Netaji : an overrated failure?

Never touch your idols: the gilding will stick to your fingers."

(Il ne faut pas toucher aux idoles: la dorure en reste aux mains.)”
― Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

The year was 1996, that was the first time I had visited Boi Mela (Book Fair). The only book I bought was a graphical novel about Netaji's life. I can't recollect what made me like him so much at the age of five, but I think it must be his rebellious attitude.  I even remember hoisting the National flag on 23rd January on the terrace of our new house next year and singing "kadam kadam badhae ja" with my dad.

Let's fast forward to 2004. I was in my eighth standard. Our history curriculum had at last scraped its way through boring medieval history to modern history. Although I was  branding my history classes to be boring when I was with my friends, I seemed to have found a new love for the subject. And I was back to worshiping the hero I had found eight years back. Being a lover of mystery stories, I decided to dig into the story of Netaji's death. I found a book in the library called Netaji: Dead or Alive by Samar Guha. I seemed to have found the story of an unsung hero, the story of a hero who deserved much more. As I read the book there was an irrational anger that was born in me.   The incompetence of ShahNawaz Committee and Khosla Committee, the reluctance of both Nehru and Indira just drove me crazy. I was unaware of the Mukherjee Commission at that point of time. When the Commission released the report in 2005 I was elated like a child. I think I even kept that day's newspaper with me for quite some time. Till now I hadn't even peeked into Netaji's ideologies.  I
was just blindly worshipping him for his courage, passion, and patriotism.

In my ninth standard, the movie Bose: The Forgotten Hero was released. I indulged myself into digging up some historical facts from our history books before going to the theaters with my father. Our curriculum had a chapter about the emergence of leftist ideas during the Indian freedom struggle. Netaji and Nehru were portrayed as the two pioneers of this trend during the thirties. From our childhood, we had heard praises about leftist ideologies, thanks to the democratically elected communist government. But we were witnessing the cracks of the leftist ideologies in our society. From an academic point of view, socialism seemed a practical and morally just ideology. At that age, I was unaware of the practical problems of this system. Netaji's efforts within INC was quite well received. His motives were very naive and passionate, a quality that let him down quite some times.  This was followed by the famous incident of 1939 Haripura Congress where Netaji was elected the president of INC. Gandhiji made sure that Netaji can't function by making the whole Congress Working Committee resign. When I first read about this my feelings about Gandhiji became more bitter (The cancellation of Non-Cooperation movement, failure of Civil disobedience had already made me anti-Gandhi). Until recent years, I always thought that Gandhiji had vested political motives behind this action but now I feel  that this was his dire attempt to stop Congress being headed by a staunch socialist. Consequently, I started to discuss the further events in Netaji's life (Fleeing India, Formation of INA, the war, his death and so on) with my dad. My father, being more of a Gandhian, in no time did the discussion turn into a heated debate on the functioning of Netaji, Gandhiji, and other political leaders. I won't go into the details of the debate, but three hours later I had settled on a statement from my dad, "Netaji was a victim of an international conspiracy, whereas Gandhiji was a victim of a national conspiracy."

The word "conspiracy" may have been inappropriate, but I still believe that both of them were victims of political games. But Gandhiji was a success whereas Netaji was a failure. International historians portray Gandhiji as a political great and Netaji as India's militant nationalist. In earlier years, I used to feel that is as an instance of grave injustice. Nowadays, I blame that on some of my misunderstandings I had about Gandhiji. I never acknowledged the philosophical greatness of Gandhiji. For Gandhiji, the means were more important whereas Netaji regarded the end as more crucial. Ideologically Netaji was a supporter of economic freedom, but in the final days of his life all his actions were directed towards achieving political freedom.

Now when I break down the policies of my childhood idol the gilding really sticks to my fingers.
Netaji's idea of fighting the Raj with the help of Axis powers seemed pragmatic from a purely academic point of view. Neither Japan nor Germany had any interests in India. Netaji started the war from 1943, the Allies had already started getting the upper hand by that time. And the help Japan provided him was not that of best quality. The association of any individual with the Axis powers is frowned upon (given their history of war crimes) and Netaji shouldn't be an exception. Some may argue that Netaji didn't care about these things, his main aim was winning the war. There are too many contradicting historical facts regarding this matter. So I can't decide which side to support. Netaji's love for an authoritarian rule is well documented. Our chaiwala PM can curse Nehru as much as he wants, but the fact that a chaiwala can become a PM is the result of a strong democratic foundation which was laid down by Nehru. If Subhash Bose was the first PM of India we could have developed more, we could have had a less corrupt political system but I doubt if we would have been a democracy.

