Netaji- Subhash Chandra Bose

[Bharatvarsh2]

I agree. But there is more. Indians tend to forget that it was Veer Savarkar who

brought Rash Behari [Bihari] Bose and Subhas Chandra Bose in a common cause.

Here is how: When world war II began, Savarkar declared that "the sanest policy

for us which practical politics demand is to befriend those who are likely to

serve our country's interests in spite of any `ism' they may follow for

themselves and to befriend them only so long as it serves our purpose" (Savarkar

1964 6: 413).



On 22 June 1940, Subhas Chandra Bose came to brief Savarkar at the latter's

residence in Mumbai on an agitation centred on the Black Hole monument in

Kolkata that Bose was leading. The `Black Hole of Calcutta' referred to a small

dungeon where troops of the Nawab of Bengal, Siraj ud-Daulah, had held British

prisoners of war after the capture of Fort William in 1756. The British claimed

that 146 of their men and women prisoners held there died from suffocation, heat

exhaustion, and crushing. A tablet erected on the site of the Black Hole to

commemorate the victims mysteriously disappeared in 1822 whereupon Lord Curzon

commissioned a new monument. Its presence in Kolkata became a cause celebre and

a rallying point for nationalists when Bose began lobbying for its removal in

which he received support from the Indian National Congress and the Muslim

League. Bose had hoped that the agitation would draw Hindus and Muslims closer

and in that connection had already visited M. A. Jinnah and was now calling on

Savarkar.



In their meeting Savarkar said to Bose, "Why do you want to waste time in the

agitation to remove this monument? Instead of courting arrest and languishing in

jail, a person of your stature should go abroad and form an army to attack the

British from outside the India." Bose disregarded Savarkar's counsel at that

time and went ahead with the agitation for which he was jailed and kept under

house arrest from where he would make the much celebrated escape to Berlin (see

Banerji 1990: 135-136).



Upon learning of Bose's arrival in Berlin, Savarkar contacted his old colleague

Rash Bihari Bose in Japan and recommended that Subhas Chandra Bose should lead

the war effort from the base in Japan with the connivance of the Japanese

government with whom Rash Bihari had cultivated close relations. Rash Bihari had

also managed to bring together in a common cause the Indian Independence League

formed by Pritam Singh and the Indian National Army of Mohan Singh (the two were

feuding and scheming against each other). When Bose arrived in Japan from

Berlin, Rash Bihari handed the baton to him as the sole leader (Netaji) of the

Indian National Army (INA)(see Punj 2002).



On September 30, 1943 Netaji toured Andaman as the supreme commander of Azad

Hind Fauz and paid tribute to the freedom fighters (including Savarkar) in the

Cellular Jail. He got printed thousands of copies of the Tamil version of

Savarkar's Indian War of Independence of 1857 and distributed them in public.

Andaman and Nicobar islands were re-named as Shaheed and Swaraj islands.



In a speech on Azad Hind Radio (June 25, 1944) Netaji acknowledged Savarkar's

foresight in these words: "When due to misguided political whims and lack of

vision, almost all the leaders of Congress party have been decrying all the

soldiers in Indian Army as mercenaries, it is heartening to know that Savarkar

is fearlessly exhorting the youths of India to enlist in armed forces. These

enlisted youths themselves provide us with trained men and soldiers for our

Indian National Army" (Punj 2002).



References:



Banerjee, Nitya Narayan. 1990. Hindu Outlook. Calcutta: Hindutva Publications

Punj, Balbir K. Subhas vs Savarkar. 2002. The Asian Age, May 20, 2002

Savarkar, V.D. 1964. Samagra Savarkar Wangamaya: Writings of Swatantrya Veer

V.D. Savarkar (6 vols). Pune: Maharashtra Prantik Hindusabha.



Shrinivas Tilak



http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hinducivil...sage/43358

[Bharatvarsh2]

Some less known facts:

Please see SPM Diaries 1937-46, by Dr. Anil Chandra Banerjee (his nephew)| Also the book by Prof. BR Madhok @__Pala @realitycheckind

about 2 hours ago via web

In response Mookerjee called for a grand rally. Bose Goons threw stones at SPM which hit him in head. Mahasabha retailiated in kind.

about 2 hours ago via web

In 40s Calcutta Municipal election Mahasabha and Bose were rival forces. Bose used gundas to intimidate HMS @__Pala @realitycheckind

about 2 hours ago via web

Bose's Forward Bloc joined hands with Suhrawardy for a separate Bengal from India. Sarat Bose led the proposal @__Pala @realitycheckind

about 2 hours ago via web

Bose told Mookerjee that he would see to it that HinduMSabha was broken even b4 it was born. By force if needed @__Pala @realitycheckind

about 2 hours ago via web

@__Pala @realitycheckind Bose's Forward Bloc tried even rowdy strong arm tactics to finish off flourishing Hindu Mahasabha from Bengal

about 2 hours ago via web

@__Pala @realitycheckind With all due respect to #Netaji & his bravery; truth is his priorities/moorings were far from Hindu vision



http://twitter.com/bhAratenduH

Savarkar on a Bose proposal:

It is interesting to remind you here how two prominent Congress Presidents proposed to solve this problem of a National tongue and a National Script. Pandit Nehru thinks, leaving even Maulana Abul Kalam Azad far behind who only proposes Hindusthani which he assures us is tantamount to Urdu,-that the highly Arabianised Urdu of the Aligarh School or the Osmania University School is best fitted to be the National Language of India Including of course some twenty-eight crores of Hindus. While Desha Gaurav Subhash Babu improving upon the situation beat even Panditjis ingenuity hollow by proposing from the Presidential chair of the Indian National Congress that Roman Script would suit India as the best National Script. That is how the Congress ideology approaches things National ! Roman script to be the National Script of India ! How imminently practicable, to say the least ! Your Basumati, Ananda Bazar Patrika and all Bengali papers to appear every day in Roman script ! The Bande Mataram Song to be printed in this new National style as 'tomari Pratima ghadibe Mandire Mandire' and the Gita to begin with in this following attractive setting

as-

'Dharma Kshettre Kurukshettre Sama-vetah yuyutsavah' ans ao on and so on. It is true as Subhas Babu says that Kemal Pasha abolished the Arabian Script as unsuited to print and took to Roman script. But this fact has a lesson for our Mahommedan zealots who want the Urdu Script, that is this very Arabian style, to thrust even on the Hindus as an up-to-date National Script and it has no connection with the Hindus. Kemal Pasha took to the Roman script because the Turks had nothing better of their own to fall back upon. The Andamanees pick up Kauris and make a necklace of them,-but is that the reason why the Kuber also should do the same ? We Hindus should rather call upon Arabia and Europe to adopt the Nagari Script and Hindi language; such a proposal should not sound very impracticable to such inveterate optimists at any rate who seriously advance it as a very practical proposal to make Urdu the National language of the Marathas and to expect all our Arya Samaj Gurukuls to study the Vedas in Roman script ?

http://www.savarkar.org/content/pdfs/en/...n-v002.pdf

Bodhi already referred to Sarat's project of independent Bengal which was nipped thanks to Hindu Mahasabha's countercampaign and the League's own shortsightedness (they could have first convinced the softheaded Hindu bongs of its desirability and then started the riots and cleansing once they got the separate country).



