Netaji

 Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose - the name strikes a chord of patriotism which lies buried deep in our sub-conscious somewhere. For our generation and those preceding ours, who were brought up on the staple diet of 26th January and 15th August brand of patriotic fervour he was always an icon, a legend but an enigmatic one. We were simply over awed by his sheer audacity at all levels starting from spurning the ICS to challenging Mahatma Gandhi himself by contesting and winning the Congress presidentship and then relinquishing it. His daring escape from Kolkata house arrest to Kabul is simply unbelievable and part of folklore. If that was not all, his vision in raising the INA and actually leading them in the war effort to rid the nation of the yoke of centuries of colonial rule will catapult him way ahead of his contemporaries in freedom struggle. Mind you that was an era when we had the leaders of the stature of Gandhiji himself Pt Nehru, Sardar Patel, Maulana Azad, Babu Rajendra Prasad,Rajaji each one a luminary in his own right not to forget Bhagat Singh, Azad and countless others who have been venerated by generations of grateful and not so grateful Indians.

But truly apart from Gandhiji it was only Netaji who not only charted a different course but had a following which rivalled that of the Mahatma himself. So much so that even Gandhiji had to literally force him to part ways as his leadership itself was threatened after the loss of his protégé in that landmark election in 1937. Naturally the aura around the man continued to grow even after his mysterious disappearance in the air crash as we were led to believe.

The moot question which Indians asked themselves was "what if Netaji was alive today". In other words they have been convinced all these years that had he been alive, the course of our nation would have been different and definitely better. We Indians have always been idol worshippers and towards this end, we invent gods even when there wasn't one at hand. There are a number of examples in the recent past where mere mortals have been venerated as gods, the host of Godmen past and present and even  Mrs Indira Gandhi in her hey days post 1971 or the PM Modiji fall in the same category. Netaji Bose was that kindle of hope for the masses, he was obviously God like in his demeanour and his persona oozed with a confidence which was rare in a colonised nation. 

He realised rather early, the limitations of the satyagraha model of freedom movement and was prepared to guide the destiny of the nation in his own revolutionary manner. Obviously the power struggle within the Congress Party ensued as the leadership was uncomfortable with a parallel power centre emerging, who had the charisma and aura to motivate and awaken the masses who were still in their slumber. Had he not been eased out of the Congress then, the course of history would have been different, there is no doubt about that. His subsequent forays with the Nazi and fascist regimes were obviously not inspired by their ideology but merely to get them to assist him in driving the British out. He did not kowtow to them but interacted with them as an equal convinced of the justness of the cause.

Netaji was not stuck in any groove, as is evident by his actions in raising the INA and subsequent assault on the British India. While he was inspired by the Socialist ideology, which was true every leader those days, after all, what do you expect from an impoverished colonised nation. Obviously, having been subjected to humiliation, exploitation and deprivation by the Britishers who represented the Capitalist Right and were at its forefront, Indian political leadership had to lean towards the Left. But the remarkable quality of Netaji was his intelligence, understanding the psyche of Indians and his quest for solutions which imbued him with that rare flexibility of mind, where only the cause mattered and the means were secondary. Although it would be a conjecture, but he would definitely have undertaken a course correction much earlier rather than drive us to our doom. 

Most importantly he was the alternative which the nation yearned for, a void which remains unfilled for all these years.