<!--QuoteBegin-ben_ami+May 7 2006, 01:19 PM-->QUOTE(ben_ami @ May 7 2006, 01:19 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->the muslims who fought on behalf of the INA against the poms, may be the only example where muslims actually did something positive for india.
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Most of these muslim INA with a very few exceptions, joined the Pakistan movement
Many of them were active in Direct Action Day type actions
I submit that Netaji was seriously lacking in judgment
In 1939, there were many anti-hindu forces of
Communism, Nazism, Islam and the British
Several previously anti-british militants such as savarkar and Aurobindo felt that the british were the lesser evil
Remember Netaji initially look to the USSR and later to Hitler
Taking a long term view, remember the British left all their colonies by 1960 without any freedom movement
After 1921, western women did not breed adequately , much lesser than their colonial subjects and this made it impossible for the west to hold onto their colonies without resorting to genocide on a very large scale
Most of these muslim INA with a very few exceptions, joined the Pakistan movement
Many of them were active in Direct Action Day type actions
<b>
nope. even the INA battalions which fought in burma and nagaland had its fair share of muslims. some of netaji's top aides from beginning to end were muslims. even if 60% of the INA muslims joined the pakistan movement, the other 40% remain the only examples of muslims doing sometihng positive for india.</b>
I submit that Netaji was seriously lacking in judgment.
<b>i counter that he was the most versatile leader india ever produced and way ahead of his time.</b>
In 1939, there were many anti-hindu forces of Communism, Nazism, Islam and the British
<b>
yes. but of these 4 the ones who kept us from being independent and looted our wealth were the brits. the problem of lack of sovreignity/self governance over rides all others.</b>
Several previously anti-british militants such as savarkar and Aurobindo felt that the british were the lesser evil.
<b>
yet they never hesitated to fight against the brits. cos thats the order in which india's enemies needed to be tackled. first get the brits off our backs - then other problems, even if those problems were, at least in the opinion of Auribindo and Sarvarkar greater than the problem of brits.</b>
Remember Netaji initially look to the USSR
<b>netaji was spot on in insisting that india needed to take a socialistic approach in the first few years aftae independence. when a nation starts from scratch, the centre has to lead the way, before a capitalistic private sector emerges to share the burden of nation building. the way ussr had recovered from the tzarish regimes was indeed remarkable. Netaji would have been the Kemal Ataturk of india but for beevis and butthead.</b>
and later to Hitler
<b>thats not for any love he had for the wiermacht but for the hatred he had fo the poms, for which reaon he quit the IAS cadre (to join politics) despite being one of the toppers.</b>
Taking a long term view, remember the British left all their colonies by 1960 without any freedom movement
<b>the brits were significantly weakened by the WW2. none of thir colonies were half as lucrative as india was, and the brits had already managed to loot whatever there was to loot from most of the countries. hell theyalmost managed to loot everything there was to loot from india as well (reducing our industrial output to less than 1% by 1900). besides all colonials knew that their games were up and soner or later they'd be kicked out. only france in vietnam waited to find out.
the brits didnt, not even in india - cos they knew that after the switch of the raj army to INA, after the naval mutiny, a hammering was not a question of "if" but "when". wisely they didnt wait to find out and left - but not before planting their chamcha nehru on the throne, as the last englishman ruler of india.</b>
After 1921, western women did not breed adequately , much lesser than their colonial subjects and this made it impossible for the west to hold onto their colonies without resorting to genocide on a very large scale
<b>breed or not, they were still powerful enough to have held on to their colonies. but for ww2, every colony would have been forced to get their independence in an all out war. not a single colony of any colonial power became free BEFORE the ww2.
</b>
breed or not, they were still powerful enough to have held on to their colonies. but for ww2, every colony would have been forced to get their independence in an all out war. not a single colony of any colonial power became free BEFORE the
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The south africa apartheid regime is a classic case of how western women failing to breed cost them their colony
In 1950, whites were 20% of south africa
By 1990, whites were down to 10% of south africa
and gave up power voluntarily without much bloodshed
whites still control south africa tho, only apartheid is no more.
see even 10% is enough to control a nation. jews are 2% of usa but control it.
and my gut feel is that the reason why south african whites have decreased in percentage is cos blacks have bred a higher rates, lots of whites have emmigrated to usa-aus-europe and also modern medicine and increased aid packages for africa have arrested the mortality rates amongest the blacks.
<!--QuoteBegin-G.Subramaniam+May 8 2006, 05:25 PM-->QUOTE(G.Subramaniam @ May 8 2006, 05:25 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->breed or not, they were still powerful enough to have held on to their colonies. but for ww2, every colony would have been forced to get their independence in an all out war. not a single colony of any colonial power became free BEFORE the
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Credit must go to Hitler. 6 long years of war and destruction finished Britian's capacity to project its power or control its overseas territories.
<!--QuoteBegin-G.Subramaniam+May 9 2006, 05:54 PM-->QUOTE(G.Subramaniam @ May 9 2006, 05:54 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->In ww2, it was necessary to support british since they were a lesser evil and also to dilute the muslim % in the army
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but the order in which they (ie, india's problems - poms, muslims etc) COULD be dealt with was poms first and than the rest. besides germans werent harming us one bit by waging the ww2, but we wwere helping the poms by fighting against the axis forces.
