Regardless of the political calculations that underlie this race to own his legacy, these are all in sync with our times and also with the law of history
Just as history is always written by the victors, it is also written according to their convenience. Different historians have voiced different opinions about history, from Will Durant who said “history is mostly guessing; the rest is prejudice”, to Voltaire’s “history is a pack of lies we play on the dead.”British historian Lord Acton, better known for his famous quote “power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely”, believed history as an unending progress towards liberty. If history is a march towards liberty, then the events which history chronicles are also essential for an understanding towards greater liberty. Given that greater liberty is what every society strives for, theinterpretation of history will therefore be liable to change from time to time, to derive a new meaning that is appropriate at a given point in time for the society’s renewal and rediscovery of itself. Just as a photograph of a room changes when the photographer alters the vantage point from which he looks at it through his lens, history also changes when the historian looks at it from the vantage point of the present which keeps on changing constantly. It cannot be said that by doing so one is attempting to alter history - one is only trying to substitute the views of the past historians by those of the present. Unlike physical sciences, laws of history cannot be immutable and fixed for all times, they will always be open to new interpretations, new insights and new ideas of new generations. Through this process, history is continuously rewritten by correcting the mistakes of the past.
For the last few years, the present government has been trying to correct such mistakes of our past historians in its attempt to rehabilitate one of the most marginalised leaders of our freedom struggle, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, and to restore him to his rightful place in our history. With some honourable exceptions, most of the past historians whose works we have studied in our schools, colleges and universities to shape our thoughts about the nation, have either been trained by the British or been influenced by the leftist ideologies. Both the British and the left in pre-independence India has staunchly opposed Bose for their obvious ideological reasons, and both therefore had a vested interest in downplaying the significance of Bose’s Azad Hind Fauj, or the Indian National Army (INA), in India’s struggle for independence. Except some cursory mention of the INA and its defeat by the allied forces and subsequent demise, the Red Fort trials of its leaders Colonel Shah Nawaz, Colonel Prem Sahgal and Colonel Gurbaksh Dhillon, and the subsequent mutinies by the Indian Navy and Royal Indian Air Force inspired by it, the average Indian knows nothing more about Bose, whose death also remains shrouded in mystery till today.
The contribution of Bose and his INA to our freedom movement remains a neglected footnote in our history books, just as Bose himself was marginalised in the Congress by both Gandhi and Nehru, though he always recognised their contribution - he named two INA brigades after them. Our historians have systematically propagated the view that Gandhi was the only leader solely responsible for India’s independence through his Ahimsa, and the relentless struggles of countless non-Gandhian revolutionaries, their brutal incarceration at Andaman and various British jails, or their supreme sacrifices were not even worth a footnote in history. That the INA even in its defeat had dealt a death blow to the British colonialism is barely recognised by any of our Oxford-trained or left-liberal historians.
The INA trials were used by the Congress for their political ends, and once that purpose was served, they were conveniently forgotten. No INA soldier or officer was recruited in the army of Independent India, and in an atrocious address to them 22 May 1946, even Gandhiji told them, “Above all, you must never beg or throw yourselves on anybody’s charity. Because you have risked your lives for India’s sake and fought for her on the Imphal plains, you must not expect to be pampered in return.”
It is an undeniable fact that in a democracy, political considerations guide each and every action by a political party. Non-Gandhian interpretation of freedom movement is gaining currency at the present juncture and the results of Nehruvian socialism upon our post-independent trajectory of socio-economic growth is being reassessed critically.
With alternative narratives to history forcefully making inroads into public consciousness, the long-overdue recognition is now finally coming to Bose. It is therefore not surprising that there is now a race between different political parties to claim his legacy, especially since BJP is perceived to have gained a distinct edge in this. The NDA Government has incorporated Netaji’s birthday on January 23 in the Republic Day calendar from this year on, and the day has been celebrated as ‘Parakram Diwas’. PM Modi has paid “Tributes to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, a great freedom fighter and a true son of Mother India, on his birth anniversary”. Not to be left behind, the West Bengal Chief Minister also tweeted her “Homage to Deshnayak Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose on his 125th birthday”, while demanding the declaration of 23rd January as a national holiday.
To commemorate his 125th birth anniversary and as part of the year-long celebrations, the Central government has announced that a grand statue of Bose will be installed under the canopy at India Gate. Until the installation of the actual statue is completed, a hologram of Bose will be projected at the site of the statue. The Centre has also instituted “Subhas Chandra Bose Aapda Prabandhan Puraskars” to recognize and honour the invaluable contribution and selfless service rendered by individuals and organisations in India in the field of disaster management which will be presented during the investiture ceremony. The West Bengal Government has also set up a committee to conduct year-long celebrations till January 23, 2022” and promised a monument to be erected in Kolkata and a state university to be set up in the name of Azad Hind Fauj.
The official mouthpiece of the Trinamool Congress, Jago Bangla,issued a front page top header on January 23, asking “Why isn’t Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose given the recognition of the first PM of India?”,just as Chandra Bose, Netaji’s grandnephew, who also happens to be a BJP leader, stated that in his speech at the Red Fort, PM Modi had also mentioned this fact. He demanded that the government should issue a gazette notification stating that Netaji was the first prime minister of undivided India.
Regardless of the political calculations that underlie this race to own the legacy of Bose, these are all perfectly in sync with our times and also with the law of history. In his remarkable book “What is History”, British historian E H Carr wrote: “The craving for an interpretation of history is so deep rooted that, unless we have a constructive outlook over the past, we are either drawn to mysticism or cynicism. Mysticism to him was the view that the “meaning of history lies outside history” and cynicism meant that “history has no meaning or a multiplicity of equally valid and invalid meanings”. Let the history of our nation and its struggles be made progressively free from both mysticism and cynicism.
(The writer, a former Director General at the Office of the Comptroller & Auditor General of India, is currently a professor at Arun Jaitley National Institute of Financial Management. The views expressed are personal.)
