To correct the history and restore the facts before people, Narendra Modi had to become the Prime Minister of India, and hence we see roads after Dara Shikoh, Abdul Kalam, mentions of Lohia, Bose and Deendayal Upadhyaya from the ramparts of the Red Fort, and trains, airports named after the lesser known great makers and freedom fighters of the nation.
Tomorrow, on October 21, when Mr Modi will unfurl the tricolour from the Red Fort in memory of India’s first government established on a foreign soil to kick out the British and not to have the ‘transfer of power’ from them, he will be restoring another fact and re-establishing the honour of a great patriotic revolutionary leader who was the biggest reason of the British leaving India – Neta ji Subhash Chandra Bose. There are various opinions like the one expressed by noted historian RC Majumdar, who quotes the then-British PM Attlee on the major reason of the British leaving India. According to him, the fact that India could gain freedom in 1947 was the military campaigns of Subhash Chandra Bose, and not, I repeat, not the non-violent Gandhi movement. Subhash respected Gandhi ji all his life and there was never an attempt to belittle the great contribution of Bapu towards the freedom movement.
It was on October 21, 1943 that Subhash Chandra Bose established the Arzi Hukumat e Azad Hind – the provisional government of Free India in Singapore. It received recognition by as many as eleven countries, including Japan, Nanking China, Thailand, Burma, Italy, Germany and the Philippines. Bose became the first head of the state of the Free India’s provisional government, hence it will be legitimate that Indian Parliament passes a resolution praising his efforts and recognising Subhash Chandra Bose as India’s first Head of the State and First Prime Minister of the provisional government established to oust the Imperialist British.
The Indian National Army that Bose resurrected kicked out the British from Andaman and Nicobar islands – he named them as Shaheed and Swaraj. The INA or the Azad Hind Fauj, under the clarion call of Bose – Chalo Delhi- reached Moirang in Manipur and shook the British confidence.
As we learn from historical records, the INA was able to win back Rangoon, Imphal and Andaman and Nicobar islands. The great salutation every Army personnel uses today, ‘Jai Hind’, was given to the nation by Subhash Bose.
The ‘Do or Die’ used by Gandhiji during the Quit India Movement of 1942 was also given by him. In fact, Subhash Chandra Bose was forced to resign from Congress after Tripuri Congress convention in 1939. Congressmen had refused to cooperate with him though he was elected president of the Congress with a huge majority. Gandhi declared this as his ‘personal defeat’ and Congress boycotted its own elected president.
It was after this humiliation by Congress that he resigned and formed Forward Bloc in 1940.
It was Bose who was instrumental in gaining freedom and making British leave India, and not Gandhi. Famous historian RC Majumdar writes, “It seldom falls to the lot of a historian to have his views, differing radically from those generally accepted without demur, confirmed by such an unimpeachable authority. As far back as 1948, I wrote in an article that the contribution made by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose towards the achievement of freedom in 1947 was no less, and perhaps, far more important than that of Mahatma Gandhi…” The ‘unimpeachable authority’ he cited happens to be Clement Attlee, the Prime Minister of Britain, at the time of India’s Independence. As this is of fundamental importance, and Majumdar’s conclusion is so greatly at variance with conventional history, it is worth placing it on record. (See Volume III, pp. 609-10). When BP Chakravarti was acting as Governor of West Bengal, Lord Attlee visited India and stayed as his guest for three days at the Raj Bhavan. Chakravarti asked Attlee about the real grounds for granting Independence to India. Specifically, his question was, when the Quit India movement lay in ruins years before 1947, what was the need for the British to leave in such a hurry. Attlee’s response is most illuminating and important for history. Here is the Governor’s account of what Attlee told him: