POESY
Saturday, 26 June 2021
BINA (DAS) BHOWMICK, DISHONOURED IN LIFE, NEGLECTED IN DEATH
BINA (DAS) BHOWMICK, DISHONOURED IN LIFE, NEGLECTED IN DEATH
The Nehru government conferred on Bina (Das) Bhowmick the Padma Shree in 1960 for her rendering of social service. Had I been Prime Minister of India then, I would have celebrated this great heroine of the revolutionary struggle for freedom with the Bharat Ratna for her shooting five rounds at the then Governor of the Bengal Presidency, Sir Stanley Jackson. The occasion was the Convocation Ceremony of the Calcutta University on 6 February, 1932 which was to be adorned by the Governor's visit. Bina Das, daughter of Beni Madhav Das, mentor, teacher and Headmaster of Subhas Chandra Bose at Ravenshaw Collegiate School at Cuttack, groomed and inspired by her idealistic parents and the revolutionary fervour of the times, went ahead with her daring attempt on the life of the British Governor. She failed in the attempt, was apprehended and incarcerated for nine years but had stirred up the whole world by her singular act of exemplary patriotism as opposed to the emasculate passivity of the Mohandas Karamchand Gandhian non-violent submission to colonial depredation, to imperial barbarism of the British Crown. The Government of free India failed to recognise this exceptional act of valour and, in perpetuation of its servitude to the cult of effeminacy initiated by the barrister from Porbandar, went ahead in all its gusto to dampen revolutionary hearts with the show of national honour by bestowing Bina (Das) Bhowmick with the Padma Shree for the wrong cause. But it was right in the eyes of the Government of India that social service be deemed superior to revolutionary aggression for freedom which was after all not in keeping with the Karamchand brand of passive alliance with the colonial masters in perpetuation of the motherland's misery at their hideous hands. Bina (Das) Bhowmick was dishonoured in life and neglected in death by her own people, We, the People of India.
Written by Sugata Bose
LEST WE FORGET ... 1
LEST WE FORGET ... 1
Read the revolutionaries. Else, your slumber will never break. Do not tranquilise yourself with nonsensical non-violence that never won us freedom. It is the long tradition of revolutionary armed struggle that earned us our truncated dominion status. We have to yet arise and earn our freedom, whole and not partitioned in any way. We must decolonise our minds and 'shake off this sterile curse' of mental colonisation by the British, the original programme of Macaulay gone to perfection. Are you ready for it or are you a 'willing bondman' to our erstwhile masters in person and now our present masters at a distance? When are you planning to leave India's shores and settle in England or in USA?
Written by Sugata Bose
Thursday, 24 June 2021
THOSE DISGUSTING BLANK SPACES
THOSE DISGUSTING BLANK SPACES
Why are there so many missing words, phrases and sentences, so many blank spaces, in the Ramakrishna Mission-published version of Hemchandra Ghosh's essay on Swamiji sent to Swami Purnatmananda, where the writer is severely critical of Rabindranath Tagore's unpatriotic stance vis-a-vis the Bengal revolutionary movement? If the Mission chooses to be circumspect thus and, in doing so, to edit the truth, how on earth are we to know what the true history of our freedom struggle was? This is disgusting. Stop publishing books about Swamiji's influence on the revolutionaries if you dare not publish the whole truth.
Written by Sugata Bose
Wednesday, 23 June 2021
REPLACEMENT OF VANDE MATARAM UNACCEPTABLE
REPLACEMENT OF VANDE MATARAM UNACCEPTABLE
I have never been able to accept the replacement of Vande Mataram with Jai Hind just to appease Muslim sentiment and, so, attempt superficial national solidarity at a treacherous time when fissiparous forces were trying to dismember the motherland. Vande Mataram was the clarion call of freedom for nearly all the revolutionaries. To relegate it to subordinate position thus was not only a travesty of history but a violation of the very patriotic spirit of the freedom struggle. It ought not to have happened despite all. The Muslims have never budged an inch from their scriptural injunctions to facilitate national cohesion. Why then did Netaji have to take this momentous decision that so went against the very grain of the revolutionary movement for freedom?
Written by Sugata Bose
BACK TO RAMAKRISHNA ... 4
BACK TO RAMAKRISHNA ... 4
We are a shameless people. Can one sleep when such an appalling state affects us? Must we live this way? Must we die this way as well? Can there be any rest for us now when the country so suffers? Lone souls burn away ceaselessly, their bodies becoming fuel for the fire that rages within them. There is no help from any quarter, no inspiration from the youth. The youth are either indolent and ignorant or, even if informed, given to the frivolities of life. Our country is not only dead but putrid as Swamiji so succinctly had described the India of his times, a state which continues to this day despite the intermediate resurgence of the freedom struggle following his energy and inspiration. The upper classes are exploitative, the middle classes are more in a mood of acquiescence than redressing this decadence and the masses are ignorant and suffering. We must wake them up. Alas, when will a handful of men and women exhibit real manhood?
Written by Sugata Bose
SHAME
SHAME !
Gandhiji was wrong, very wrong in denouncing the armed revolutionaries for freedom. It is on record that Swamiji had exhorted Hemchandra Ghosh to strike out at the British with all their revolutionary might in one go unitedly to uproot the intruders, the blood-suckers, the looters, the dastardly exploiters of our motherland, and that too in any manner and at any cost. Following this commandment of the 'patriot-prophet' the revolutionaries ceaselessly kept striking at the citadels of British colonial power in India.
Gandhiji's method was different. He believed in the efficacy of non-violence. But what right had he to denounce the revolutionaries and dampen resistive manhood within the country? This was utterly unjustified and shows up the Mahatma in very unpatriotic light despite his tallest moral pretensions to the contrary, his claims of universal fraternity and the like. It is time to dispel long-lasting illusions about the Sage of Sabarmati in regard to the sanctity and sanity of his opposition to armed struggle for freedom and to take a fresh look at history in our bid to make right longstanding wrongs that have obscured these greatest sons and daughters of the motherland. Vande Mataram !
Written by Sugata Bose
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