<!--QuoteBegin-G.Subramaniam+May 9 2006, 05:54 PM-->QUOTE(G.Subramaniam @ May 9 2006, 05:54 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Netaji was simply a more brave version of Nehru - muslim appeaser and leftist
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only a lunatic can compare a netaji to a nehru. sorry, you seem to have lost it.
netaji wasnt a muslim appeaser one bit - but he knew how to put people - be they muslim or german or japanese or hindus or sikhs, to use in the cause of getting india a bloody freedom.
netaji was a socialist yes, like nehru. and like many others. socialism ISNT communist else all scandinavian countries are commie.
whenever a society or nation has to start from scratch the centre has to lead the way of progress and development. what ussr had achieved (by way of village electrification, basic infrastructure starting from scratch etc) in the early days of its formation was indeed admirable. the totalitarian ussr came post ww2, or even slightly before that, ie ever since stalin. if india didnt start off in a socialistic kind of way then we wouldnt have the hydro electric projects, dams, national institutes, and our middle class and the ex-maharajas would again be ruling the roost.
<!--QuoteBegin-G.Subramaniam+May 9 2006, 05:54 PM-->QUOTE(G.Subramaniam @ May 9 2006, 05:54 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->BTW, the Russian economy under the Tsar was booming
The bolsheviks set back the Russian economy by 20 years
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and the russian people were dying meanwhile.
the bolsheviks ressurected the russian population and put food on their tables.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->and the russian people were dying meanwhile.
the bolsheviks ressurected the russian population and put food on their tables.
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The bolsheviks killed 10 million peasants by starvation due to collectivisation
and killed another 10 million in purges
The USSR lost more dead due to bolshevism than the Nazi invasion
<!--QuoteBegin-G.Subramaniam+May 10 2006, 06:42 AM-->QUOTE(G.Subramaniam @ May 10 2006, 06:42 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin--><!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->and the russian people were dying meanwhile.
the bolsheviks ressurected the russian population and put food on their tables.
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The bolsheviks killed 10 million peasants by starvation due to collectivisation
and killed another 10 million in purges
The USSR lost more dead due to bolshevism than the Nazi invasion
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a lot more had died in the tzar's hands and would have died too but for the bolsheviks. only the tzar and his gons would have remained.
i understand communism isnt bad, but having a despot is worse.
and i dont disagree with the finer points of socialism. in fact socialistic ends (notice not "means") are very much worth striving for.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->What have they to hide?
Udayan Namboodiri | Kolkata (Pioneer)
Till the placing of the MK Mukherjee Commission's report in Parliament on Wednesday, Subhas Chandra Bose - or, more specifically, his disappearance and death - was the biggest enigma in contemporary India.  Â
But, by rejecting the panel's report, that position has been usurped by the Congress party - or, more specifically, the Nehru-Gandhi family at its helm - because the bigger question before the Indian people henceforth would be: What have they to hide?
To put it another way: If the UPA Government and its Communist backers know better than Justice Mukherjee as to what befell Netaji on that ill-fated day in 1945, why are they holding the facts from the nation?
By unambiguously rejecting the three-volume report, they have only confirmed what generations of Netaji's fans always feared: that they, and they alone, were privy to the facts and they buried the truth so deep that it would be impossible for any judicial panel, acting within the limits set by Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence, to dig out.
That the Congress-led UPA Government did its utmost to sabotage the Mukherjee Commission in the most important stage of its career is a well known fact, thanks to the Pioneer's coverage of the infamous decision taken in October 2004 to scrap it within six months and prevent it from going to Russia.
Our campaign to get the commission its much needed extension and funding to travel to Siberia, Moscow and St Petersburg, also paid off thanks to worldwide support from Netaji's fans.
When the commission travelled to Russia, the Pioneer was the only Indian newspaper that chose to follow it. Our coverage from Moscow and Siberia revealed what little cooperation the Governments of India and Russia offered to the team.
In fact, these confirmed our reports, which began as a part of a series beginning February 2005, that the Congress had something to hide. The attitude of the Russian Government, which re-classified already de-classified documents and sent a key official packing to Turkey so that he could not depose, clearly exposed their national guilt behind the tragic end of Netaji, possibly somewhere in a Stalinist gulag.
The Congress of today is also carrying the cross of its forebears. Jawaharlal Nehru knew full well that Netaji had not died in the Taihoku "crash".
In fact, he had a confidential report on it from the Formosan authorities before (italics) the Shah Nawaz Committee tabled its sham report. This was revealed in the Pioneer thanks to an early and substantial peek it gained into the report back in late November 2005.
The GD Kothari Commission's report had also done a command performance. It had confirmed that Netaji had been killed in the "crash" without bothering to meet a single official of the Taiwanese Government or checking out its records. Indira Gandhi had gone overboard to accept that bogus report, but Morarji Desai got it reopened and re-examined by Parliament before junking it.
The MK Mukherjee Commission had a seven-year term and the broadest terms of reference. Clearly, no panel had ever done so much to pursue the little truth about Netaji. By rejecting it, the Congress has only postponed the final denouement of the mystery. Someday, some government is bound to be more fair to Netaji and have the Renkoji ashes consigned to the dustbin.
