ARE WE PATRIOTS WHEN WE VILIFY THE MAHATMA? .. 1

ARE WE PATRIOTS WHEN WE VILIFY THE MAHATMA? .. 1

This calling Gandhiji 'a British agent' must stop. He was preeminently a patriot and one of the greatest human beings to have walked on the face of this earth.

I now quote Albert Einstein from his speech delivered on the occasion of Gandhiji's seventieth birthday in 1939 :

'A leader of his people, unsupported by any outward authority : a politician whose success rests not upon craft nor the mastery of technical devices, but simply on the convincing power of his personality ; a victorious fighter who has always scorned the use of force ; a man of wisdom and humility, armed with resolve and inflexible consistency, who has devoted all his strength to the uplifting of his people and the betterment of their lot ; a man who has confronted the brutality of Europe with the dignity of the simple human being, and thus at all times risen superior.

Generations to come, it may be, will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth.'

Surely, Einstein who could see through the mysteries of the universe and who had endured Nazi atrocity on his self, in a minor way, and on his brethren in annihilating terms, ought to know better than ill-informed people of the hour who, out of pettiness of personality that seeks the ulcer in an otherwise wholly healthy body, like the fly that feeds on it, keep hurling abuses on a soul supremely sublime. It is a shame that we, as free citizens of a nation that prides on its spiritual heritage, fail to pay our respects to our greatest leader at whose feet just the other day sat the most towering personalities of the age. Indeed, we have sunk as a people in having failed to read history right and so done the Mahatma such an enormous injustice that prompts us to make fun of him and cast all sorts of aspersions on him that only go to prove the hollowness of our own love for the motherland.

Written by Sugata Bose

CHURCHILL, STALIN AND MAO -- THREE CLASSIC CASES OF SAVAGERY IN PERPETRATING THE STARVATION OF MILLIONS

CHURCHILL, STALIN AND MAO -- THREE CLASSIC CASES OF SAVAGERY IN PERPETRATING THE STARVATION OF MILLIONS

Churchill, a British aristocrat, did exhibit the finer points of British aristocratic culture in his effecting the starvation of Bengal that cost the lives of 4.3 million Bengalis. Stalin, the exemplar of Bolshevik baboonery, to quote Churchill in ever so slightly altered linguistic terms, force-starved 7 million Ukranians to death, and Mao, through his misadventures in an attempted rapid industrialisation of his country, caused the death of 45 million Chinese through starvation. One wonders how Churchill's aristocratic culture was in any way superior to Stalin and Mao's rough peasant culture when it came to inflicting death on millions that simply mattered not. While Stalin and Mao, to use bad logic, may be excused on the count of their supposed lack of culture relative to Churchill of eminent intellectual and artistic attainments, Churchill cannot be so absolved. So, what would one be tempted to infer about the refinements of British imperial and aristocratic culture about which the British Prime Minister was so vainly conscious of?

Written by Sugata Bose

'MY ENEMY'S ENEMY IS MY FRIEND'

'MY ENEMY'S ENEMY IS MY FRIEND'

If Churchill and Stalin both used the principle 'my enemy's enemy is my friend' and are hailed for it, why then must Netaji be perennially blamed for doing the same? To save Britain, Churchill befriended communist Soviet Union and to drive Britain out of India, Netaji befriended Nazi Germany and imperial fascist Japan. Where lay the difference beyond judging things from the perspective of the victor?

USA also befriended communist Soviet Union and dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to emerge no better in terms of practising war ethics than Germany or Japan. Britain destroyed India to save herself. The Soviet Union, in driving Germany out, overran Eastern Europe and enslaved it for nearly half a century. Where was befriending Germany and Japan for India's freedom so wrong ethically then, at least in terms of the realpolitik that dictated events for the other great powers as well?

Did not America on the eve of her independence seek imperial France's help to drive out imperial Britain from her soil? Does not the Lafayette Square even today stand on American soil as testimony to it? Was not America fighting for democracy and was she not in the same vein taking the help of an imperial power to end imperialism in her own land? These are the exigencies of history and must be understood as such.

Netaji never stood for fascism or its extreme manifestation in the National Socialism of Germany. All that he had sought was a wartime alliance with the Axis powers to end British imperialism in India, for the World War provided India her best chance of doing so. Hence, Indians, feel proud to say that Netaji was not wrong in seeking Axis alliance for securing India's freedom and never feel apologetic about it.

We must debunk the theory that Netaji's alliance with imperial Japan would have compromised India's independence and would have in turn made India slaves to the Japanese. Such a turn of events would never be but that is the subject matter of a future lengthy series of articles. Suffice it to say that what Netaji did, he did after careful consideration of the political possibilities that could befall India, and I am dead certain that he came to the conclusion that Japan's help would ensure the exit of the Brits while not allowing the entry of the Japs with any measure of military might that would threaten India's freshly gained freedom.

