The Permanent Settlement had given the Bengali Hindu gentry considerable power in the Districts. In Calcutta, however, they were in conflict with the European merchant and administrator. The bhadralok needed to do a deal with the British Viceroy so as to preserve some of their power. This would have involved following a policy of cooperation such that their increased usefulness to the administration raised their bargaining power. Suppose C.R Das and his ally Motilal Nehru had established good relations with the new Labor Government this outcome would have been achieved. Sadly, Olivier, the new Secretary of State, saw that the Swarajists were just as determined as Gandhi's Congress to make Dyarchy unworkable. The death of C.R Das in 1925 is often said to have put an end to Hindu Muslim amity. The big riots of 1926 called into question the usefulness of the educated Hindu elite. To preserve peace, the Government would need to bypass them and deal directly with community leaders. In this context, Gandhi- with his charisma and spiritual appeal- was a better interlocutor than any the bhadralok could provide.
Once the franchise was extended and the Communal award was notified, the Bengali Congressman needed the National Congress much more than the National Congress needed the arrogant Bengali. Sadly, the Bose brothers did not understand the weakness of their own position. Whatever power they had flowed from their patron, C.R. Das's appeasement of the Muslims. But Das was dead and the 1926 riots had shown that Muslims might be able to get more by intransigence and mob violence. The stage was set for 'Direct Action day' in 1946.
What the Boses needed to do was to placate the Scheduled Castes and come to a modus vivendi with the Europeans. This would mean giving up the pretence that the White Man was incessantly raping and robbing the native. Sadly, the Boses were long on bombast but short on brains. That's why Gandhi could force the Bengali Congress to accept both the Communal Award and the Poona pact which, taken together, doomed the bhadralok to a politically subaltern status.
The Bose brothers who, were only interested in Calcutta, not the Bengali countryside, had initially done very well for themselves. In 1924, Netaji was made CEO of the Corporation by C.R Das who was the mayor. By 1930, he himself was the Mayor. The Europeans were determined to break the power of the Congress in the Corporation. This meant breaking Hindu power- the Hindus had 70 percent of the population and 80 percent of the vote. The Europeans and the Scheduled Castes allied with the Muslim League to push through separate electorates in 1939 so as to concentrate power in the hands of the Muslim minority. Bose initially threatened to launch an agitation and sought to ally with the Mahasabha. Nothing came of it and so Bose did a deal with the League in 1940. Congress was now completely marginalized in Calcutta. But, the Hindus understood that they had been sold down the river. The Bose brothers had gained a personal advantage by betraying their co-religionists. Bose himself was under comfortable house-arrest but he knew his political future was in grave peril. The Hindus were turning against him. Once that happened, the League would have no use for him or his brother. Thus his escape from India was the move of a desperate man.
The truth is the Bose brothers lacked political savvy. Under the leadership of Sarat, the Bengal Congress did badly in the 1937 election. The Communist party did well. The Boses were foolish enough to think that the Communists would come under their wing and that this would give them countervailing power against National Congress which was facing entryism under the 'Popular Front' doctrine. Gandhi disillusioned them on this score. He knew there was more to Bengal than just the Calcutta Corporation. To maintain their position in Calcutta, the brothers had to accept Fazl ul Haq as their new patron. But Haq backed the Pakistan resolution. Bose's arrogance and stupidity had trapped him in an impossible political position.
In 1953, the always imbecilic Niradh Chaudhuri- who as Sarat's secretary was an eye-witness to this whole drama- wrote an article for 'Pacific Affairs' on Netaji Bose.
He contended that
...it may legitimately be assumed that the political evolution of India after the war would have been much altered if Subhas Chandra Bose, the nationalist leader who cooperated with the Axis in Europe and the Far East, had not been killed in an airplane accident in August I945.
We now know that Viceroy Wavell- a military man- had no confidence that Britain could continue to hold India. The administration was thoroughly demoralized. The question was- who would power pass to? The answer was given by the 1946 election. Muslims voted overwhelmingly for Jinnah and Partition. Hindus voted overwhelmingly for Congress. The Communist or other Socialist vote collapsed. Could Bose have returned to India and led the Forward Block so as to take seats from Congress and the League? Could returning Indian National Army soldiers have got a majority of voters to back a unified Pan-Indian Nationalism?