His grandnephew Sugata Bose and niece Sarmila Bose are virulently anti Hindu and Sarmila is busy denying the rapes of 1971 or at least Paki culpability in it. One can see where they inherit that ideology from.

[Husky]

^



Wasn't there some sort of controversy about him not being married and not having any kids - as per the Indian view, when news of a daughter surfaced? People here probably know all the details, but hunting down the article again so I can parrot it correctly.



This next German site - see below - tells us that the nationalist Bose did the uh ... nationalist thing: got married "as per Indian rites" (<- :grrrr to his secretary, the Austrian Emilie Schenkl, and thus fathered one Anita Pfaff. She's a Political Economics professor @ Augsburg University. And is married to one Martin Pfaff who she met in India. He's: also Prof of Political Economics, something official at the something-something German Parliament, *and* "social worker" who "amongst other things founded a house for the blind in Bangalore".

(Anyone here checked whether his social work leanings in Bangalore tended in any ... missionary directions?)





1. www.uk-muenchen.de/berichte/reportagen_bose.htm

19. August 2000

Note, just an extract. Original at link

[...]

<Blablabla - her heart's grown attached to her father's country

She (Anita) never got to know her dad.... she feels deeply about his life/works/tragic course of life and death>



She's professor of (Political) Economy @ uni of Augsburg.



Her mother Emilie Schenkl - worked for the Post office - is from Vienna (Austria).



(Vienna) is where she (Emilie Schenkl, Mrs Bose) got to know SCBose in the 1930s. Bose, who was working as an author at this time, appointed her as secretary. Certainly, many would not give her recognition because of her background. Nevertheless, she succeeded to establish herself in her husband's family.

[color="#800080"](So that means his family must have documentation on her being his wife?)[/color]

(This next always gets me, why is applying Hindu rites where inapplicable OK?) [color="#0000FF"]They got married as per Indian rituals.[/color]

Then they went to Berlin. In 1943, SC Bose left Germany, heading towards Japan. He never saw his wife again.

She lived until 1996, when she died as an 86-year old at her daughter's place in Augsburg-Leitershoften. At Bose's death, his daughter Anita was but a few weeks old. Even though she had few personal memories of the freedom fighter, she is much preoccupied with India and her father.



On a trip there (India), she got to know her current husband, the (Political) Economist and also Augsburger SPD-German Parliament Representative Professor Martin Pfaff. Between 1958-1962 he worked as social worker in the vicinity of Bangalore, founding - among other things - a school for the Blind.



Which historical role does Anita Pfaff assign to her dad? "That India succeeded into getting its independence in 1947, that's something the country owes to the men and women such as my father, such as Nehru, Gandhi and my uncle Sarat Bose." This academic tells us that her father still enjoys high standing in India. In many houses, his pictures would hang on the wall. "There are memorials, postmarks and coinage with his image. Even streets are named after him," informs the 57-year old. She repeatedly vists the country, also on invitation of its government. Today the Professor in (Political) Economy teaches at the uni of Augsburg. Only recently she was appointed to the census (?) commission "Demographic Change" by German-parliament president Wolfgang Thierse.

(And pic of gravestone for "5 unknown soldiers" of the Indian Legion buried in Friedhof.

Buried. In some alien country. What a way to go.)

Little Sympathy.

Back to Bose. He was received only once by Adolf Hitler. Who had little sympathy for the coloured Indian.

(Too easy to comment.

The rest of the para is not relevant, but, for the fans

Bose, who had been mayor <insert the applicable angelsk term in context> of Kolkata before and had studied in England's Cambridge, was forced to quickly realise that he wouldn't reach his objective with Hitler's help. And so he decided to <call it quits> (or whatever angelsk phrase fits with "break up his tent"). With the U180 (a U-boat), he went to Japan.

Yeah I quit. I never gave a hoot about these characters, so the fans can find someone who actually *knows* the lingo. Can't even be bothered eyeballing over the rest of the article again to remind myself if it contained anything else of interest.





<snipped questions on with what evidence Anita Pfaff was crowned daughter by the tabloids and govt. Point #4 below: apparently the govt gives the run-around to people requesting the Right To Information on it.>



2. www.rediff.com/news/2005/may/11inter.htm

The Rediff Interview/Anita Bose Pfaff

May 11, 2005

Shyam Benegal's film Bose - The Forgotten Hero releases on May 13, but already finds itself in the midst of controversy. The All-India Forward Bloc has protested against the depiction of events in Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose's life, including his marriage and death. [color="#FF0000"]Other researchers say they will file a case against the film, because they insist that Bose did not marry, and had no children.[/color]



In an exclusive interview, first published in India Abroad, the newspaper owned by rediff.com, last year, Anita Bose Pfaff, Netaji's only child, spoke to Shyam Bhatia about her father's legacy.



[...]

Anita Bose Pfaff, Netaji's only child, was born in Vienna, her mother's city, which her father visited in 1934 for medical treatment. During his stay Netaji asked an Indian friend to locate an English-speaking secretary to help him with a book he was planning to write.



The friend, who ran an English conversation course, introduced him to Emilie Schenkl in June 1934. Emilie was the daughter of a prominent veterinary surgeon. They soon fell in love and married in December 1937 in Bad Gastein. Anita, who was born in 1942, is married to Professor Martin Pfaff, formerly a Green Party member of the Bundestag, the German parliament. They have three children: Peter Arun, Thomas Krishna and Maya Carina.

Rest at link.





3. www.hinduonnet.com/2005/12/29/stories/2005122903011300.htm

Thursday, Dec 29, 2005

The Chindu (who else). Here Amartya Sen enters the picture to endorse Anita Pfaff - newly produced for the Indian public as Princess Anastasia The Long Lost Romanov... I mean Bose Junior:

Netaji's death: Amartya Sen goes by Anita Pfaff's view

(Amartya Sen meets Anita Pfaff and her husband Martin Pfaff)

``If Netaji had been alive, he would have been 108. It is not unknown for people to live to that age, but I have no jurisdiction to comment on how he died. I will go by what Netaji's daughter has to say on this,'' Mr. Sen told newspersons during a visit to the Netaji Bhavan here.