Cynics may say that the episode has only given fresh grist to the rumour mills. Sure, it will keep the conspiracy theorists active for some more time. But one industry that has certainly gone under BIFR is the one that thrived on funding from Tokyo to keep Netaji "dead since 1945". <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--> No plane crash at Taihoku: Taiwan Govt tells panel
Pioneer News Service | Kolkata
The Taiwan Government has informed the one-man Netaji Commission of Inquiry that there was no air crash at Taihoku on August 18, 1945, till date believed to have killed Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose.
Disclosing this to journalists here, Justice M K Mukherjee said that the Taiwan Government had confirmed to the Commission during its recent visit to that country that no plane had crashed at Taihoku between August 14 and September 20, 1945.
Justice Mukherjee said that the Taiwanese authorities, who confirmed this fact, promised to provide documentary proof within 15 days.
(Excerpts from the report the Pioneer carried on Feb 4, 2005)<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
05-18-2006, 10:59 AM (This post was last modified: 05-18-2006, 11:01 AM by dhu.)
probably, the truth about bose's murder will draw a blank stare from most of the voting population. still i have seen statues of bose put up by patriotic individuals even in mp interior.
well the biggest thing that can emerge from the truth, apart from restoring his dignity and stature, would be it would provide a permanent dent to the congress and prove just how nehru hijacked the congress party.
It survived in a limited legal form until the collapse of the Japanese Empire in 1945. The existence of Azad Hind was essentially coterminous with the existence of the Indian National Army. While the government itself continued until the civil administration of the Andaman Islands was returned to the jurisdiction of the British towards the end of the war, the limited power of Azad Hind was effectively ended with the surrender of the last major contingent of INA troops in Rangoon and the death of Subhas Chandra Bose in a plane crash in 1945.
The direct origins of Azad Hind can be linked to two conferences of Indian expatriates from across Southeast Asia, the first of which was held in Tokyo in March of 1942. At this conference, convened by Rash Behari Bose, an Indian expatriate living in Japan, the Indian Independence League was established as the first move towards an independent Indian state politically aligned with the Empire of Japan. Rash also moved to create a sort of liberation army that would assist in driving the British from India - this force would later become the Indian National Army. The second conference, held later that year in Bangkok, invited Subhas Chandra Bose to participate in the leadership of the League. Bose was living in Germany at the time and made the trip to Japan via submarine.
Rash, who was already aging by the time the League was founded, struggled to keep the League organized and failed to secure resources for the establishment of the Indian National Army. He was replaced as president of the Indian Independence League by Subhas Chandra Bose; there is some controversy as to whether he stepped down of his own volition or by pressure from the Japanese who needed a more energetic and focused presence leading the Indian nationalists.
Bose arrived in Tokyo on June 13, 1943, and declared his intent to make an assault against the eastern provinces of India in an attempt to oust the British from control of the subcontinent. Bose arrived in Singapore on July 2nd, and in October of 1943 formally announced the establishment of the Provisional Government of Free India. In defining the tasks of this new political establishment, Subhas declared: âIt will be the task of the Provisional Government to launch and conduct the struggle that will bring about the expulsion of the British and their allies from the soil of India.â [1] Bose, taking formal command of the demoralized and undermanned Indian National Army from Rash Bose, turned it into a professional army with the help of the Japanese. He recruited Indian civilians living in Japanese-occupied territories of South-east Asia, and incorporated vast numbers of Indian POWs from British forces in Singapore, Malaya and Hong Kong to man the brigades of the INA.
Government Administration and the War
Main articles: Indian National Army, India during World War II, Invasion and Occupation of the Andaman Islands during World War II
The same night that Bose declared the existence of Azad Hind, the government took action to declare war against the United States and Britain. The government consisted of a Cabinet ministry acting as an advisory board to Subhas Bose, who was given the title "Netaji" (translating roughly to "leader") and was no doubt the dominant figure in the Provisional Government. He exercised virtual authoritarian control over the government and the army. With regards to the government's first issuances of war declarations, the "Cabinet had not been unanimous about the inclusion of the U.S.A. Bose had shown impatience and displeasure - there was never any question then or later of his absolute authority: the Cabinet had no responsibility and could only tender advice..." [2]
At the end of October of 1943, Bose flew to Tokyo to participate in the Greater East Asia Conference as an observer to Japan's Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere; it could not function as a delegate because India had technically fallen outside the jurisdiction of Japan's definition of "Greater East Asia", but Bose gave speeches in opposition to Western colonialism and imperialism at the conference. By the end of the conference, Azad Hind had been given a limited form of governmental jurisdiction over the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, which had been captured by the Imperial Japanese Navy early on in the war.
