HOW LONG, PRAY, HOW LONG MORE?

Yes, so it must be, Nandini Biswas, at any rate. However, enough water has flown by till date and further holding of undue patience is tantamount to accepting the inevitable that the movement will fizzle out as time passes and the last ones that have seen Netaji will pass out of our horizon leaving behind an uninterested band of future citizens to whom all this will be alien stuff not concerning their immediate self-interest.

A PERSONAL VIEW

I have never been an advocate of the 'wait and watch' philosophy till kingdom come. I have always believed that we have to wrest the initiative here and now. The wait, of course, may be forced on us sometimes to allow the advent of more propitious circumstances, historically, but never so depending on the so-called 'change of heart' of the adversary. Fusion of the heart is one, brought about supposedly by the thermal impact of the truth-force (satyagraha) but confusion in its wake to misread totally the malevolent nature of the mischievous enemy is to play into the hands of the darkening forces of ignorance (tamas) and has nothing to do with heightened political spirituality as is made out to be in the case of the protagonist of this abysmal theory which does not take into account mathematical proportions or pragmatic realism. I am, thus, at variance with the pseudo-philosophical doctrines of the Mahatma which are at complete variance with our scriptural texts that advocate violence to meet with violence and propose righteous war (dharmayudh) to eliminate evil. What Netaji did ought to have been done by the Mahatma as well but alas! he had not the virility to force the issue thus on the British who in my opinion were the enemies of mankind for all their tall talk about civilisation and progress which were velvet covers for the machinations of the colonial curse they perpetrated everywhere and reduced humanity to a beast of the British Raj. Jai Hind!

DIVERSE COMMENTS

Thanks, Nandini Biswas, for taking time off to witness at this far-off hour the happenings of the day when in glowing heroism they unfolded before the vision of the world and, so often, so many of them that have gone unheeded by into the chambers of unrecorded history.

Sacrifice, Bhaskar Mukherjee, that has not gone in vain despite the betrayals which are too numerous to mention and remain the shame of a people preparing for freedom.

Out of this bank of the blood of the martyrs will yet arise future India, resurrecting the glory of the spilled blood and restoring the hero and his associates to their rightful place in the pantheon of India's valorous ones.

And, yet again, he was foiled by his perfidious adversaries like Nehru who opposed the INA thrust into India and, yet again, they failed as the tide of the times swept them aside to win for India her cherished goal, freedom by the reaction that the fallen heroes of the INA quickened in the British Indian Armed Forces and in the masses of the motherland as well.

Right you are and it is our holy duty to make as many people aware of the hero's contribution to the freedom of our motherland, for treacherous are the times and duplicitous the purchased performers that go by the name of intellectuals, the hired historians who write whatever their paymasters determine, and leave their dastardly deeds on the pages for future generations to absorb and remain disinherited of their richest heritage.

"I shall send an electric thrill through the nation," Swamiji said. Netaji was the product of that electric impulse of Swamiji and he in turn arose to send shock waves through the foundations of the British Empire that brought about its precipitous collapse.

That is the magic of the true leader that he can take out the best from his followers and inspire them to immolate themselves for a cause.

EDUCATION, THE PRIME NECESSITY

And education separates our progeny from the barbarous state of the savage which will be their inheritance if we cause the cataclysm of a nuclear holocaust to follow up on our terrible misadventures with reason and rationalism unfounded in character that caters to the well-being of humanity and the preservation of all that is best in all cultures and not merely one's own in the limited understanding of the term.

NATIONALISM VS INTERNATIONALISM, A CASUAL COMMENT

Rooted in our own culture we must shoot out into the world so that we may assimilate what is best in the human scene and make it our own. Thus, we will be spared both the ills of isolationist nationalism as well as the dilution of national culture in the wake of a global flooding. Balance is the key and this is best attained by striking our roots deep even as we stretch our arms into the wide world seeking nourishment. The classic illustration is that of the tree which absorbs photosynthetic material from the soil it is rooted to but synthesises them in the sunlight streaming in from the heavens and the air arriving from its environs, near and far, far as far can be. In this way, the conflict between narrow nationalism and shallow internationalism may be solved and the harmony arrived where the twain will co-exist in peace for the right advance of all.

VANISHED INTO THIN AIR? WHITHER NETAJI?

I personally believe that Stalin may have executed him out of his paranoia that knew no bounds even as he did the same to so many of his real and imagined adversaries. However, if Netaji did survive the Stalinist days, then his death at the hands of Khrushchev could have been at the behest of a freshly-forged friendship which discreetly is best left to analysts to apprehend. The British Secret Service according to a wartime agreement with the Soviets interrogated Netaji in Siberia to a gruesome death, so some say. It is all a puzzle but I am convinced that Netaji would never have stayed incognito as a monk in India, unconcerned about the fate of his motherland while the stream of national life flowed on about him. So, I discount the Gumnami Baba angle altogether, although, I agree with its proponents that, from a strictly objective standpoint, every possibility of his whereabouts and his fate must be thoroughly and without prejudice or prior judgement explored and examined before coming to a definite conclusion. Alas! the way things are moving, who knows whether we shall get to know the hero's fate in our lifetime? This is all the more reason why the movement to declassify all information on Netaji must be on and we can add fillip to the movement by our eager participation in it. Netaji's life and death must be our equal focus for we are beholden to him for everything we cherish today. May truth triumph! May Netaji be resurrected in our minds and hearts and may he and his INA be reinstated in the pantheon of the freedom struggle where they truly belong! Jai Hind!

WHAT IF THE AXIS POWERS HAD WON?

History is done with the Axis Powers it seems for the time being till new leaves are turned on the pages of Time when fresh assessments will be made Bhaskar. Till then we will, it seems, have to rest content with the tales dished out to us by the victors of the war (World War II) with neither alternative views nor alternate perspectives being allowed so much even in the discussion domain, such are the exigencies of the times. History remains till then as ever, 'a host of lies agreed upon' as someone put it in his characteristic caustic manner.