[...]

Mr. Sen, who visited the Netaji Bhavan for the first time, said that the leader's political thoughts such as bringing about Hindu-Muslim unity, empowering women and integrating the country were something to be ``felt with the heart.''



``This visit brought me close to someone whom I have known about since childhood. I am particularly touched by a picture in which a group of Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs are having a meal together. This was the practice of the Indian National Army. It is through vignettes like these that the thoughts of the great men are driven home,'' he said.

Like Sen said: Touching. Rest of 'stuff' at link.

Thank the Daoist Gods the ... great nationalist failed in his "Hindu meet Muslim; Muslim eat Hindu" mutual introduction project. And so ends another chapter in how Indian nationalism easily Replaces heathenism.



[color="#0000FF"]ADDED:[/color]

Sorry if someone's already posted this -

4. www.rtiindia.org/forum/42481-anita-pfaff-daughter-subhas-chandra-bose.html

Is Anita Pfaff daughter of Subhas Chandra Bose ?

Is Anita Pfaff daughter of Bose? RTI Activists question



A plea to ascertain the same is being tossed between Prime Minister's Office and Home Ministry with none being able to give clear answer.



The Home Ministry in a separate reply has accepted the Anita Pfaff is considered as the daughter of Subhash Chandra Bose by the Government.



[color="#FF0000"]"In a letter dated September 25, 2006 recieved from Ministry of External Affairs, it was stated that 'we have been informed by our Mission in Berlin that Mrs Anita Pfaff, daughter of Subhash Chandra Bose, has reuested for a copy of the Report of the Mukherjee Commission," S K Malhotra, Deputy Secretary Home Ministry had earlier replied.[/color]



A Mumbai-based resident, Ajay Marathe filed an RTI application seeking the reasons for such a belief by the Government. In his application he asked whether any scientific evidence was collected to reach such a belief.



He sought details of DNA test conducted, if any, to establish whether Bose is actually the biological father of the <st1:city wt="on"><st1>Augsburg</st1></st1:city> based German Professor.



But Marathe is yet to get any reply as the PMO had transferred the application under sections (Sections 6(3)) of the RTI act to the Home Ministry in November.



The Home Ministry in turn tossed the ball back in Prime Minister's Office court with a reply,"the information asked by you is not available in our records.



"However, it appears, that the same may be available with Prime Minister’s Office. Accordingly, your application is transferred to PMO for appropriate action in the matter under the provision of RTI Act 2005."

<o></o>

Marathe claimed "many Indians are curious to know"whether Bose did in fact father a child while in <st1:country-region wt="on"><st1>Germany</st1></st1:country-region> where he was attempting to gather support for the Indian National Army founded by him.



The 67-year-old Professor of Economics in <st1>Augsburg</st1> <st1>University</st1> in <st1:country-region wt="on"><st1>Germany</st1></st1:country-region>, Professor Anita Bose Pfaff, was among the more high profile visitors to the city.



"Till date, mystery surrounds the death of S C Bose. The same is in the case of the daughter. Both the PMO and the Home Ministry's reply clearly reflects that the Indian government is not all that keen to settle the issue officially," he said.



Forensics has grown to such heights that even in the absence of the esteemed leader, DNA testing of Pfaff and close relatives of Bose, who still live in and around <st1:city wt="on"><st1>Cuttack</st1></st1:city> in Orissa, could settle the matter once and for all, he said.



As reported By: Amit Kumar at mid-day.com on 20 january 2010

Heartburn over RTI on Netaji's daughter

Even as the government is still struggling to uncover the mystery shrouding Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose's death, an RTI over the leader's German daughter is causing bad blood between the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) and the Ministry of Home Affairs.



Ajay Madhusudan Marathe, a Mumbai resident, had filed a right to information plea with the PMO on November 2, 2009. He sought to know on what basis Government of India recognizes Anita Pfaff, a German, the biological daughter and sole descendant of the Azad Hind Fauj.



Marathe also sought to know whether any DNA test was conducted to ascertain the real identity of Pfaff, a professor by vocation.



"Indians are curious to know whether Bose did in fact father a child whilst in Germany, attempting to gather support for the Indian National Army," Marathe said.

The PMO transferred the application under sections 6(3) of the RTI Act to the Home Ministry on November 10, 2009.



However, Marathe's quest remained unquenched, as the Home Ministry returned the application the PMO and informed Marathe that the information concerned was in the custody of the PMO and "not available in our records".



"Accordingly, your application is transferred to PMO for appropriate action in the matter under the provision of RTI Act 2005," the Home Ministry said in its reply to Marathe.



However, it did not go down too well with the PMO. Finding the ball back in its court, the PMO wrote to the Home Ministry on January 15, 2010 that the return of the application at the end of the 30 day period back with a reference suggesting difference in availability of records between ministry of Home Affairs and PMO "is not in order".



"Photocopies of records of this office (PMO) regarding Netaji Supreme Court Bose were made available to the Justice Mukherjee commission for enquiry into the alleged disappearance of Netaji Supreme Court Bose set up by the ministry of Home Affairs. The Mukherjee Commission has been wound up and the photocopy of the entire set of this office's record is available with the ministry of Home Affairs," the memorandum from PMO said.



Anguished over being dribbled by two top government offices, Marathe said, "Both the PMO and the Home Ministry's reply clearly reflects that the Indian government is not all that keen to settle the issue officially."

[color="#800080"](Then don't call her "the daughter" until proof is given.)[/color]

"Forensic science has developed so much that even in the absence of the esteemed leader, DNA testing of Ms Pfaff and close relatives of Bose, who still live in and around Cuttack in Orissa, could settle the matter once and for all, Marathe said.



Source: RTI Application and the replies from PMO and MHA

Kafka-esque.

Apparently the Hindu public does not have the right to know. But someone in Germany has the right to get the Indian govt to send her govt documents.





Maybe there's another manufactured dynasty in the making. And then, may one expect contenders for Nehru's unofficial offspring to jump out of the cupboard and declare itself as being the next true discoverer of India. Didn't IF members post that the baby bundle was posited at some catholic nunnery/institution?



That would complete the bad soap opera.

