01-25-2006, 11:27 AM
IMHO if a poll is done in India asking people to rank Netaji, Gandhiji and Nehru, according to their admiration as national leaders then it is quite likely that Netaji will beat Gandhi and Nehru. Partition and 1962 debacle have done permanent damage to the Gandhi-Nehru aura in the minds of a large number of Indians.
As HH put it, Indian leaders responded in many ways to the realities of WWII. Neither side in the war was a clear-cut friend or a foe. In fact the British were more the immediate oppressors than the remote unconnected Germans or the Japanese. Individual leaders formed their judgements and acted on those. Which was just as well. It would have been an anomaly if the leaders had unequivocally sided with the Allies. Even Gandhi led the Quit-India movement in 1942, right in the thick of WWII, because even in their time of need, the British were behaving as their usual mean self towards the Indians.
Quit India Movement, 1942
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Quit India Movement, 1942 an important event of the Indian freedom struggle, was the outcome of a compound of anti-white fury. The cripps mission, with its vague proposals of a post-war Dominion Status for India, a constitution making body elected by provincial legislatures and the native states, provincial opt out clause, the immediate participation of Indian leaders in war effort but the retention of the control of Indian defence by the British, satisfied none and threatened to Balkanise the Indian subcontinent.
The retreat of the British from Malay, Burma and Singapore, leaving their dependants to fend for themselves, the indescribable plight of the Indians trekking back home from these places, the racial ill-treatment meted out to Indians by white soldiers stationed here and there in India, the 'scorched earth' policy pursued by the British in Bengal to resist probable Japanese invasion which resulted in the commandeering of all means of communicating, war-time price rise, black-marketeering and profiteering - all these contributed to the creation of an anti-white fury. Above all, there was the attempt of the British bureaucracy right from the outbreak of the war for a wholesale crackdown on the Congress on the pattern of 1932.
...
During and after the Quit India upsurge, the British in documents like Tottenhams' Report painted the whole outburst as a 'deliberate fifth columnist conspiracy', intending to strengthen the Axis powers. This interpretation not only ignored the consistent anti-fascist international stance of the Congress throughout the 1930s, but also made a historical travesty of the facts that being arrested in the early morning of 9 August the Congress leaders could hardly lead the outburst and that the Quit India resolution was also remarkably vague about the details of the coming movement. Far from ruling out further negotiations, the whole thing may conceivably have been an exercise in brinkmanship and a bargaining counter which was followed by an explosion only because the British had decided on a policy of wholesale repression. Despite strenuous efforts, the British failed to establish their case that the Congress before 9 August had really planned a violent rebellion.
The movement was, in reality 'elemental and largely spontaneous'. It was sparked off by a variety of factors and of an expectation that British rule was coming to an end. Bureaucratic high-handedness and provocation worsened the situation. Financial losses incurred in Malay and Burma induced sections of Indian business community to give some covert support to a movement (even if violent) for a short while.
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As HH put it, Indian leaders responded in many ways to the realities of WWII. Neither side in the war was a clear-cut friend or a foe. In fact the British were more the immediate oppressors than the remote unconnected Germans or the Japanese. Individual leaders formed their judgements and acted on those. Which was just as well. It would have been an anomaly if the leaders had unequivocally sided with the Allies. Even Gandhi led the Quit-India movement in 1942, right in the thick of WWII, because even in their time of need, the British were behaving as their usual mean self towards the Indians.
Quit India Movement, 1942
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Quit India Movement, 1942 an important event of the Indian freedom struggle, was the outcome of a compound of anti-white fury. The cripps mission, with its vague proposals of a post-war Dominion Status for India, a constitution making body elected by provincial legislatures and the native states, provincial opt out clause, the immediate participation of Indian leaders in war effort but the retention of the control of Indian defence by the British, satisfied none and threatened to Balkanise the Indian subcontinent.
The retreat of the British from Malay, Burma and Singapore, leaving their dependants to fend for themselves, the indescribable plight of the Indians trekking back home from these places, the racial ill-treatment meted out to Indians by white soldiers stationed here and there in India, the 'scorched earth' policy pursued by the British in Bengal to resist probable Japanese invasion which resulted in the commandeering of all means of communicating, war-time price rise, black-marketeering and profiteering - all these contributed to the creation of an anti-white fury. Above all, there was the attempt of the British bureaucracy right from the outbreak of the war for a wholesale crackdown on the Congress on the pattern of 1932.
...
During and after the Quit India upsurge, the British in documents like Tottenhams' Report painted the whole outburst as a 'deliberate fifth columnist conspiracy', intending to strengthen the Axis powers. This interpretation not only ignored the consistent anti-fascist international stance of the Congress throughout the 1930s, but also made a historical travesty of the facts that being arrested in the early morning of 9 August the Congress leaders could hardly lead the outburst and that the Quit India resolution was also remarkably vague about the details of the coming movement. Far from ruling out further negotiations, the whole thing may conceivably have been an exercise in brinkmanship and a bargaining counter which was followed by an explosion only because the British had decided on a policy of wholesale repression. Despite strenuous efforts, the British failed to establish their case that the Congress before 9 August had really planned a violent rebellion.
The movement was, in reality 'elemental and largely spontaneous'. It was sparked off by a variety of factors and of an expectation that British rule was coming to an end. Bureaucratic high-handedness and provocation worsened the situation. Financial losses incurred in Malay and Burma induced sections of Indian business community to give some covert support to a movement (even if violent) for a short while.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->