After all these years of hero-worshipping Netaji, the cynic in me thinks that Netaji was a brave soldier, a passionate leader, but an overrated failure. I still salute him for giving India the first 150 miles of free land, but his policies and ideologies are something I cannot support. There is  no doubt that he should have been treated with more respect, but I think his ideologies had little place in free India.

Thala kommt

                                             
                                                

A fellow bangali can only understand the pain of missing Kolkata's Durga Puja. During my first year in college I missed Durga Puja as it had clashed with Harmony. I had tried to do  some compensation by offering Anjali at a Chittaranjan Park pandal, but the attempt was not a successful one. After coming to Germany I went to a Prabasi pujo in Cologne. I didn't have very high hopes, thanks to my previous experiences. And I couldn't have been more wrong. It was one the best pujas I have ever spent. During the Sandhi pujo one of the elderly women (she has been associated with this Pujo for the last twenty years) was looking for a thala (plate). And she announced on the microphone, “Thala kommt”, kommt being the German equivalent for coming in the third person. The whole hall burst into laughter.

Today when I think about this incident I understand how these two small words gave us a hint of her socio-cultural identity. She represents a generation of Bengalis who came in the 60s and 70s to settle here in Germany. Interestingly, most of the people involved in the Puja, be it a Dadu or a Khoka, were fluent in German and Bengali. When probasis living thousands of kilometers away from Kolkata can speak such fluent Bengali it is really painful to hear “What's up bro?” at Maddox square. I am not writing this article to rant against “aaj kalkar chelegulo” (today's generation). Every society passes through a period where the idea of social, ethnic and linguistic identity is reformed. Today our beloved City of Joy is undergoing such a change. Rather than complaining against it, I suppose it is better to view it from a critical perspective.

We live in a society, where multilingualism is the norm. The idea of identity in a multilingual society is not very well defined. But it can't be denied that pedagogical linguistic training is one of the most infIuential factors in defining the identity of a given individual in such a society. But we surely cannot write off other factors like financial well-being, family background, availability of cultural capital and many more. Maintaining a fine balance in the way different languages are taught is highly crucial in the process of building a truly multilingual identity. A working knowledge of English is highly needed in today's globalised world. But one cannot undermine the importance of gaining equal proficiency in both English and Bengali. It helps the student to appreciate the multi-faceted beauty of our society. A close look at the statistics shows that we are neglecting our own vernacular. In a recent rural ASER (Annual Status of Education Report) survey it has been shown that 68.3% Class V students can comprehend easy English sentences whereas only 51.3% Class V students can comprehend a Class II Bengali text. The story is different in urban areas. A growing cosmopolitan culture has resulted in a mixed Benglish dialect where only the B of Bengali is left, although most students are quite proficient in Bengali. From a strictly economical perspective this is not a problematic trend. Nowadays an average student is much more proficient in English which highly increases his/her employability. In a German company good knowledge of German is a must to get employed. In a country like India this is  impossible, but the state government can encourage the  use of Bengali as an official language in certain government sectors. This will motivate the students to learn Bengali in a better manner.

With growing economic mobility there has been a dilution of a strict ethnic or linguistic identities. It may seem that this breaks lot of  cultural barriers but it also results in the loss of subtle cultural features.Preserving our ethnic identity is very important in this globalised world. After coming to Germany, I have met numerous Bangladeshis. They call Euro as Taka. Their sense of identity revolves around the Bengali language. Obviously having such strong linguistic sense of identity has its own drawbacks but we can surely learn from them. After living in Germany I have learnt how a race can strike an exact balance between preserving their own culture and being highly immigrant friendly. The first step in doing so is respecting the part of your identity which is defined by the anthropological aspects of your culture. We need to do this first. Bengalis are privileged to have a strong cultural capital, we should learn to respect and preserve it properly.

Nowadays very few Bengalis of our generation have an in-depth knowledge of Bengali literature or Bengali movies or Bengali theatre. Most of us are busy indulging in pseudo-intellectual nostalgia which moves around Tagore, Ray and sunset pictures of Princep ghat taken in a sepia tone by a DSLR camera. It is unfortunate to see how most of us have built an identity by attaching fish hooks to certain stereotypical ideas about Bengalis. Probasis who are not fortunate enough to have all the resources of learning the minute details of our cultural identity will rely upon Bengalis brought up in Bengal to present them with the exact picture of the breathtaking landscape of bangaliyana. It is high time we Bongs understand that Chau naach is as important a part of Bengali culture as Rabi Thakur is.