No. Don't be silly.
Netaji's elder brother, Sarat, once again led the Congress in Bengal just as he had done in 1937. But Hindus were voting for Gandhi & Nehru- not Bose and yet more Muslim appeasement. Sarat quit Congress soon enough. Very foolishly, he allied with Suhrawardy- the architect of the 1946 riots. His political death was soon succeeded by his biological death. He was only 60 years old.
One cannot, state with assurance what would have happened had Bose not died then,
he would have been arrested and put on trial unless he managed to get to a neutral country in the way that Nambiar did. True, Nehru & Co. would have lobbied to get him released. Perhaps, like the Grand Mufti, he would have been allowed to escape. But his career would have been over. He had gambled and lost. The world would move on without him. Like Savarkar, or other such Revolutionaries, he would have outlived his legend as a ghastly sort of wax-work. Perhaps, like Aurobindo, he would have turned to Spirituality or, like M.N. Roy, written boring shite about 'Integral Humanism'.
but one can be reasonably certain of what would not have happened. For one thing, there would not have been the relatively easy transfer of power from British to Indian hands.
Why not? The Brits didn't like the INA but, in the end, they had to be content with cashiering INA officers. They may have been able to stop Netaji standing for election but his brother would have been free to campaign for the Forward Bloc. The Brits wanted to avoid partition and might even have backed Bose, as a counterweight to the pro-League Communists, if they believed he could deliver this outcome.
For another, there would not be in India today a democratic parliamentary regime associated with Great Britain and the Commonwealth.
Britain owed India money. If India decided to leave the Commonwealth, it would have had to wave good bye to 'sterling balances'. It would also have had to get an Admiral from some other country to oversee the building up of its Navy. As for being a 'democratic parliamentary regime'- plenty of countries started that way, including Burma which refused to join the Commonwealth in 1948. It only stopped being a democracy in 1962.
Certain events of I945 and 1946 must be recalled in support of these assertions.
Niradh believes that Indians were furious that the Axis lost the war. The truth is, Indians didn't give a shit about any foreign country. There was a backlash against the Government for war-time repression and also some jockeying for position amongst local leaders. The Communists, as usual, were up for any type of mischief.
March 7, 1946, the day of the formal celebration of victory in India, there was riotous interference. In Old Delhi the Town Hall was set on fire and partly gutted.
Communists and young Muslim Leaguers were involved. The Muslims would soon have to flee Delhi.
Indians in European dress were set upon, and had their hats and neckties snatched away.
Hitler always refused to wear hat or tie. Evil Britishers tried to force him to do so. That's why he shot himself.
Government forces fired on the rioters, some of whom were killed. In New Delhi troops participating in the victory procession were booed, and bystanders waved black flags at them. On the next day in the legislature the government was criticized both for having resorted to shooting and for having failed to maintain order
This strengthened Wavell's hand. The Brits had to transfer power to anybody who would take it so as to evacuate the White population.
Churchill had thought Wavell a stupid soldier who would have no compunction in continuing to machine gun Indians from the air. But Wavell was like Allenby who had supported Egyptian independence. Atlee, too, disliked Wavell and considered him defeatist- but it soon became obvious that his military reading of the situation was accurate. India could not be ruled by the old methods. The question was whether the Brits could get out with a modicum of dignity. The mutiny of the Naval ratings was particularly worrying. What if it spread to other Indian ocean ports- e.g. Singapore or even Aden or Mombasa?
Chaudhuri was Sarat Chandra Bose's secretary. How could he have failed to grasp that the Bose brothers were shit at politics? The answer, I suppose, is that Chaudhuri too was a Kayastha.
if Bose had been allowed to return, he would have attracted sufficient support and enthusiasm
from whom? Muslims? They wanted Muslim leadership. What about Namasudras? They, under Mandal, had allied with the League. Most upper Caste people were with Congress. They didn't trust Sarat because he had allied with Fazl ul Haq who had harmed the landowners and reduced the number of Government jobs going to Hindus. Indeed, C.R Das himself was not remembered favourably because of this type of 'Muslim appeasement'.
