Bose, the Father of India?

Bose or Gandhi - Who Got Her Freedom?
Author: Maj Gen (Dr) GD Bakshi SM, VSM (Rtd) (2019)

Viewers who have seen the good Major General in action during his interviews agree that he is pretty passionate about war. Hailing from a Pashtun Hindu family with a strong tradition in the military, there is no denying that he is a nationalist by every means. 

This book results from detailed research of recently declassified sensitive correspondence documents of the British Foreign Office. Many of the communications happened between the local British officers and their superiors in London. The critical decision-makers involved here are Field Marshall Sir Claude Auchinleck (Commander-in-Chief in India), Field Marshall Archibald Percival (Viceroy of India), Lord Pethick-Lawrence (Secretary of State of India) and Lord Clement Attlee (Prime Minister). Included in the analysis were the many field reports from Provincial Governors to their bosses on their assessment of sentiments of the Indian crowd in the ground. 

From our history books, we came back with their idea that India's Independence was won unilaterally by the undying efforts of Gandhi and his band of politicians in the Congress Party. Slowly, as more and more truth surfaces, the world now realises that probably that narration was put up by the colonial masters. They wanted to portray an image of passing the baton to the natives on a platter with altruistic intentions.

Did Gandhi's satyagraha actually win India its Independence? This book vehemently disagrees. 

After India first resistance towards colonisation in the Sepoy Mutiny in 1857, the British moved on to attack Indians psychologically instead. They devised a 'divide and rule' strategy. They went on to dismantle the local ancient but advanced educational structure to brainwash Indians into thinking highly of the colonial master's way of life and education. 

With a tiny army, the British managed to keep the rest of Indian in check by appointing local sepoys and baboos to be at their beck and call to do their dirty job as well as maintain the master-slave arrangement. The loyalty of the native Indian sepoy to the British colonial enterprise is the bulwark of their occupation. It worked well until the call of self-rule came again in the early 20th century. Individual revolutionaries sprung here and there but were quickly curtailed by the British. The Congress Party demanded swaraj (self-rule) and later led passive resistance (satyagraha) towards this end. The British did not mind this. It was easier bulldozing unretaliating marches.

The Indians thought that the British would be moved to offer dominion status by volunteering in World War 1. The Indians later realised they were taken for a ride. Things were just getting worse. The call for self-rule grew louder. Even as late as 1942, when Clement Atlee was the War Minister, Britain agreed that Indian Independence was out of the question on both sides of British politics. Churchill and his band of pompous politicians had no intentions of honouring whatever promises they had given the Indians.

All India Forward Bloc, 
a faction within the Indian National Congress
in 1939, led by Subhas Chandra Bose.

It is a combination of loss of respect amongst the native, terrible post-war debts and the most important of all, the increase of post-WW2 nationalism in India.

Chandra Bose, who rose in the Congress Party to hold President's post in 1938, resigned following disagreements with Gandhi the next year. Bose had wanted to advocate force against the British, but Gandhi's manoeuvring of the Party ensured Bose could not.

Bose left to form a breakaway bloc to fight India's way to Independence. He made trips to the UK and specifically to Germany to form a pact with Hitler. Unfortunately, Bose found the Germans not so forthcoming. He received news that the Japanese could help. A dangerous trip via submarines took him to an audience with Emperor Hirohito and the Japanese military chieftains. In exile in Singapore, Bose formed a de-facto Indian government and created the Indian National Army from the captured British Indian Army personnel and thousands of ethnic Indian volunteers from Malaya and Singapore, including the first All-Women regiment named Jhansi Rani regiment in 1942.

Timing is all-important in military attacks. The Japanese invasion of the British forces at the India-Burma was done at the time when the Americans had moved in, and the Western front was somewhat under control in 1944. The INA fared poorly at Imphal and Kohima. 

Japanese PM with Subhas Chandra Bose Municipal Building (City Hall), Singapore. 6 July 1943.

What happened next plays the most crucial role in stirring nationalistic spirit amongst Indians that sent the British packing back to their cocoon. The decision of the British authorities to try the leaders of the captured INA leaders for treason against the Crown alerted the average Indian of double standardness. At a time of the suppression of information, this much-broadcasted trial in the iconic Red Fort in New Delhi just broadcasted to the whole of India of the sacrifice of a group of dedicated soldiers towards the nation's Independence and the injustice meted upon them. Even Gandhi hailed them as heroes.

The declassified documents just proved this fact. They cautioned the British officials of high tension arising amongst their subjects of that trial. 

The coup de grace must have been the mutiny by the officers of the Royal Indian Navy and soldiers of the British Indian Army. They openly defied the orders of their superiors. Due to mounting public pressure, charges were dropped, but they lost their pensions.

The British cut their losses, threw in the towel and fled the scene. Whilst the whole country was jubilant rejoicing around their bonfire, the British had their bonfire. They were burning up their highly classified documents before it got to the wrong side of history. 

Bose in Singapore.

History has made closet Anglophiles Gandhi

and Nehru as the heroes.

At the end of the day, it was not Gandhi's non-violence and gentle approach that had little to contribute towards Independence. It was, after all, in the end, good old fashioned violence and threat of more extensive brutality that sounded the death knell of the mighty British Raj.

Atlee, in 1956 was asked about Gandhi's role in the British's decision to quit India. He sarcastically smiled and said, "minimal!" He reiterated that the violence generated by the INA trials and its impact on the loyalty of the native Indians and the mutinies it created made them scamper in such a hurry.

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