There are interminable controversies over what exactly happened to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose after August 1945. Despite various commissions of inquiry to probe the available evidence, India is divided between those who insist he died in an air crash in Taipei two days after the Japanese surrender in World War II and those who passionately believe the air crash was a ruse and that Netaji had a surreptitious second life, maybe as a reclusive sadhu in Faizabad. The controversy has not merely divided the Bose family but has assumed political overtones with the suggestion that the Nehru-Gandhi family was involved in a conspiracy.The question of Netaji’s death or wilful disappearance will remain a subject of conjecture and is unlikely to satisfy either side. Mercifully, there is no dispute over the fact that this January 23 will witness the 125th birth anniversary of the stalwart many consider the first Prime Minister of free India.Unfortunately, nothing in India is ever free from partisan politics. This is more so in West Bengal, where political partisanship has touched ridiculous heights. The state has always commemorated Netaji’s birthday as a public holiday, as a mark of respect to the man Bengalis regard as the man who was cheated out of his role as the pre-eminent leader of independent India by the machinations of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru.This year should have witnessed the celebration of Netaji’s life on a grander, national scale for two reasons. First, although Mahatma Gandhi retains his status as the defining icon of free India, the role of the Nehru-Gandhi family has come under greater scrutiny and the dynastic politics of the Congress is even seen as politically dispensable. Secondly, with the advent of Narendra Modi in 2014, there is a sustained focus on the role of individuals whose contributions to free India were underplayed by earlier Congress governments. The list of neglected heroes is long, but heading it is Netaji Subhas.Modi’s credentials in this regard are impressive. For a start, he facilitated the declassification of all government files on the touchy issue of Netaji’s disappearance after 1945. These papers should have been released for public access in a routine way after the lapse of 30 years but were held back by nervous politicians. This move triggered conspiracy theories and added to the conviction that Nehru and his successors had much to hide about the fate of Netaji. In releasing the papers, Modi may have disappointed those who expected something explosive to emerge, but at least he removed the unnecessary veil of secrecy. Secondly, Modi personally participated in the Red Fort ceremony in October 2018 to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the declaration of the provisional government of free India by Netaji. The Prime Minister put a stamp of official recognition on an event whose significance had earlier been underplayed by the Congress establishment and Left-inclined historians, disdainful of Netaji’s association with Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.Tragically, the approaching assembly election in West Bengal is likely to convert this national event into a game of political football. With her recent flirtation with Bengali-ness as a stick to beat the ‘outsiders’ in the BJP with, Netaji is being sought to be repackaged by Mamata Banerjee as a symbol of Bengali asmita. Taking her cue from Netaji’s role in establishing a Planning Commission for free India inside the Congress in 1938, she has announced a Bengal Planning Commission — a move that disregards historical context. Her favoured intellectuals have also resurrected Netaji’s differences with the Hindu Mahasabha, with the barely concealed hint that had he been alive he would have been a campaigner for the Trinamool Congress in the coming polls. Travelling from the sublime to the ridiculous, it is conceivable that an over-zealous regionalist may even detect contemporary relevance in the vicious factional war the Bose brothers fought with other sections of the Bengal Congress over control of the Calcutta Corporation.
What the West Bengal chief minister is attempting isn’t unique. There is a macabre tendency in India to reduce history to a series of counterfactuals, including posing the silly question of how a person may have behaved had s/he been living today. The Mahatma has been the biggest victim of this irresistible urge to inject the past with today’s schisms, as has Swami Vivekananda whose entire message has been reduced to quotable quotes from one speech in Chicago. Not far behind is Babasaheb B R Ambedkar whose status as a national icon with a seminal role in the making of India’s Constitution is sought to be marred by positing him as a leader of one brand of identity politics.There is a legitimate place for divergent interpretations of the past but equally, there is an important role for a national story, acceptable to all Indians. Without this collective sense of a shared past, India’s nationhood is weakened.
Source: Economic Times