Once under the jurisdiction of Azad Hind, the islands formed the government's first claims to territory. The islands themselves were renamed "Shaheed" and "Swaraj", meaning "martyr" and "self-rule" respectively. Bose placed the islands under the governorship of one Lieutenant-Colonel Loganathan, and had limited involvement with the official governorship of the territory, instead involving himself largely with the leadership of the INA and assisting in Japan's plans for the invasion of India. In theory the government itself had the power to levy taxes on the local populace, and tomake and enforce laws: in practice they were enforced by the police force under Japanese control. Indians were willing to pay these taxes at first, but became less inclined to do so towards the end of the war when the Provisional Government enacted legislation for higher war-time taxes to fund the INA. During his interrogation after the war Loganathan admitted that he had only had full control over the islands' vestigial education department, as the Japanese had retained full control over the police force, and in protest he had refused to accept responsibility for any other areas of Government. He was powerless to prevent the Homfreyganj massacre of the 30th January 1944, where forty-four Indian civilians were shot by the Japanese on suspicion of spying. Many of them were members of the Indian Independence League, whose leader in Port Blair, Dr. Diwan Singh, had already been tortured to death in the Cellular Jail after doing his best to protect the islanders from Japanese atrocities during the first two years of the occupation. [1]
Azad Hind's military forces in the form of the INA saw some successes against the British, and moved with the Japanese army to lay siege to the town of Imphal in eastern India. Plans to march towards Delhi, gaining support and fresh recruits along the way, stalled both with the onset of monsoon season and the failure to capture Imphal. British bombing seriously reduced morale, and the Japanese along with the INA forces began their withdrawal from India.
In addition to these setbacks, the INA was faced with a formidable challenge when the troops were left to defend Rangoon without the assistance of the Japanese in the winter of 1944-1945. Loganathan was relocated from the Andaman Islands to act as field commander. With the I.N.A. garrison about 6,000 strong, he manned the Burmese capital in the absence of any other police force or troops during the period between the departure of the Japanese and the arrival of the British. Due to his experience administering the limited sovereign territory of Azad Hind with the Japanese troops, he was successful in maintaining law and order to the extent that there was not a single case of dacoity or of loot during the period from April 24th to May 4th, 1945.
The Defeat of the INA and the Collapse of the Provisional Government
Left to defend Rangoon from the British advance without support from the Japanese, the INA was soundly defeated. Bose had fled Burma and returned to Singapore before the fall of Rangoon; the government Azad Hind had established on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands collapsed when the island garrisons of Japanese and Indian troops were defeated by British troops and the islands themselves retaken. Bose himself was killed in a plane crash departing from Taiwan attempting to escape to Russia. The Provisional Government of Free India ceased to exist with the deaths of the Axis, the INA, and Netaji Bose in 1945.
The troops who manned the brigades of the Indian National Army were taken as prisoners of war by the British. A number of these prisoners were brought to India and tried by British courts for treason, including a number of high ranking officers such as Colonel Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon. The defense of these individuals from prosecution by the British became a central point of contention between the British Raj and the Indian Independence Movement in the post-war years.
Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, while an ally of Japan throughout the war, has become a controversial figure for his stances against racism and imperialism which would run in opposition against what was generally recognized as Japanese imperialism in Asia during World War II. Bose himself opposed all manner of such colonial practices, but saw Britain as hypocritical in "fighting a war for democracy" but refusing to extend the same respect for democracy and equal rights to their colonial subjects in India. As such, he is sometimes cited by revisionist Japanese historians as proof of the legitimacy of Japanese assertions that their brand of imperialism was in the best interests of Asian nations oppressed by Western colonialists. Criticism of Bose remains, with some accusing him of fascism, citing his strict control over the Provisional Government as evidence of this; some accused him of wanting to establish a totalitarian state in India with the blessings of the Axis powers. It is inaccurate to term Bose solely as a fascist, but it is true that Bose openly admired fascism in the Axis countries and used it as a way to organize the Provisional Government; he believed that parliamentary democracy was unsuitable for India, and that a centrally organized, self-sufficient, semi-socialist India under the firm control of a single party was the best course for Indian government. Some of his ideas would help shape Indian governmental policy in the aftermath of the country's independence from Britain.
The fact that Azad Hind was aligned politically with Japan may have little to do with explicit agreement and support for Japanese policy in Asia, and more with what Bose saw as a pragmatic approach to Indian independence. Disillusioned with Gandhi's philosophies of non-violence, Bose was clearly of the camp that supported exploiting British weakness to gain Indian independence. Throughout the existence of Azad Hind, Bose sought to distance himself from Japanese collaboration and become more self-sufficient, but found this difficult since the existence of Azad Hind as a governmental entity had only come about with the support of the Japanese, and on whom the government and army of Azad Hind were entirely dependent. Bose, however, remains a hero in present-day India and is remembered as a man who fought fiercely for Indian independence. [3]
The INA had never been a highly effective combat force, and Japanese troops saw much of the combat in India against the British. With the fading of their plans for Indian conquest, the Japanese began to shift priority for resource allocation from South Asia to the Pacific, where they were fighting United States troops advancing from island to island against Japanese holdings there. When it had become clear that Bose's plans to advance to Delhi from the borders of Burma would never materialize due to the defeat of the INA at Imphal and the halt of Japanese armies by British aerial and later naval superiority in the region, Japanese support for Azad Hind declined.