Written by Sugata Bose

WE, THE PEOPLE ... 3

WE, THE PEOPLE ... 3

We have to free our society. Tall talks of spiritual freedom will not suffice. Even in our homes there is tyranny, a fall-out of our degenerate social state. Men tyrannising over women, women equally tyrannising over men, despite their tallest protestations to the contrary. All this must go and and an atmosphere of freedom prevail in both the domestic and the public sphere. It is only then that the Indian genius will freely flow, for constraints, imposed as they are right now, the legacy of past historical degeneration, will not allow the fullest flight of either imagination or execution of dreams that can effectively transform our society to be the fittest vehicle of expression of the grand ideals that are enshrined in our Vedic scriptures.

Right now our task is to remove these barriers that prevent the free flow of the Indian spirit and to this effect we have to be progressive in our outlook and not resort to regressive ways and means that are camouflaged as the renaissance of Indian spirituality. Indeed, that is what we have to achieve, this right renaissance but it cannot be achieved in the manner we are right now adopting, the reversal to regressive religious revivalism. It will rather have to be achieved by quickening the spirit of democracy in thinking and expression along scientific lines, the rational way of looking at things as was the Vedic way which had ushered in such a grand civilisation in ancient India. And even earlier in the Indus Valley civilisation we see this preeminence of the scientific outlook which seems to have been the historical hallmark of ancient and medieval India till we lost our track somewhere down the line. We must revert to that glorious path of progressive, creative thinking as we go about rebuilding our national fortunes from the ashes of the historical past.

Written by Sugata Bose

WHY CHURCHILL IS DEEMED A CRIMINAL HERE IN INDIA

WHY CHURCHILL IS DEEMED A CRIMINAL HERE IN INDIA

Churchill was a criminal who was raised by the evolutionary forces to counter other criminals, all of the barbaric sort of scant civilisation beyond technological attainments and proficiency of the intellect that is devoid of the heart that accounts for a modicum of humanity.

Who can ever forget the Bengal Famine caused by him that accounted for the loss of 4.3 million lives of innocent Bengalis who he termed rabbits breeding indiscriminately and, therefore, fit to die? He shipped food grains from Bengal to Europe to create buffer stocks for British forces in Greece and Yugoslavia by way of provision for a possible invasion in the future by the Germans. He prevented wheat-laden ships from Australia from docking at the Calcutta port lest they should deliver the grains to famine-stricken Bengal under arrangements with the British authorities of the province. Churchill's scorched-earth policy in Bengal in his bid to thwart the impending Japanese invasion of India through the province artificially created conditions of famine as well. Repeated cables to London by the British authorities in Bengal, apprising the Prime Minister of the desperate situation there, failed to quicken his concern for millions of starving Bengalis. He said that at any rate the emaciated Bengalis were used to remaining half-fed and that it was more worthwhile to feed sturdy Greeks instead with the stocks of rice sent to Europe from Bengal. That this person is hailed as the saviour of the western world against the barbarism of Nazism does not detract from the fact that to Indians he was a genocidal barbarian, a racist and an imperialist whose sole concern was the preservation of the British Empire at any cost, be it even the lives of millions of colonised peoples to help flourish the prospects of a handful of his own race.

An imperialist through and through, Churchill will remain much adored and much hated throughout history, a personality possessed of stark contradictions in light and shade, yet, a genius of a statesman who steered the western world to freedom from Nazi supremacy.

Written by Sugata Bose

Source of information : Shashi Tharoor

UNEASY SITS THE CROWN

UNEASY SITS THE CROWN

British trade with her colonises meant theft, the plundering of the wealth and resources of these subjugated nations. British fair play and justice, indeed, British civilisation at its height ! It was at the cost of Indian wealth that Britain was built. Stolen wealth yet adorns the British Queen's crown ! The Kohinoor is the 'shining' testament to Britain's plundering past.

Written by Sugata Bose

'বহুরূপে সম্মুখে তোমার' ... ১

'বহুরূপে সম্মুখে তোমার' ... ১
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যাঁরা জীবন্ত ঈশ্বরকে অবহেলা করেন, গৃহে, পরিবারে, আত্মীয় পরিজনে, সমাজে, তাঁরা অদৃশ্য ঈশ্বরের আরাধনা কেমন করে করবেন ? সমাজচেতনার মধ্যে আধ্যাত্মিক অগ্রগতি নিহিত, শুধুমাত্র অতিন্দ্রীয়ের পশ্চাদ্ধাবনে নয় ।

ঈশ্বর সর্বত্র বিরাজমান । তাঁর সেবা শুরু হোক একে অপরের প্রতি সহানুভূতিতে, বৈরীভাবপোশনে নয় ।

মানুষের সেবা ঈশ্বরপ্রেমের নিদর্শন কারণ ঈশ্বরই মানুষের মুখোশ পরে রয়েছেন । এ এক বিচিত্র খেলা ! এরই নাম ঈশ্বরের জগতলীলা ।

রচয়িতা : সুগত বসু (Sugata Bose)