor does it conduce to the well-being of the cause we cherish, that of resurrection of the one and only one we adore as our beloved Netaji. 

Perceptive, and precisely so. You have hit the hammer on the head. Your observation about the vastly varied backgrounds from which they hail as being one of the the prime causes of their temperamental difference and consequently, the wide divergence in their political approach, has expanded my vision about Mahatmaji and Netaji. Your originality of thinking has enlivened the issue in my mind and I must, in due course of time, try to understand these seminal personalities from the vantage point of their childhood environments. My sincere thankfulness for this.