[Bodhi]

Some friends were recently wondering how Subhas Chandra Bose would have responded to Jehad. No different from the other secularists, when we said, it seemed to have offended or shocked them. Shocking obviously, since such is now the image of Subhas Bose in the Hindu psyche, which is best represented on the popular calendar art where he is seen rubbing shoulders with Shivaji and Pratap, sometimes like them riding a horse and carrying a sword or performing utsarga in front of Bhawani or Bharat Mata. The BJP-minded ones go so far as to even claim Bose as an icon of Hindutva, placing him alongside Syama Prasad Mookerjee and Savarkar. A couple of years back in a political campaign, L K Advani made, to use the words of Kanchan Gupta, an “audacious attempt to co-opt Subhas Chandra Bose in the pantheon of proponents of Hindutva”. Of course if they can dress up Jinnah as a secular icon, then Bose can rather easily take their Hindutva garb, the shift seems only logical.



Subhas Bose, no doubt, had a thorough Hindu outlook in life and was a religious Hindu, as is evident in his unfinished autobiography. Not only does he speak therein of his spiritual quests, but interestingly at one place also recounts an encounter with a Jesuit priest whom he convinced of superiority of Shankara’s philosophy over Christian dogma. At another point he says that later in his life when he failed to agree with or follow the concepts of Shankara, then rather than becoming hostile to Hindu thought or considering a non-Hindu philosophy, he sought and followed the other options available within Hindu dharma. To the impact of Aurobindo on his early life also he openly admits. Towards his last days in Singapore and Burma it is said that he would often go to the temples wearing traditional Hindu attire and spend hours in meditation at night. It is also said that he used to carry a pocketbook edition of bhagavadgita in the chest of his uniform during the day and while sleeping keep it under his pillow. In support of an armed struggle opposed to unconditional Ahimsa, he used to seek sanction from Mahabharata and his argument against Gandhian non-violence was basic, “How can we possibly accept Ahimsa as an inflexible principle of action, when Sri Krishna himself exhorted Arjuna not to run away from a righteous war, a dharma-yuddha?” It is also said by some who knew him, that like Tilak he also used to worship Kali or Bhawani before launching a major political campaign to gain divine blessing and strength.



All of this seems true enough, and would widely separate Bose from the garden variety of Nehruvian Secularists and Marxists who are, by design, hostile to the Hindu dharma without many exceptions.



And still, when it came to understanding Islam and its objectives, as a thinker and as a leader, it must be said that Bose was not very different from the other Marxist-Secularists. Bose is really an uncomforting case in point, that even deeply religious Hindus, of excellent intellectual gifts, untiring patriotism and great leadership acumen, can remain utterly gullible to the Islamic propaganda and keep causing self-injury to the nation. Bose remained deluded throughout his life when it came to understanding Islam, its goals & objectives and its history, and particularly its encounter with India. Laden with deluded understanding of Islam, great men only cause greater harm.



His beliefs in secularism were no different from the Gandhi variety and can be summed up as follows: a) without Moslem approval neither can Swaraj be won, and what is more, nor was it worth winning without their support; <img src='http://www.india-forum.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cool.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='B)' /> the onus of Hindu-Moslem unity lied on the shoulders of the Hindus alone, and the Hindus should be willing to make unlimited and extreme sacrifices to that end; c) only by adjusting to the Moslem sensibilities and removing their ‘misgivings’ was it possible to achieve that unity; and therefore d) appeasing Moslems should be made a core and visible part of any program, which is what he conscientiously belaboured to do throughout his political career. In his hostility to Hindutva also he was quite virulent just like the other Marxist-secularists.



Imprint of the above is visible throughout his career, from the 1920s when he started as a Bengal congressman under Deshbandhu’s wings, to 1930s when he rose to the central Congress as the Leftist rallying point and was elected its President for two consecutive terms, to the 1940s’ Azad Hind Fauj campaign and the events leading to the partition.



Subhas Bose began his career in the 1920s under the wings of Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das, the rising star in Bengal Congress, since Gandhi’s coup d’état at the center. As Gandhi’s deputy, the first significant program of Deshbandhu was his over-enthusiastic campaign for the holy cause of Khilafat. Most of the important leaders within Congress like Pandit Malaviya, Bipin Chandra Pal, Lajpat Rai, and Sardar Patel were clearly and rightly opposed to making Khilafat as a Congress program. Deshbandhu Das took it upon himself to open direct personal communications with them to garner their support to Khilafat. Malaviya refused to relent till the end, but Lajpat Rai finally acquiesced on the logic that if Britain came into possession or control of larger Moslem domains, it would only mean more Moslem influence on British policies, more moslem recruitment in armed forces, and undue pressure on India and Hindus.



Visionary Bipin Chandra Pal was opposed to congress taking up Khilafat. He later recorded in his Memories of My Life and Times, how he dreaded the “virus of pan-Islamism among the Indian Moslems” which Khilafat would invariably affect. In his 1921 presidential address, which was to be his last, Bipin Chandra Pal warned Gandhi against preferring hocus-pocus emotionalism over hard reasoning with his acidic speech, “you want to do magic while I try to give you logic.” (Bipin Chandra lived for another decade, but the rise in Central politics of Gandhi, and in Bengal of Deshbandhu Das and Bose brothers, practically elbowed out this visionary Hindu and hardliner of Lal-Bal-Pal fame, out of politics. He left Congress at this time, and died in 1932 in condition of abject poverty, refusing to accept help from his wealthy comrade Lajpat Rai. A true genius, one only needs to read his works to understand the depth of his understanding of Moslem question. It was the leaders like Pal and Lajpat Rai who could have won an Akhanda Swaraj, if such a thing was ever possible. It was largely under Pal’s influential leadership that Bengali Hindus defeated the Bengal partition of 1905. And today, while Bose brothers and Chittaranjan Das share between themselves a majority of prominent landmarks, roads, and establishments of Bengal to their name, Bipin Chandra Pal seems to have been almost deleted from the Bengali memory. We shall try to dedicate a separate exploration of Pal’s thought and work later. For now, let us return to Khilafat, Deshabandhu, and his deputy Subhas Bose.)



In justification of the rationale of generally aligning with the pan-Islamists, and using Islamic sentiments in Congress policy, Subhas Bose later wrote, “…Moplah Rebellion in Malabar in South India intensified the crisis… Afghanistan had entered into a treaty with Mustafa Kamal Pasha and this was followed by a treaty between Persia and Soviet Russia. In Egypt the nationalist Wafd Party of Syed Zaghlul Pasha was strong and active. Thus it was apparent that the entire Moslem world was combining against Great Britain and this had an inevitable reaction on Moslems of India…Government would be eager to compromise with Congress.”