Azad Hind was recognized as a legitimate and independent successor state to British rule in India by only a small number of countries, limited almost solely to Axis powers and their affiliate states. Azad Hind had diplomatic relations with nine countries: Nazi Germany, the Empire of Japan, Fascist Italy, the Independent State of Croatia, Wang Jingwei's Government in Nanjing, Thailand, Burma, Manchukuo and the Philippines. On the declaration of its formation in Singapore, President Eamon de Valera of the Irish Free State sent a note of congratulations to Bose. Vichy France, however, although being an Axis collaborator, never gave formal political recognition to Azad Hind.
i know this may not be encouraged, but i want to C/P a post from the forum i just mentioned.
someone in that forum had this to say -
I want to quote something from the "Illustrated History of the World War II" written by Owen Booth and John Walton(both London based writer and researchers, specialising in modern history).
The Chapter 16 of the book ie "The Empire in Crisis - Australia, India and Burma" (Page 227) devotes one paragraph to "Subhas Bose" from a purely British perspective. In the same paragraph there is a one line mention of MK Gandhi , also (only once in the whole book and be sure, it is not for showcasing the socalled nonviolence ).
As you read through the paragraph, you can see , who was a more threat to the British (Netaji or MK Gandhi)
<b>"Also present at the Greater East Asian Conference was the Indian nationalist Subhas Chandra Bose, who arrived by German U-boat.Civil unrest in India at the British refusal to grant the colony its own government had been growing throughout the war.Around the world , Indian soldiers were fighting and dying in defence of the British Empire, and Indian supplies were proving essential to the survival of Britain itself, yet the British Government would offer only to 'consider' the issue of self-rule for the Indian people once the war was over.The Indian nationalist cause , officially led by Mahatma Mohandas Gandhi, was exploited by Bose throughout the war in a series of anti-British propaganda broadcasts made from Japan.He was also responsible - with permission from the Japanese military - for raising the 'Indian National Army', which was made up of Indian POWs captured by the Japanese in Malaya.Bose saw himself as a future leader of an independent India, and between 1942 and 1944 , he repeatedly called on Japan to 'march on Delhi' and kick the British out"
</b>
Reading thru' this paragraph you can easily find how senile and ineffective was our official nationalist leader Mr. MK Gandhi , due to whose fanatic non-violent histrionics the British were only "Offering to 'consider' the issue of self-rule for the Indian people " and that too only after "the war was over" , so that India bleeds to supply Britain of war expenses.
On the other hand the British had no doubt, that Netaji only wanted them to be kicked out of India.
And the fact whether did Netaji want to free India for becoming a future leader of the independent nation ...? smile.gif I need not say anything ..History will speak forth , who became the Prime Minister of Independent India.. and who died like a valient hero without claiming a single piece of land in the country he fought to make free.
(Reproduced with the permission of the daily Pioneer, which carried this piece titled as "Netaji: The enigma endures" on January 22, 2006)
The story of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose's post-August 18, 1945 life - and eventual death - is probably locked up in some archive in Russia or any of the other former republics that made up the Soviet Union. After the disintegration of the USSR, only a handful of the thousands of archives have been thrown open to scholars.
These store the files of the KGB, the Communist Party of Soviet Union (CPSU) and its satellites in the provinces and republics, the Army and other defence establishments and countless think tanks aligned to the Communist party. The Communists, it must be noted, were compulsive recorders and stashed away the proceedings of meetings of any significance - or, as it turned out, insignificance - for later reference. In the post-1991 era, quite a few indications have emerged from the writings of Russian archivists and historians pointing to a definite link between the CPSU's pre-World War II interest in Netaji and the big enigma surrounding his disappearance.
It is up to Indian scholars working on Russia to get to the bottom of this mystery because the Russians themselves are not likely to plumb the archives in pursuance of a story, which is not central to their own needs. Besides, under the economic conditions prevailing in Russia, scholars find funding for academic research quite hard to come by. What exacerbates the tragedy is that there are few Indians to pursue Indo-Russian history, particularly with a focus on the Soviet era, and the root cause for that, again, is paucity of scholarships and fellowships. Even the few, like me, who are keen to get to the truth, are stonewalled by bureaucratic opposition. All that a scholar needs to access the once-forbidden archives these days is a letter of recommendation from the Ministry of External Affairs. Professor Bondorevski, a noted India expert with good relations with the Kremlin, once urged me to meet a senior MEA official called Mr Shukla. He said that Mr Shukla was his friend and would cooperate. But subsequently, the official told me in quite a candid way that the Government of India was not keen.
A good question often making the rounds these days is: What did the Justice MK Mukherjee Commission of Inquiry find in Russia during its fortnight-long sojourn in September 2005? While hesitating to speculate on the contents of his report, I can only say that a judicial inquiry is hardly the appropriate vehicle for navigating through the veritable ocean of facts, often camouflaged with suggestive passages whose implications are spiked with intrigue. One hint carried in a solitary manuscript found in one corner of Russia may require follow-up from a Japanese end, or the trail could possibly resurface in Romania. Another aspect to think of is the enduring Russian tradition of secrecy. Even Justice Mukherjee discovered that to his chagrin.
Now that we are sure that there was no air crash at Taihoku airport in Formosa (Taiwan) - and, therefore, no definitive evidence that Netaji died on August 18, 1945 - all indicators point to a Russian role behind his vanishing from the scene. Half a century has passed since, marked by the collapse of Communism in Russia, but a closure to the mystery eludes us.