The 'educationally backward' agriculturists resented the Kayasthas and Baidyas. They too would go with Congress because it had the muscle to take on the League. The Communists did not want Bose. Indeed, he was an embarrassing reminder of the Hitler-Stalin pact which is what had allowed Bose to get to Germany.
to enable him to liquidate British interests in India.
He would have quickly and unceremoniously killed if he had wagged his tail. British interests now coincided with those of the Indian industrialists. If Aung San could be bumped off, the Bose bros. presented no fucking problem.
He would not have countenanced the Congress policy of friendly cooperation with Britain
as opposed to Tojo. The boy had shit for brains.
nor, perhaps, have accepted Partition.
He would have run away from Muslim mobs nimbly enough.
He would have been a magnified De Valera.
It took De Valera many years to come to power through elections. But he would have achieved nothing if Westminster hadn't passed the 1931 act unilaterally giving all Dominions effective independence. Still, the outcome of his Trade War with Britain was ignominious. DeV was powerless to prevent England recruiting as many Irishmen as it liked for the Second World War. True, such soldiers were treated like shit when they returned but the fact remained that, on the international stage, DeV was a fucking pygmy. Even a magnified DeV would still have been inconsequential.
JAWAHARLAL Nehru and Subhas Bose were recognized as potential leaders when they first entered the nationalist movement in 192I.
Nehru could be a national leader because he was a Hindi speaker from the cow-belt belonging to the largest pan-Indian caste- viz. the Brahmins. Bose was a Bengali Kayasth who could not even get elected Premier in his own province. Nehru's father partnered with C.R Das (the patron of the Bose brothers) to set up the Swaraj party which entered the Assembly but proved utterly useless. Das died and this meant the Boses gained prominence. But they were stupid and the Brits were suspicious of them. Very foolishly, they alienated Marwaris like Birla and this meant they would be marginalized. Gandhi's mistake was to think that making Bose President of INC would enable that cretin to understand his own impotence. Sadly, instead of becoming pliable, he dug his heels in. Thus he was ejected from Congress. His running off to Germany was the act of a desperate man. He could see that Fazl ul Haq was pumping and dumping him and his brother. Perhaps the path to power in Calcutta ran through Moscow or Berlin or Tokyo. Foreigners would do for him what the Bengali masses showed no great desire to do.
Chaudhuri admits that Bose's political career in India was over once Gandhi realized the fellow was a fool who didn't understand that if he could neither deliver Bengal to the INC nor contribute to the Party's smoother working, then he was useless. He had to go.
(The) expulsion and the manner of its accomplishment not only permanently estranged Bose from the Congress
which didn't matter to Congress because Bose wasn't bringing them either money or votes. He was a fantasist.
but also was the decisive factor in impelling him to seek help from the Axis Powers in liberating India.
Because the Japs wouldn't want to keep Bengal for themselves. They would hand it over to Bose.
He left nursing bitter thoughts against the Congress as the betrayer of Indian interests
He was happy to betray anybody and everybody so as to make himself 'Rashtrapati' of India. By contrast, Nehru was a loyal enough chap- a pukka Public Skool boy dontchaknow.
It must be said, the British governor of UP made a big mistake by arresting Motilal and Jawaharlal at the time of the visit of the Prince of Wales. The 'bandh' in Allahabad was complete. Suddenly, the political centre of gravity of the freedom struggle shifted from the Presidency cities, or the Punjab, to the cow-belt. Meanwhile Netaji Bose was strutting around in a comic opera Generalissimo's uniform.
It is a major tragedy of recent Indian history that these two young men,
Nehru was 18 years older than Bose.
who had been born into the same upper middle class,
but Nehru was a Hindi speaking Brahmin. Numerically this is one of the biggest castes in the cow belt. Moreover, Brahmins are to be found wherever there are Hindus. Kayasthas are much thinner on the ground and confined to certain provinces.
shared the same Anglicized education,
Nehru's education was wholly English. Bose went to Indian schools.
habits and outlook, subscribed generally to the same Western political concepts, and thus were fitted to be associates and the Dioskuri of Indian nationalism,
You can't have a twin who is 18 years older than you.
should have been driven to play roles more suitable to Mughal princes hatching fratricidal wars of succession.
This is foolish. Nehru never tried to assassinate anyone. The Bose brothers were suspected by Tegart- the police officer who crushed Jugantar- of trying to get him killed. Birla got on very well with Tegart and made him a director of his London holding company after the war.
Chaudhuri tries to explain why Gandhi was a National figure whereas Bose's appeal was more limited.
the class-conscious Bengali gentleman (had a) deep-seated aversion to a proletarian, which Gandhi was, if not by birth, at all events by theory and adoption.
The Boses were descended from Purandar Khan who aggravated the problem of 'kulinism' which the Brahmo reformers of the early Nineteenth Century sought to combat. But, they weren't aristocrats. They were money grubbing lawyers. Gandhi was a Gujarati bania who received support for Gujarati and Marwari industrialists. The Boses did not have that type of financial backing. The elder brother, a successful lawyer, was putting in a lot of his own money. Moreover, the policies they advocated were ruinous to their own class. They were merely playing at politics. They represented no actual interest group- commercial or caste or creed based.
There was also the sophisticated and Westernized Indian's impatience with an outlook that was anti-intellectual and preached a deliberate repudiation of culture.
Tagore was cultured. Bose clashed with him over his demand that some idolatrous Hindu practice be permitted on Brahmo premises. (This was the 1928 Sarasvati Puja at City College)
Moreover, Bose was a true representative of the Bengali revolutionary school, nurtured on Italian, Irish and Russian doctrines and methods.
That shite was obsolete. Actual Bengali revolutionaries like M.N Roy were entering mainstream politics or else turning to philosophy or religion.
Finally, his antipathy for Gandhism had a definite Hindu content
a Bengali Hindu content- sure. But Bengali Hindus needed Partition to save them from Muslim domination. The Boses were a blind alley.
which, while never explicitly stated, may be inferred from his attitude and the character of his Hindu inheritance.
His grand-father was a devout Vaishnavite though the family was Saivite. His father was influenced by Brahmoism. Chaudhuri appears oblivious of this fact.
Sanskrit literature contains evidence to indicate that in ancient Hindu times the Brahmanic elements, whose Dharma was the way of life of a priestly and warrior folk, felt pronounced contempt for the non-violent and quietist doctrines of the Buddhists and Jainas, which were professed mostly by traders.
This is nonsense. Great conquerors might be Buddhist or Jain or Ajivika or Saivite or Vaisnavite or Sakta.
True Brahmanism held war, and particularly righteous war, in honour and despised non-violence as cowardice; it abhorred self-abasing ascetism; and it looked upon Jaina and Buddhist monks as vagabonds.
Brahmins were keen to become monks and thus to get to live comfortably.
In Bengal, after the disappearance of Buddhism, this antagonism was transformed into a hostility between the Saktas (worshippers of the principle of Strength in the goddess Durga, and comprising mostly members of the higher castes) and the Vaishnavas of the Chaitanya school, who were largely tradesmen and artisans. For centuries the Bengali gentleman had looked down upon the beggarly or cringing Vaishnavite.
But, Bose's grandfather was a devout Vaishnav. Don't forget, Vaishnavism looks similar to Christianity. It was Christianity which was kicking ass and taking names back then. Bose's father was born three years after the Mutiny. He was influenced by the Brahmo Samaj which has some similarities with Unitarianism.
Incidentally, the founder of the INC, a Scotsman, became a Vedantin and a Vegetarian. He was the Vice President of the Vegetarian Society in London. Perhaps in backward East Bengal such niceties were not appreciated. But the Boses were from the West.
THREE factors worked against Bose in his conflict with the Congress:
His elder brother led the INC in Bengal. But it hadn't done particularly well in the election. Nehru had forbidden an alliance with Fazl ul Haq and his pro-tenant party. It would be timely to offer a sop to the Left and let Sarat gain face in Calcutta by elevating his younger brother. But Bose thought 'President' meant 'Fuhrer'. He didn't get that Congress was seeking to co-opt the Left not make it its vanguard.