While Khilafat movement failed, what it did achieve for the Moslems especially in Bengal was to only prove ruinous for the Hindus and India in the coming times. Muslim League, although born in Dhaka in 1906, did not have much of an organization nor support among Moslem masses in Bengal. Through the Khilafat agitation and over-enthusiastic support to it by Congress, there emerged a wide and deep fundamentalist Moslem organization across the state, same as all across India. It also created a renewed and distinctly radicalized Islamist consciousness among the younger Mohammedans — it would be this generation of Bengali Moslems incubated in the 1920s Khilafat Movement which in a couple of decades launched the Direct Action for Pakistan.



All these pro-Khilafatist Congress leaders in their fanciful secularist confusion either utterly failed to recognize that underneath the Khilafat sentiment of Indian Moslems, there was absolutely no motivation for India’s own sake, but simply the emotional pan-Islam zeal which was in reality directly opposed to the wellbeing of India and could not have reconciled with the Indian Nationalism.



Subhas Bose was not against the principle of taking up Khilafat agitation, even in hindsight he only went so far as to regret its operating format. He wrote, “The real mistake in my opinion did not lie in connecting the Khilafat issue with the other national issues, but in allowing the Khilafat Committee to be set up as an independent organisation throughout the country, quite apart from the Indian National Congress…. If no separate Khilafat Committees had been organised and all Khilafatist Moslems had been persuaded to join the ranks of the Indian National Congress, they would probably have been absorbed by the latter when the Khilafat issue became a dead one.” And again at another place, “…the introduction of the Khilafat question into Indian politics was unfortunate. As has already been pointed out, if the Khilafatist Moslems had not started a separate organisation but had joined the Indian National Congress, the consequences would not have been so undesirable.”



So, blame everything else but the fundamentalism and separatism that is inherent in the Moslem psyche, behaviour, and creed. However Bose should have at least known factual position better. At least in context of Bengal, right before his eyes, the above suggested line of his is what Bengal Congress under Deshbandhu had taken, that is to induct Khilafatist Moslems within the rank and file of Congress.



In name of Khilafat recruitment, Congress brought to its leadership positions within Bengal, such Moslems as Abdullahahel Baqi of Dinajpur, Muniruzzaman Islamabadi of Chitagong, Mawlana Akram Khan of 24-Parghanas, Shamsuddin Ahmed of Kushthia, and Ashrafuddin Ahmed Chowdhury of Tippera, some of which were quite openly fanatic. Most of these men would later wreck havoc on the Hindus, although Deshbandhu Das did not live to see it and Bose would not acknowledge it. Some of these like Mawlana Akram Khan were staunch Islamists and emerged as hardliners within the reinvigorated Muslim League in Bengal; he would later be instrumental in the making of (East) Pakistan.



Deshbandhu Das and Subhas Bose cultivated and helped Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy launch himself as a prominent politician of Bengal. Suhrawardy was the Secretary of the Khilafat Committee for a long time and along with the others he joined the Swaraj party bloc of Congress, by initiative of Deshbandhu. They jointly shared power in Calcutta Municipal Corporation after winning the elections of 1924, with Deshbandhu becaming the Mayor, Suhrawardy the Deputy-Mayor, and Bose the Chief Executive Officer. Soon, within a couple of years, like most other Moslems which had joined Congress during the Khilafat, Suhrawardy ditched it to pursue an illustrious career as a Muslim Leaguer. It would be under his watch as the Prime Minister of Bengal that the Direct Action in 1946 bathed Calcutta in blood; he would later become the fifth Prime Minister of the yet undivided Pakistan. But already in 1926 he was showing his colours when he stood by and defended the Muslim rioters who were arrested during the great Calcutta riot of that year, including personally intervening to secure bail of a notorious goon named Mina Peshawari, murderer of several Hindu slum-dwellers. Even after seeing the behavior of his enlightened Moslem colleagues, Bose would never realize the hoax of the so called ‘progressive Moslems’. He continued to persevere under this confusion till the end of his INA days when he would give leadership positions within Azad Hind Fauj to many such people who would later jump at the first opportunity and show their true Islamist colours. Secularists must be either extremely poor judges of characters, or bad learners from experience, or just way too optimistic.



Deshbandhu Das around this time made with the moderate Moslem leaders like Hakim Ajmal Khan what is known as the Bengal Hindu-Muslim Pact of 1923, which besides other things, for the first time anywhere in India, committed to providing reservations in the government jobs on a communal basis. In Bengal as many as 55% to 60% public jobs were agreed to be reserved for the Moslem candidates alone. This Bengal Pact although rejected by the national body of Congress in Kakinada that year from being adopted as an India-wide program, still established a policy direction in Congress for the time to come. Subhas Bose, a part of this program as a lieutenant of Chittaranjan Das, records, “Deshabandhu had drawn up an agreement between Hindus and Moslems, covering religious as well as political questions, but it had been rejected by the Coconada Congress in December 1923, on the ground that it conceded too much to the Moslems… There was a stormy debate and the political opponents of the Deshabandhu, joined by some reactionary Hindus, put up a formidable opposition.”



Lala Lajpat Rai was totally opposed to such a line. Having studied Islam in detail, he was convinced of the futility, and really the danger, of such policies being pursued by Bengal Congress. Around these days, in a secret letter to Deshbandhu Das, Lalaji wrote categorically, “I have devoted most of my time during the last six months to the study of Muslim history and Muslim Law and I am inclined to think that Hindu-Muslim unity is neither possible nor practicable… Assuming and admitting the sincerity of the Mohammedan leaders in the Non-Co-operation Movement, I think their religion provides an effective bar to anything of the kind. There is no finer Mohammedan than Hakim [Ajmal Khan] Sahab, but can any Muslim leader override the Koran? I can only hope that my reading of the Islamic Law is incorrect and nothing would relieve me more than to be convinced that it is so… I do honestly and sincerely believe in the necessity and desirability of Hindu-Muslim unity. I am also fully prepared to trust the Muslim leaders, but what about the injunctions of the Koran and the Hadis? The leaders cannot override them!” (A. Ghosh, Making of the Muslim Psyche, 1986)



Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, the literary genius and arguably the Father of the modern Indian Novel, also tried to talk sense to C R Das, his close friend. Like Lajpat Rai, Sarat Chandra was an astute student of the Moslem situation. He had recently toured the rural Bengal especially in the East where Hindus were a minority, and seen the pattern of behavior of the Moslems there. He rightly felt that far from bringing about any Hindu-Moslem unity, such placatory gestures of “sacrifice” were a slippery slope and would only make Moslem bullies see “success” of their hardened attitude and demand more and more until there was nothing left. Anxious that these policies would only bring disaster upon the Hindus in Bengal and for whole of India, he took up the issue with C R Das, who himself being an accomplished Bengali poet shared a cordial friendship of long standing with him. But Sarat Chandra’s discussions with C R Das proved futile. In a discussion Deshbandhu Das simply told Sarat Chandra that since Moslems were soon going to replace Hindus from power anyway by their demographics, it was a fait accompli, better would be for the Hindus to accept the fate and let it happen peacefully! (We shall return to Sarat Chandra again in a while)