We have to ponder first on what could possibly have been the reason behind Joseph Stalin's allergy towards Jawaharlal Nehru. He did not give audience to Nehru's sister, Vijayalakshmi Pandit, the first Ambassador of India to Moscow. Besides, he refused to invite the Prime Minister to his country, despite a lot of back-channel requests. In 1951, Stalin told a visiting Indian Communist delegation comprising, among others, Aruna Asaf Ali, through the two interlocutors in the India Section of the CPSU that "Indian Communists should distance themselves from Nehru".
It was only under Glasnost that we witnessed a shift in interest, principally on the part of Soviet scholars, to this subject. In 1989, E Devyatkina, an India expert, wrote a book, Social and Political Thought of Subhas Chandra Bose. This can be counted as the first post-Stalinist inquiry into Netaji's life. On his death, however, there is precious little. But Devyatkina, who had access to a lot of records in what was still a close society, wrote: "There is reason to doubt the theory that he died in 1945."
A year later, another book by India expert, AV Raikov, Subhas Chandra Bose and Soviet Russia, had an interesting foreword by Leonid Mitrokhin (not Vassily Mitrokhin). He wrote: "Glasnost has erased much of the USSR's shame and helped restructure her relations with other countries. Scholars of the USSR are trying to take a relook at Subhas Chandra Bose." The same Leonid Mitrokhin had once tried to dissuade me from investigating the truth. He had said the "truth would hurt Indo-Russian relations". Why did such an avowed crusader for the truth take this curious stand. Unfortunately, Mitrokhin died with his secret in 2002.
In 1992, a year after the fall of USSR, a Russian journalist, Vinogradov, came out with a magazine article, "Life and Death of Netaji Bose", which ended on an ambiguous note. Curiously, an editorial comment at the end of the note reiterated the fact that there continues to be a "diplomatic silence between the two countries". Another journalist, Kuznets, a veteran from the Afghan war, endorsed the mystery, too. Once again, the familiar equivocal ending, leading to the same estimation - the secret is buried very deep indeed.
The biggest breakthrough came in 1993 when Asia and Africa Today, a publication of the Oriental Institute, Moscow, announced that it would, in a subsequent edition, publish some material from the archives of the dissolved KGB. That must have unnerved the Narasimha Rao Government because its Ambassador in Moscow, Ranen Sen, tried to use diplomatic pressure on the Institute to prevent it from coming out with the article. A Counsellor from the Embassy, Ajay Malhotra, went to meet the joint-editor of the publication, V Turadzev. Though the Indian diplomatic move to muzzle the publication did not yield results, Turadzev later told me that that there was pressure on him to desist from such boldness in future. Still, Nos. 8, 9 and 10, of Asia and Africa Today, though uncharitable in terms of shedding significant new light on Netaji's disappearance, do end up giving solid leads that the KGB's archives may yet have the truth within.
My investigations, however limited owing to my status as a foreigner in Russia, have led me to the doors of the State Archives of the Russian Federation and numerous other storehouses of information. I am told by many Russian friends that they have stumbled upon information, which could be of help to me. But since Subhas Chandra Bose was not the focus of their own inquiry, these nuggets were not useful to them. A close friend, Tatiana Zagorodnikova, had, through a former Warsaw Pact Major General, Alexander Kulesnikov, come to know that the latter had chanced upon evidence that Netaji was present in the USSR in 1946. She even got him to hand over a file containing some documents to the late Forward Bloc MP, Chitta Basu, when he went to Moscow as part of an Indian parliamentary delegation. Kulesnikov went on to write an article in Patriot magazine that he had seen a file that referred to a meeting between Stalin, Molotov and Vichensky, in which the subject of "Chandra Bose" was discussed.
Unfortunately, when Kulesnikov was summoned before the Mukherjee Commission, he ducked. The Russian Government curtly told New Delhi that Kulesnikov was "untraceable" even though it is well known that he is now a diplomat posted in Turkey.
What are the Russians trying to hide?
(The writer, formerly with the International Relations Department of Jadavpore University, Kolkata, is a noted expert on Indo-Russian relations
He's been trying to establish Bose's death; and now Pranab Mukherjee is one of those who will seal the fate of Justice Mukherjee's heretical report.
By Anuj Dhar
Monday, 1 May 2006
It's a cruel irony of fate that the man who wanted to prove Netaji dead should now be sitting in judgment on the heretical report of the Justice MK Mukehrjee. As you read this, time is running out for the Government, legally bound to make public the findings of the Commission alongwith their Action Taken Report (ATR) on its directions. Given his antecedents, it is anybody's guess what view Mr Pranab Mukherjee would have taken on the Commission's report in the meetings of the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs (CCPA). Also, not much should be expected from a Cabinet that last year made a brazen attempt to sabotage the work of the Commission. It is charged that they actually succeeded subsequently when Justice Mukherjee, a former judge of the Supreme Court of India, returned empty-handed from Russia. His inquiry in that country was reduced to a mockery by the disinterest displayed by the Russian and Indian governments.