Gandhi's authority and popular appeal, which was quasi-religious in character;
which attracted money
the strength of the Congress as an organization;
because it had money
and the numerous and loyal personal following of his opponents.
because they could provide jobs for the boys. CR Das had initially been good at this. My impression was that the Boses were less able as providers. But this had a lot to do with the strategy of 'Muslim appeasement'- i.e. raising quotas for them at the expense of the Hindu. This also pissed off the lower castes.
He sought to counteract these disadvantages by taking the desperate step of going over to the Axis Powers.
He knew he had lost the Hindu vote because of his deal with the Muslims in the Calcutta Corporation. He had sought to regain popularity with his agitation against the Black Hole monument. This angered the Whites but was helpful to the Muslims because it showed Hindu support for the old Muslim ruler of the Province whom the Brits had supplanted. Bose was now boxed in. He could remain in India as a Muslim 'show boy' or he could go into exile. The sensible thing to do was to settle in Switzerland and use Axis money for propaganda. That way he could also be reunited with his wife.
Subsequently his already great personal appeal seemed to acquire the magic of a sorcerer's spell; he created the INA, which, whatever might be said against it, became under his leadership a united, disciplined body trained in the use of arms; and he attracted a large personal following that was fanatically devoted to him. The INA agitation in India after his death revealed the power of his name and memory alone.
Sarat, leading the Bengali INC did increase its tally but this was at the expense of the Communists. But it was the Muslim League which gained most.
In person he might have been irresistible.
He had been resistible in the 1937 election. There is little reason to think the Muslims would have suddenly started adoring him.
That is why his death can be described as a windfall, both for the British and for the Gandhi-Nehru leadership.
It should have helped Sarat who soon left Congress and revived the Forward Block. There were plenty of Boses to carry the flag forward but even those who got into Parliament had little impact. Why? Chaudhuri supplies the answer-
. Bose's death was a decisive blow to the cause for which he stood.
i.e. his own wonderfulness.
In India, a man is of more consequence than ideas or systems.
but such men can found dynasties- unless their ideas are idiosyncratic shite like those of Gandhi or Bose. Nehru was less crazy- he wanted a unitary, Socialist, Republic- and did found a dynasty. But this was because he had paid his dues. Also, he had never threatened colleagues with violence. Consider Shyama Prasad Mukherjee- son of the great Ashutosh. The Bose Johnny-come-latelys had threatened the fellow and sent their goons to disrupt Mahasabha meetings. The problem was that the Boses were eminently beatable. If push came to shove, they would eat dirt.
Bose stood primarily for a set of emotional reactions
amongst a febrile class which however was doomed to irrelevance
and pragmatic ideas
stupid ideas. Suck up to the Muslims or the Japs or whoever else wants to slit your throat
which lack substance in his absence.
Buddhijivis don't have substance. They are but shadows looming large in their own limelight and strutting an imaginary stage.
Certain political systems- communism, for instance- one can envisage independently of particular individuals.
The INC, set up by a Scotsman, existed independently of individuals. Sadly, it has now been reduced to the dynastic vehicle of either Sonia or, in Bengal, Mamta.
But one cannot conceive of a Nazi revolution in Germany without Hitler,
Actually, it was Ludendorff who was supposed to lead it. But he was batshit crazy. Hitler was brought into politics by the German Army. General Blomberg didn't like General Schleicher and got the German Army to swear a personal oath of loyalty to Hitler after the latter bumped off Schleicher and his wife. Hitler pushed through the General Staff's maximal program. Some army officers wanted to kill and replace him but Hitler was quicker on the draw.
for it was a temperamental rather than an ideological revolution.
It was based on the German belief, fostered by Keynes, that they would starve unless they acquired territory to their East.