Like Subhas Bose, Deshbandhu Das was a very religious Hindu in his personal life; his mansion in Calcutta always resounding with Kirtans of vaishnava mandali in which he used to actively participate. As a spiritual retreat, in the June of 1923, C R Das travelled to Pondicherry to briefly stay with Shri Aurobindo whom as his attorney he had eloquently and successfully defended in the Alipore Bombing case about fifteen years back. Aurobindo also tried to enlighten Deshbandhu Das about futility of his policy of making the so called Hindu Moslem unity as a prerequisite for the national movement. Das held on to his opinion and went on to say so much that unless the so called communal questions were settled, in his view he would not even like the British to leave! (So records a letter of Shri Aurobindo to Mother that month.)



But such ideology within Bengal Congress only got amplified with Subhas Bose and his elder brother Sarat Bose after the death of C R Das in 1925.



As the CEO of Calcutta Corporation, Subhas Bose outdid C R Das, who had only proposed 55% communal reservation that too in Moslem-majority districts which Calcutta was not. Subhas Bose appointed in Calcutta Corporation, 25 Mohammedans out of 33 vacant posts, not on the grounds of any merit, but for their creed. He said, “In (the) past Hindus have enjoyed what maybe regarded monopoly in matters of appointments. The claims of Mohammedans, Christains and Depressed Classes have to be favourably considered, though it is sure to give rise to a certain amount of heart-burning among the Hindu candidates.” So he left 8 seats for these Hindus of both “depressed class” and otherwise, and the Anglo-Indians.



There is another less known episode that begs recalling from these same years when Subhas Bose was the CEO of Calcutta Corporation and Deshbandhu Das the Mayor, and Bengal Congress comfortably in their control. There is a shrine of Tarakeshwar Mahadev at Serampur, not far from Calcutta, which is one of the most popular temples in Bengal. The shrine had enjoyed patronage and endowments from the local Hindu Jamindars and Rajas for at least the last three or four hundred years, and was headed by the traditional Giris, one of the ten dashanamis. Sometime around these days allegations were made of financial impropriety against Satis Chandra Giri, the reigning Mahant of the shrine. Deshbandhu C R Das got involved and launched a movement of agitation what Congressmen called as Tarakeshwar Satyagraha. Under his leadership, hundreds of Congress volunteers from Calcutta dawned upon the shrine and started doing blockade, dharna and arrests. In face of such ugly protests that went on for many weeks, Satis Giri retired, giving charge to his disciple Prabhat Giri. Deshbandhu also got the shrine to agree to come under a management board which would abide to Congress decisions, would disclose to them its financials, and agree to spend parts of its endowment and donations to secular causes of “various nation-building activities.”



Subhas Bose, who was an observer and a participant of these activities, wrote: “As in the case of other holy shrines, there was considerable property attached to the temple… there were allegations against the Mohunt of Tarakeswar with regard to his personal character and to his administration of the endowed property.… pressure was brought to bear on the Bengal Congress Committee…. Deshbandhu launched a movement for taking peaceful possession of the temple and the attached property, with a view to placing them under the administration of a public committee.…”



The temple remained in physical control of these Congress-satyagrahis until a third party of Hindus in Bengal, particularly the managers of the other temples under a body they formed called Bangal Brahman Sabha, filed a litigation against them in the Calcutta court. After a year of the heated legal battle, the Court finally decided in Sabha’s favour, asking congress workers to vacate the temple possession and hand it over to the Sabha and the new Mahant. But even now the Satyagrahis were in the attitude to defy the court order and continue their “satyagraha”. Gandhi had since beginning not liked this program and had even brought it up in a meeting with C R Das in Darjeeling that year. Finally he had to intervene and publish a signed appeal in Amrit Bazar Patrika on July 9, 1925 to call off the agitation and hand over the temple control. The then Bengal Governer wrote about this Tarakeshwar Satyagraha as ‘Hoax of a Movement’.



Bengal Congress gave it up but not without passing a resolution condemning the court order and the Bengal Brahman Sabha. Some years later, Congress minister Taraknath Mukherjee of Fazlul Haque government got a legislation passed in Bengal Assembly called the ‘Tarakeswar Temple Bill of 1941’, which explicitly set aside the earlier court verdict, and placed the temple management and its property under a public committee with government oversight, along with the provision to spend the excess temple funds for miscellaneous “social purposes”. The whole episode tells us something about the eagerness of those who call themselves secular to meddle in the temple management and its funds, then just like now.



All through, while the Bengal Congress was busy making the Muslim appeasement policies, the Bengal and especially the eastern Moslem-dominated rural parts continue to be rocked by the riots. Many stories of atrocities, pillage, rape and temple-desecrations used to reach Calcutta. Major riots broke out in Calcutta in 1926 as mentioned before, and it was in its wake that the 1926 session of Congress took place.



Krishnanagar Session of Bengal Congress in 1926 must have been a historic moment in a unique sense. Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay attended it as an observer, and presented a paper in Bangla on the Hindu-Moslem communal issue entitled ‘Bortoman Hindu-Musalman Somosya’. Backing up by sound arguments he made a strong pitch to Congress leaders that the unity of Hindus and Moslems was impractical in the ways they were trying, and the history of Islam in India does not support it. He argued that instead of pursuing the mirage of Hindu-Muslim unity, what was pertinent and more desired at the time, was unity within the Hindu community by putting to end the curse of treating a section of the Hindus as low castes. Said Sarat Chandra, “If we go by the lessons of history we have to accept that the goal of Hindu-Muslim unity is a mirage. When Muslims first entered India, they looted the country, destroyed the temples, broke the idols, raped the women and heaped innumerable indignities on the people of this country. Today it appears that such noxious behaviour has entered the bone-marrow of Muslims. Unity can be achieved among equals. In view of the big gap between the cultural level of Hindus and Muslims which can hardly be bridged, I am of the view that Hindu-Muslim unity which could not be achieved during the last thousand years will not materialise during the ensuing thousand years. If we are to drive away the English from India depending upon this elusive capital of Hindu-Muslim unity, I would rather advise its postponement.”