It will be naïve to assume that Pranab Mukherjee would be willing to give any ground to a report that has in all likelihood trashed the air crash version of Netaji's death. Because, if Mr Mukherjee concedes to the Commission's views, his past could return to trouble him. The charge of Netaji's close kin that he propagated "an untruth for reasons best known to him and the Government of India" is too serious to be overlooked. Subhas Chandra Bose is one of biggest icons of India and anyone, whoever he may be, found to be indulging in any inappropriate conduct over the matter of his death must be hauled up.
In the circumstances, the people of India must ask Mr Pranab Mukherjee to come out, without delay, with the reasons that made him dead sure of Netaji's death in 1945, when the evidence at any rate was sketchy. Was it the cherished party line; or was there something else that he would like to enlighten people about? When he appeared before Justice MK Mukherjee as a witness on October 15, 2001, Pranab Mukherjee looked jittery, but nevertheless made statements that fitted clearly in the Congress worldview where Netaji had ceased to exist after August 1945. Just as Former Home Secretary K Padmanabhaiah dished out selective bits when he made a misleading note (See When Home Ministry mislead Union Cabinet) for the Cabinet in 1995, Mukherjee too feigned ignorance about the Government's actual view on Netaji's death, as outlined by Prime Minister Morarji Desai in 1978 and repeated as late as 1999 by then Home Minister LK Advani. It was clear from Mr Mukherjee's deposition that he valued more the line taken by his party than the actual facts of the matter.
The current predicament for the people of India is that they would not be able to depose much faith in the Government's handling of the Mukherjee Commission's report. The audacious scarping of the Budget session of Parliament, which was to see the report come out and discussed by lawmakers, did not bide well for an issue the Government knew was "a definitive matter of national interest" "surcharged with emotion". People have already been pushed to the extreme end of the cynicism. Facts bear out that the Government of India, specially one led by the Congress, has had no genuine intention to ascertain the fate of the man but for whom India would not have become free in 1947. And with someone like Pranab Mukherjee calling shots in a Government clobbered together by Netaji's enemies, one can well foresee an unsympathetic disposal of Justice Mukherjee's historic report.
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I CANT EMPHASIZE ENOUGH - BUT THE SITE WWW.MISSIONNETAJI.ORG IS AN ABSOLUTE MUST FOR EVERYONE. TOGETHER WITH THE "AIT" HOGWASH, NETAJI'S "DEATH", IS THE OTHER BIG RIDE THAT ALL INDIANS HAVE BEEN TAKEN FOR. </b>
disclaimer - i dont own that site or did not start it or am not in anyway connected to it. just a plain member there, just like i am in this board.
It's amazing how Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose continues to be in news 60 years after his disputed death. In a way, this has been in defiance of successive Indian governments who would rather want the people to sideline him as they have. A recent BBC online poll named Bose the third most popular leader in South Asia after Jinnha and Gandhi. Strikingly, as per the same poll, the stalwarts like Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and the inimitable Atal Bihari Vajpayee don't even blip on the radar anymore.
The coming months will see Subhas making a comeback of a sort. India's longest running political controversy is heading towards its grand finale. For five years the media and the lawmakers in India have adopted a touch and go sort of approach towards the inquiry of Justice MK Mukherjee into the "death" of Subhas Bose. Not any longer. The Commission, formed in 1999 following a Court order, is gearing up to present its report by November. The Government will have to present it in Parliament along with an action taken report. All those of you who have interest in either politics, or history, or intrigue, or mystery better watch out: It doesn't get any bigger than this.
Psst ...Top Secret!
Let this impression be trashed at the outset that the Netaji mystery belongs to a different era. No doubt it started in 1945; but it has been simmering till date. The controversy is a bombshell and that's what the official records hint at. Netaji is supposed to have died at the end of Second World War, and yet the Indian Government continues to sit on files about him. And they are wary of approaching the British and Russian Governments to release the papers they are keeping to themselves.
But why so much of precaution over some details about man who ceased to be a problem to his adversaries in and outside India decades back? This is for you Gen-X dudes: Some of the classified Netaji files maintained by the Government of India are of mid-1990s vintage! That is, post-Rajiv Gandhi period. Perish the idea ... "Oh, such an old story, what is the fuss now!" The Government of India wouldn't agree. They think there is something about Netaji that can spell big time trouble even now. That's why they refused to hand over several Top Secret files to the Mukherjee Commission. Why would they be doing so? Well, in the case of two Narasimha Rao period files, they reasoned that the "disclosure of the nature and contents of these documents would ... hurt the sentiments of the people at large and may evoke wide-spread reactions .... Diplomatic relations with friendly countries may also be adversely affected if the said documents are disclosed."
Should not we demand to know what these documents have to say? How on earth some bits about a dead man affect India's relations with other countries? Should not we ask our Government to state facts? Don't we have a right to know what happened to the man who liberated us?
Pre-conceived notions
It's cynicism exemplified when people say, "How long we can go on inquiring?" If Americans, for instance, were to be besotted with same defeatist thinking, they would not have become the great power they are. Indeed they don't give up. How can one leave out in cold those who fight for one's country? Last year only the US Government asked the Indian Government to help them trace out their missing WWII airmen. Netaji went missing while waging war for freedom for us and we don't want to know what happened to him. What is it if not brazen ungratefulness?