In India Bose would probably have brought about a revolution of the same type,
The Bose's were a damp squib. Fazl ul Haq & Suhrawardy ran circles around them. The Communists, who got 32 seats in 1937, regarded them as opportunistic shitheads. They were 'useful idiots' at best. Anyway, Commies were keen to do their own deal with the Muslims on the basis of their support for the Pakistan Resolution. Dr. Gangadhar Adhikari, a former General Secretary of the CPI, published a thesis clarifying the party line on 'Pakistan and Indian National Unity' in 1943 (though its draft had been circulated the previous year). It supported the Pakistan demand and suggested that there would be further 'nationalities' within Hindu India which must be granted the right to secede. At a later point, Adhikari, who had been side-lined, published a retraction. 'The logic of our stand led to Rightist mistakes like support to Pakistan, rigid anti-strike and anti-peasant struggle stand. Despite certain achievements... this stand did serious damage to the Party by isolating it for a time from the rest of the anti-imperialist elements in the national movement and also split our mass base... It is agreed that our slogan of 'Peoples War', our campaign against fifth-column, our rigid anti-strike attitude, our stand on Pakistan - were all serious errors. But the question whether our negative attitude to 'Quit India' struggle, our non-participation in it were right or not, that has not been settled". Chaudhuri doesn't understand that Adhikari and the CPI was obedient to Stalin. Had he embraced Bose, they would have done so as well. But Stalin wanted nothing to do with Bose. That is why there was a myth, amongst buddhijivis, that Stalin was keeping Bose a prisoner in a Gulag.
uniting all of the revolutionary forces in the country irrespective of their previous doctrinal affiliations, and in any case depriving the Communists of their potential recruits;
Bose could have gone underground in India or loitered at its border. It is significant that the man who got Bose out of India- Bhagat Ram Talwar- though ostensibly continuing to work for the Italians and Germans, was actually a Leftist, who after Hitler's invaded the Soviet Union, began working wholeheartedly for the British. Peter Fleming, the brother of Ian Fleming, was his handler.
giving direction to all of the seething discontents within the country which independence by itself cannot overcome; and leading these elements against a government which, if not precisely reactionary, is regarded by a very large number of Indians as hopelessly static and uninspired.
The Communists did try 'armed struggle' but Nehru & Patel beat them into submission. They had no choice but to embrace 'Browderism' which H.N Goshal in Burma had fiercely attacked. Hilariously, Goshal was killed during the Cultural Revolution in the course of an inter-party purge.
What the positive content of this revolution would have been, it is difficult to say in the present circumstances.
It would have been bluster and bullshit and would have swiftly terminated in bloodshed. The Bose brothers would have been beaten to death.
Bose was very much of an empiricist, and as such might have allied himself with, for in-
stance, either the Soviet Union or the United States.
or Pakistan, or Peru, or the Pope.
Only one thing is certain, and that is his personal ascendancy in any order he might have created.
But that order would have been evanescent.
That kind of revolution is no longer possible. The death of Bose has deprived the revolution he envisaged of its power of adaptation and flexibility.
i.e. its ability to go running to the Peru or Pakistan or the Pope.
His legend has thus become the expression of all of the existing discontents in the country.
There was a 'Subhasist' wing of Forward Block. I wonder what happened to it.
There is the discontent with the British association
No there wasn't. Nobody gave a fuck.
and, as its corollary, an aversion to the United States;
US should not have helped defeat and repel the Japanese invaders. Fuck you Uncle Sam! Fuck you, very much!
there is the discontent with the influence of the moneyed classes, the Indian Bania order;
Nehru, in his autobiography, promised a 'de-baniafied', re-'Brahminized', India. But Punditji was an actual Brahmin. Kayasthas were merely jumped up clerks.
there is the discontent with the rule of the old bureaucracy;
people who didn't get Government jobs were discontented.
there is the discontent with the poverty of the middle class and with the decline of its political power; there is the discontent with the secular and Western complexion of official programmes; and there is the discontent in certain parts of India with the policy of centralization at the expense of regional autonomy, and with the self-assertion of Hindustan, which is the motive force behind this policy.
This was impotence, not discontent.
These phenomena, it may be noted, have negative rather than positive implications. Unless a new leader of outstanding ability appears, this situation will persist. Therefore, it may be said that today the Bose legend symbolizes a conglomeration of numerous disruptive forces, all working towards a dissolution of government.
It was shit. Nehru pulled the flush on it. The buddhijivi would have to pretend to be a mathematical economist in order to get a chance to fuck up the country.
In brief, if Bose's legacy is a vision of what might have been, his legend is an expression of frustration.
Impotence. But, even if the buddhijivi could get it up, it was only his own backside he could bugger.
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