A RARE 1944 INTERVIEW WITH NETAJI

June 20, 2008 by vinayras

Continued from page 1

Bose has one firm, unshakeable conception of the events of the future which he repeats in all his interviews and all his speeches: India\\'s independence can only be real independence if it is gained by her own sacrifices. Only an independence that has been paid for by the Indians with their own blood can be defended in the time of need, and Bose rejects any other independence for India. He has sometimes been reproached for this firm attitude, and it has been said that he was bloodthirsty. Indeed, many of his utterances seem to justify this reproach, and it is true that he never forgets to mention the necessity of sacrifice in lives.

In this conversation he surprised me by not speaking of his determination to make such sacrifices but, on the contrary, by emphasizing the more unwarlike sides of his struggle for his country. Knowing his subject, India, by heart as he does, and never having recourse to notes in his public speeches, he preferred on this occasion to discuss the political aspects of his campaign, and with them the idea of India from the cultural point of view. Perhaps I was partly responsible for this by remarking that he was to be envied for the satisfaction of knowing that he had done all that was possible for the conquest of India, but that I did not envy him the probably much more difficult task of one day having to unite the 380 million Indians with their different languages, religions, castes, and classes and to weld them into one nation.

"That will not be nearly as hard as you may perhaps think at the moment" Bose replied softly. He always speaks softly in a deep voice, and his English is some times slightly guttural. "But I see that you have been reading English literature on India, and your ideas correspond to what the English like to spread everywhere. Let me tell you that neither religions nor castes, neither the maharajas nor the \\'depressed classes\\' invented during the last few years by the English, the \\'untouchables\\', offer serious problems in the way of Indian unity. And even less the differences in languages.

Then I was given a little lecture on Indian history, which rapidly led from the earliest origins via the mutiny of 1857, the first organized Indian revolt against England, to the recent past and present. The maharajas? It stands to reason that, as the beneficiaries of the British rule, they are without exception opposed to the Indian struggle for freedom. But the unarmed population will drive them out with sticks and scythes as soon as the British have been beaten; for England\\'s friendship has not extended so far as to permit the maharajas to have their own troops. The conflict between Hindus and Moslems? It has only existed for a few decades, having been invented by the British Viceroy Lord Minto and taken up and furthered by Mohammedan dignitaries for selfish reasons. But the Congress Party has more Moslem members than Moslem League. And finally, the depressed classes? They were not discovered by the English until the later found that even religious disputes were no longer enough to sustain their policy of "divide and rule." They are by no means a political problem but a purely social one which, however, must be dealt with far and more thoroughly than the British have ever pretended to do.

"The English have seen to it," Bose then continued, "that the world forgot that India has actually always formed a cultural unit in their history, although not always a political one. In spite of all differences in language, an Indian from North will find all he needs for his private and religious life every where in the South. In our prayers for our country we include by the name all the holy places of India from one end to the other. In former days the numerous founders of philosophical schools in India, who benefited by the proverbial Indian tolerance and provided the outer world with a constant stream of new thought, had, if they wished to obtain recognition for their doctrines, to travel form one holy place to another to debate with the representatives of the existing schools before they could say that they had won India over. This feeling of all India\\'s unity is something the English have never been able to take from us, no matter how many allies they brought and used from Indian ranks. The very fact that at present the innermost British circles are planning and preparing to split up India after the war into four or five completely separate countries shows more clearly than anything else that all their other measures for the destruction of Indian unity have failed. No, indeed, not for a moment am I anxious about Indian unity after the war has been won against the English."

Bose waxed so enthusiastic over his theme that he even let his cigarette go out. Lost in thought, he took another out of the box beside him, pulled out his lighter, lit it and, without having lit the new cigarette, went on speaking. He hardly noticed that I finally gave him a light and blew out his own lighter. It was not until a few seconds later, in the midst of a sentence, that he thanked me. But soon that cigarette went out too, and neither of us bothered about lighting the third.

"It was a really fine gesture but at the same time it is an auspicious deed," he continued, "that at the Congress of the Independent Nations of Greater East Asia Premier Tojo promised to hand over the Andaman and Nicobar Islands to the Provisional Government of Free India. A fine gesture because everyone in India knows the Andaman Islands to be the compulsory home of political exiles, as the Indian counterpart to Siberia, and as the penal settlement for the Indian fighters for Independence. That these very islands should become the first bid of Free India, that on them the Indian flag should for the first time fly over the free Indian soil, is almost symbolic. The association of ideas from the prison to the home of Indian liberty is inevitable. It will have incalculable effect with in India.

"And the handing over the islands to the Provisional Government is an auspicious deed because the British have already given out their propaganda that India will never get back these islands unless Japan were beaten and defeated. The islands are ancient Indian possessions, and this propaganda, may have had some effect, especially since it was occupied with the claim that the Japanese would establish bases there from which they could dominate the Indian Ocean. Tojo\\'s promise has knocked the bottom out of this propaganda. The entire trend of the future Japanese policy toward Free India is already contained in this promise; and no one should be surprised if we have more confidence than ever in the Japanese policy, if an increase in confidence was possible."

After this climax, our conversation turned to other affairs. In a few strokes the Netaji outlined the personality of Gandhi who, he said, would in the last few years of his life probably not abandon his principal of rejecting force but would more likely retire into background. He spoke about Nehru, who by no means subscribed to the principle of passive resistance but only regarded it as a temporary means to an end, until a better means had been found. Peoples and names passed in review, and in every case one could feel that they were registered in Bose\\'s brain as if in a well kept card index, with all their qualities and weaknesses. Finally, Bose professed himself and his followers to be supporters of the Congress Party, although they had meanwhile formed the Forward Bloc within the Congress Party and were in part opposed by the official leaders before the out break of the war.

"But all this is past history," he concluded in a firm, conciliatory tone. "We can and will take up the threads, but the past must not hinder us in our progress, and it will not hinder us. You can rely on that."

His chief aide-de-camp Hassan - who with his pointed black beard looks deceptively like a maharaja in the movies but who can make good jokes in fluent German and keeps a close watch on the Netaji\\'s time table - had meanwhile discreetly indicated for the third time that it was necessary to conclude our chat and had left the room for the third time without success. My host even offered me a whisky. When I lifted my glass to drink to his campaign, Bose thanked me and said:

"Please do not forget to send my regards to Germany. I think back with pleasure and gratitude to the time I was allowed to spend in Germany during the war and to the great sympathy and support given to me by the German Government and the German people in our struggle for independence. We are determined to fight to the end with the Axis powers and their allies, no matter what sacrifices it may cost, as long as final victory is won."

Broad-shouldered and self-confident he stood there before me as he said this, and he shook my hand firmly as I took leave. "Good luck," I said on giving out, and "Au revoir in Free India," replied the Netaji with a friendly smile.

Source: The XXth Century-Russian Collection- Hamilton Library, University of
Hawaii, Volume VI, page 15-18, January, 1944.