Those who dismissively say that "there have been commissions after commissions" have no idea whatsoever what sort of frauds were played on the nation by the previous "commissions". In 1956, Shah Nawaz Khan, a Congress MP and a secretary to then Railway Minister, headed a committee -- a puppet on a string, actually. There are reasons to believe that he did what he was told by Nehru government. After his "command performance" Shah Nawaz was made a minister. GD Khosla, who headed a commission in early 1970s, was a friend of Nehru's to start with. He wrote the biography of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi even as he inquired into Netaji's disappearance. Can you imagine such things happening now? Both these panels declared that Netaji had died in a plane crash in Taiwan. Never mind that they did not bother to know what the Taiwan Government thought much as people wanted them to.
"But the issue is dead!" Ok, for argument's sake, if that be the case, it is going to COME ALIVE. A Commission of Inquiry headed by a former judge of the Supreme Court of India is going to hand over a report to Home Minister Shivraj Patil, who, at the moment, doesn't seem to be at ease with the direction the Commission is heading to. The report will have to be discussed by the Cabinet before being presented in Parliament for a free for all debate. It is inevitable that Netaji mystery will become a hot topic.
Perplexing past
Funny how people jump to conclusions. "My grandfather was in the INA and he said Netaji died and therefore I believe so." This is how some give their verdict on the issue the nation is debating for 6 decades. If only it were that easy. There were over 50,000 people aligned with the Provisional Government of Free India and only a handful knew what happened to Netaji in his last known days. The rest were in as much dark as the Indians back home. They all heard stories ... Netaji died or Netaji escaped. The truth, or inkling of it, came out after interrogations and inquiries, whose reports are not in public domain.
On August 25, 1945 the Indian newspapers broke the news that Netaji had died in a freak plane crash in Taipei (then Taihoku) on August 18th. He had been flying to Tokyo to work out the INA's surrender when this happened. The British would believe none of it. Viceroy Wavell noted in his diary on 23 August that "I wonder if the Japanese announcement of Subhas Chandra Bose's death in a air-crash is true. I suspect it very much, it is just what should be given out if he meant to go underground..." They dispatched their crack intelligence teams to South East Asia. The findings were bewildering. Netaji was not heading to Tokyo. Months before the world war staggered to a halt, he'd begun planning a new chapter of his war on colonialism. He saw the Cold War coming and reached out to the USSR. The British intelligence got clear information that Subhas was going to Russia at the time of his death. The Japanese had given out a false story about his destination. The survivors of the crash were rounded up and records were captured. The pictured that emerged was of deceit. Eyewitnesses were found to be lying and records appeared as if they had been planted.
Americans chipped in with help. In fact it were they who had the best knowledge. They reached Taiwan in September 1945 and guess what they found. " ... there is no direct evidence that Subhas Chandra Bose was killed in a airplane crash ⦠despite the public statements of the Japanese to that effect." This, stated the State Department, ten months after Netaji's "death". What really happened? "The D.I.B. during his recent visit to London mentioned the receipt ... of information to the effect that Subhas Bose was alive in Russia." This is from a May 1946 report and D.I.B. means, the Director of Intelligence Bureau Sir Norman Smith.
The Government of free India knew about the Soviet connection to the Netaji mystery. But all they did was to dilly-dally and state that no inquiry was required. It took ten years of pressure before Prime Minister Nehru agreed to inquire into the matter. This must be hammered: the Government never wanted to probe Netaji's fate. From Shah Nawaz to Monoj Mukherjee, each time they were forced to. Isn't it revolting?
Present perfect
Thank God for Mukherjee Commission! Or shall we thank Mikhail Gorbahev? The fall of the USSR brought the Netaji issue out. In mid-1990s the Russians themselves began saying that Subhas was with them after his death. The matter reached India and the press did rake it up. But Narasimha Rao, with Pranab Mukherjee in tow, would not say a thing. A patriotic fellow moved to Calcutta High Court and the court found the matter to be wide open for inquiry. The Government was chided and told to form a commission of inquiry to find out where and how Netaji had died. Mercifully, at the time the verdict came, the NDA was in power.
The inquiry of the Mukherjee Commission in past five years has been pathbreaking. They have found out, among others, that the Government of India, at the PMO level, indulged in systematic, unlawful destruction of evidence concerning the Netaji death case. The Government did not want any inquiry in Taiwan, which is precisely what Justice Mukherjee did. The result: the ROC Government ruled out the very occurrence of the crash that we had been told over decades had killed Netaji.
Indian Government also did not want any inquiry in Russia; but that is happening now. After much pulls and pressures, the Mukherjee Commission will visit Russia from September 20 onwards. However, that's not a good enough development. The Government's communication to the Commission suggests that they won't do anything to help the Commission access security and intelligence related classified papers in Russia, said to be containing definite information about Netaji's "post-death" life. Time has come for us, the people of India, to demand from our Government something that they should have done decades back: For God's sake, request the Head of the Russian Government to state facts. The people of India must know what happened to their liberator.
Anuj Dhar, a Delhi-based journalist, is the author of Back from Dead: Inside the Subhas Bose Mystery. He can be reached at anuj@missionnetaji.org. This piece was written prior to the Mukherjee Commission's visit to Russia. http://www.missionnetaji.org/page/back_from_dead.html