But Sarat Chandra would not have impressed Subhas Bose, who was at this time imprisoned in Burma, and his lessons in history were very different. Subhas Bose wrote, “…the distinction between Hindu and Muslim of which we hear so much nowadays is largely an artificial creation, a kind of Catholic-Protestant controversy in Ireland, in which our present-day rulers have had a hand. History will bear me out when I say that it is a misnomer to talk of Muslim rule when describing the political order in India prior to the advent of the British. Whether we talk of the Moghul Emperors at Delhi, or of the Muslim Kings of Bengal, we shall find that in either case the administration was run by Hindus and Muslims together, many of the prominent Cabinet Ministers and Generals being Hindus. Further, the consolidation of the Moghul Empire in India was effected with the help of Hindu commanders-in-chief.”



So, blame the British, blame the Hindu, blame everyone but the Moslems and the fundamental separatism that is inherent in Islam. At least Moslems had no such fancy ideas about the pre-British era being a Hindu-Moslem joint rule, and were clear that it was a Dar-ul-Islam-i-Hind which British and before them Marathas had subjugated, and which must be restored back by either driving away or supporting the British. As to the Hindu Generals in the Moghal Army, obviousely we dont expect Bose to have come across the Moslem historians like Badayuni and Mulla Shirin who gleefully explain the concept of how “Hindus (were made to) bear the sword of Islam”. One only wishes Bose had taken the benefit of consulting Jadunath Sarkar’s volumes on Awrangzib, Mughal era, and Shivaji, which were published only a few years back and might have given him better insights in Hindu-Muslim History.



Continued…

[Bharatvarsh2]

Subhas Chandra Bose: Another Look Part 2



by Sarvesh K Tiwari





“And now shall even the parrots of Hind be fed all -

On sugar-candy of Farsi even up to as far as Bengal!”



So writes a legendary Farsi poet Hafiz, in congratulating Ghiyasuddin Khalji upon the latter’s ascent to Bengal, but it would seem he spoke prophetically about the ascent of Subhas Bose!



The colonized Hindu mind refuses to see the continued colonialism that was set off by the conquests of the Islamite ruffians; indeed he foolishly refers to the remnants of that imperialism by such names as “syncretism” and “composite culture”, which as V S Naipaul rightly says are common traits of defeated peoples. The continued and thorough colonization of Hindu mind denies even recognizing Urdu – a bastard born in the war camps of Islamite (therefore the name Orudu) and brought up in his brothels – from what it is: nothing else but a precise linguistic counterpart of the phenomenon in medieval architecture –the Masjids and Maqbarahs squatting upon the foundations of the destroyed Hindu temples; that is indeed what Urdu is: Arabi-Farsi squatting upon the foundation of deshaja bhAShA!



But those Hindus, in whose hearts pride for Hindu heritage is alive and will for its resurgence not dead, have always raised the unmitigated tumult of revival from time to time, like in other spheres also in literary and linguistic battle.



“Listen, this is the only way I see if you want Hindi to have any chance of survival… Let them laugh at us, let them threaten us, but stay focused on one objective: create a flood of Hindi in which to drown Urdu…reach every Hindu household where a Maulvi Saheb has performed the bismillah of alif-bay-pay, and firmly plant Hindi… Promote her in everything we write from cash memos to commentaries… and do you not lose heart, not once, just persevere for some years and this garbage of Farsi-Chharsi will be blown from Hindi, from Hindus, and from Hindusthan… Let us not cease now from our effort. Leave the rest in the hands of God,” wrote from Kolkata in 1870s, Pratap Narayan, poet, journalist, and a friend of Bharatendu Harishchandra.



Few in our age could contemplate or imagine what an uphill task and what a momentous achievement it was for Bharatendu, to whose name we dedicate these pages, and his friends, to rescue Hindi from the clutches of the continued Islamic cultural imperialism in name of Urdu. Had it not been for their efforts, and it is hardly an exaggeration, that Urdu would have doubtlessly been the national language of India today, and Hindi as we know it relegated to the dustbin of “dead languages” for Indologists to make their vulturine livelihoods on. Even at the cost of prolonging this preface, we quote Acharya Prof. Ram Chandra Shukl about that era when future of Hindi was staked at that crucial crossroad:



“Sitar-i-hind Raja Shivprasad kept sermonizing on the need for an “aam-faham” and “khaas-pasand” language, that is, Hindi studded with Arabic-Farsi words, (or simply Urdu by another name), but fate of Hindi had already decided her own course… When all other members of the Indian language family had, since eternity, taken energy from the familiar Sanskrit, her structure, vocabulary, and cultural continuity, how could Hindi be forced to abandon this emotional connection for adopting a foreign spirit through import of foreign words, as advocated by him? Now that Bangla, Marathi, and all her elder sisters in south had already gained the revivalist momentum, then no, Hindi was not destined to be bound in stagnation of foreign imperialism! She was not ready to sever her ancient and spiritual ties with her sister-languages. Born from the womb of the same mother, she was agonized at being forced to become a stranger to them… that is when, to her rescue, Bharatendu appeared on the scene.”



Acharya Chatursen Shastri perceptive writes that Bharatendu suffered from no fancies for a Hindu-Moslem unity if it meant Hindus having to bastardize their language. But for the secularists of course no cost was too dear and no sacrifice too great to secure the approval of the Moslems; sacrificing Hindi at the altar of their secularism was but a petty trifle!



Subhas Bose, it must be said, was another such secularist.



As the then Congress President, thus spoke Subhas Bose at the 51st session of Congress at Haripura in February of 1938:



“…we shall have to put all the minority communities as well as the provinces at their ease…To promote national unity we shall have to develop our lingua franca and a common script. So far as our Lingua Franca is concerned, I am inclined to think that the distinction between Hindi and Urdu is an artificial one. The most natural Lingua Franca would be a mixture of the two, such as is spoken in daily life in large portions of the country; and this common language may be written in either of the two scripts, Nagari or Urdu… At the same time, I am inclined to think that the ultimate solution would be the adoption of a script that would bring us into line with the rest of the world. Perhaps, some of our countrymen will gape with horror when they hear of the adoption of the Roman script, but I would beg them to consider this problem from the scientific and historical point of view… I confess that there was a time when I felt that it would be anti-national to adopt a foreign script. But my visit to Turkey in 1934 was responsible for converting me. I then realised for the first time what a great advantage it was to have the same script as the rest of the world.”



Bose in his stand on the language was no different from Nehru and Gandhi, indeed as in his Secularism in this question also he was only a step ahead of them.



