Bose - A Forgotten Hero

Finally back to blogging after many days. It's my first time on Dark Room. It's a nice writing tool.

Anyways this blog is not about Dark room. It's something I wanted to write for a long time and finally writing it, winning over my procrastination.

Some days back it was a day to celebrate with patriotic spirit. No! I'm not talking about Republic Day. It was birthday of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. (You must be knowing the date, if you think you should know. Otherwise there is no use if I mention it here.)

Somehow I feel we have apathy towards him. Not much of celebration from government, not even any mention in media. Moreover the general public also seems to have forgotten the hero.

According to me, Netaji's death is one of the longest running political controversies in Indian politics. But not just his death, even his birthday too is being wiped out of people's memory as part of some political agenda I feel. As it is Netaji's ideologies were very different from that of Gandhi's and would he have been alive his existence would have changed the whole political scenario in India. Some believe he was living as a hermit in UP, India. If it is true, then why did he not get into politics here? Was it a threat for him?

In case Netaji died in the plane accident and his ashes are stored in Renkoji temple in Japan, then why didn't the Indian Government try to get it to India? Several commissions were set-up to find out the disappearance of Netaji (which means we believe he did not die in that plane crash). But the Mukherjee Commission report was not approved in 2005 and no more (govt.) commissions are working on this. According to Anuj Dhar, a journalist who is working on this regard has some controversial statements. If we go by that ... Netaji can well change the political scenario in India today (posthumously).

Now India is supposed to be one of the largest democracies in the world and we had only one party to choose for ten years after Independence. We give them the treatment as if they are the kings ruling a kingdom. Not many parties with different ideologies still exist; some alternatives are coming up though. They are not stable enough even after 60 years of Independence.

Let's get back to our topic.

When it comes to support Netaji and celebrate his birthday, you can easily see the clear picture of why it lacks enough political interest. Netaji was a national hero for sure, but his views were very different from the father of the nation. Now one may argue that even Bhagat Singh had different ideologies why didn’t that deter people's spirit to celebrate Bhagat Singh's Birthday. Regionally and many other political parties support him. But in the case of Netaji, CPI the Communist Party of India which is the major political party from the region where Netaji spent much of his personal and work life, doesn't support his ideologies either. They like the idea of Netaji going to Russia but they hate him as he went to Germany for help later. Now what went wrong at Russia doesn't bother them, but the German connection bothers them a lot about Netaji. Now you see that why not much celebration is around. You can see a bit of the celebration by some die-hard fans of him and yes regionally in Orissa his birthplace (that too again by some great lovers of this leader). I personally believe politics in Orissa doesn't affect the national politics much.

Anyways no one can deny what an exceptional leader Netaji was. If not all I believe still in this generation Y, some of us will be here to celebrate and spread knowledge about this great hero of all time and a true son of the soil.

Links I referred are here:

1) http://www.yorozubp.com/netaji/75birthday/yajee.htm

2) http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/specials/Netaji/roadends.shtml

3) http://piyushspace.blogspot.com/2008/01/happy-birthday-netaji.html

4) http://www.rediff.com/news/2006/mar/17spec.htm

Best of them all:

5) http://www.missionnetaji.org/index_new.php

Something you should check out:

6) http://thejeshgn।com/2008/01/22/speeches-by-subash-chandra-bose-in-his-own-voice/

P.S. By the term celebration I meant how much people remember and love their leader who fought for them.

P.P.S. Thought of writing this blog from some tweets with Thej and Veetrag.