Gandhi was advocating, along with Mawlana Azad, a so-called ‘Hindustani’ language to be made the ‘lingua franca’; this ‘Hindustani’ being nothing else but Urdu riding like vetAla upon the shoulders of Hindi and slowly consuming it as it had several Indian languages like Kashmiri and Sindhi. But when do secularists learn any lessons from History! Indeed from time to time Urdu zealots would “purify” that tongue, as comes out from this Urdu couplet, “Khuda rakkhe zuban hamne suni hai Meer o Mirza ki / Kahen kis muh se ham ae Mas’hafi urdu hamari hai!” [“By God we have heard the tongue of Meer and Mirza; Have we gall O Mas’hafi, to call the patois we speak, Urdu!”], thus laments Mas’hafi, an Urdu poet from Delhi at Urdu getting diluted and losing its affinity to Arabo-Persian as in the days of Mirza Ghalib and Meer Taqi Meer, the famous Urdu laureates.



Savarkar severely criticized Subhas Bose. He wrote,



“It is interesting to remind you here how two prominent Congress Presidents proposed to solve this problem of a National tongue and a National Script. Pandit Nehru thinks, leaving even Maulana Abul Kalam Azad far behind who only proposes Hindusthani, …, that the highly Arabianised Urdu of the Aligarh School or the Osmania University School is best fitted to be the National Language of India Including of course some twenty-eight crores of Hindus!



Desh Gaurav Subhas Babu improving upon the situation beats even Panditji’s ingenuity hollow by proposing from the Presidential chair of the Indian National Congress that Roman Script would suit India as the best National Script. That is how the Congress ideology approaches things National! Roman script to be the National Script of India! How imminently practicable, to say the least! Your Basumati, Ananda Bazar Patrika and all Bengali papers to appear every day in Roman script!



It is true as Subhas Babu says that Kemal Pasha abolished the Arabian Script as unsuited to print and took to Roman script. But this fact has a lesson for our Mahommedan zealots who want the Urdu script, in this very Arabian style, to thrust even on the Hindus as an up-to-date National Script, and it has no connection with the Hindus. Kemal Pasha took to the Roman script because the Turks had nothing better of their own to fall back upon. The Andamanese pick up Kauris and make a necklace of them, but is that the reason why the Kuber also should do the same? We Hindus should rather call upon Arabia and Europe to adopt the Nagari Script and Hindi language; such a proposal should not sound very impracticable to such inveterate optimists at any rate who seriously advance it as a very practical proposal to make Urdu the National language of the Marathas and to expect all our Arya Samaj Gurukuls to study the Vedas in Roman script?”



But eager thus to let go of Hindi and her Sanskrit roots, Bose himself did not know Hindi at this time, strange as would seem for a cosmopolitan and well-travelled Bengali as he was. A Forward Bloc comrade of his later recalled how Bose engaged later that year a tutor in Kolkata to teach him Hindi (or Hindustani), who later complained that “his pupil was too lazy to sit down and learn” Hindi, although he did learn enough to make speeches. (Hari Vishnu Kamath, ‘Some Intimate Recollections’)



And lest we thought that this language policy was simply a fantastic idiosyncrasy of Subhas Bose, he was very serious prescribing what he did, and indeed followed it to the letter during his Azad Hind days, which give us glimpses of what his vision for the proposed ‘National Lingua Franca of India’ was!



When Subhas Bose took over the INA from Ras Behari Bose, it was christened not “Svatantra Bharat Sena” but “Azad Hind Fauj”, in pure Farsi words.



The motto that Bose selected of Azad Hind Fauj also read pure Farsi in Roman script, “Ittefaq, Aitmad, Qurbani”, meaning “Unity, Faith, and Sacrifice”.



The provisional government that Bose set up was officially titled “Arzi Huqumat-i-Azad Hind” in pure Persian.



The commands for the Army were replaced by Urdu commands.



The official daily newspaper by this provisional government, called ‘Azad Hind’, was published from Singapore. This paper was simultaneously published in five languages. English, Tamil, Malayalam, Guajarati, and Urdu in Roman script as Bose had fancied. No Hindi.



Never in his addresses would he end with the ‘Vande Matram!’ or ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’ as was the tradition even within Congress, but instead with secular ‘Inquilab Zindabad’ in Farsi. Not even ‘Jai Hind’, with which he is incorrectly credited by his hagiographers. One should see his official broadcasts from Azad Hind Radio as are recorded, most of which he concludes with not ‘Jai Hind’, but ‘Inquilab Zindabad’ and ‘Azad Hind Zindabad’.



Then of course is Bose’s attitude that he displayed towards the question of the National Anthem. Bankim Chandra’s Vande Mataram had had the unquestioned status of the National Anthem all through the last several decades and Congress sessions would commence and end to its euphoric singing. Throughout every corner of India no other song was even close to the popularity of Vande Mataram. But Vande Mataram being offending to the Moslem ears was of course out of question for being adopted by secularist that Subhas Bose was. But strange as it may seem, even Rabindra Nath Thakur’s ‘Jana Gana Mana’ was also not good enough for him. Going two steps beyond Gandhi and Nehru, Desh Gaurav Subhas Babu felt that even ‘Jana Gana Mana’ contained too much Sanskrit to be suitable as the National Anthem of India! So he asked his ADC Captain Abid Ali, who had accompanied Bose on the trip from Germany to Japan, to de-Sanskritize Rabindra Nath’s ‘Jana Gana Mana’ and translate it into Urdu-laden ‘Hindustani’. The result was a pathetic parody, ‘sab sukh chain’, which Bose declared as the “Qaumi Tarana” (not Rashtra Gaan) of Azad Hind! Such was the Sanskrit-phobia of Bose. For the Marching Song of the Army was likewise picked up another Urdu composition, “Qadam Qadam Badhaye Ja Khushi ke Geet Gaye Ja, Ye Zindagi hai Qaum Ki Tu Qaum pe lutaye Ja”.



Therefore we had said in the beginning that when Hafiz wrote, “And now shall even the parrots of Hind be fed all / On sugar-candy of Farsi even up to as far as Bengal”, he might have as well be prophetically speaking of Subhas Bose’s Azad Hind!



Continued…



http://bharatendu.wordpress.com/2011/03/...da-bose-2/

More than 2 decades before Subhas Bose, 'Jai Hind' was a slogan coined in Europe

by revolutionary Shri Champak Raman Pillai of Hindu-German Conspiracy fame, and

the term was very common, along with Vande Mataram, amongst the revolutionaries

from Punjab to UP to Bengal.



(Read about Pillai: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chempakaraman_Pillai)



Bose has been given its undue and incorrect credit by his hagiographers, while

the fact is he clearly did not use Jai Hind that much even in his broadcasts

which can be read as collected in the 'Testament of Subhas Bose'.



http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hinducivil...sage/52614