Main Page «
Front Page «
Metro «
Business «
International «
Sports «
National «
Editorial «
Home «
Timeout «
Letters «

Archive «
Launch Supplement «
Special Supplements «

‘My assets to my countrymen, my debts to my brother Sarat’ - thus wrote Subhas Chandra Bose, a great patriot, when asked to give his last wish just before an abdominal surgery in Europe in 1935. Subhas (popularly known as Netaji) was a nationalist hero of our generation. In 1943, he formed the Indian National Army (INA), known in Hindi as the Azad Hind Fauz, in the Japanese occupied areas in the far-east and was its supreme commander until his death in 1945. It was a controversial decision on his part. The German and Japanese powers (known as the axis powers) were regarded by many as fascist, expansionist and authoritarian. The atrocities committed, particularly by the Japanese army defied the rules of war and the Geneva Convention. I believe Subhas Bose, was frustrated by the weak-kneed policies of the Congress with regard to India’s independence. Perhaps, in an act of desperation, he might have concluded that ‘my enemy’s enemy is my friend’. He possibly believed that the Japanese would be helpful in gaining India’s freedom!
   In August 1945, the Japanese lost the war and surrendered. INA members were then arrested by the victorious British. The vast majority of them were released. However, to demonstrate that defection and mutiny would not go unpunished a few senior officers were tried by the British at the Red Fort in Delhi. In Calcutta when I was a school student in class eight, we joined the strikes and protests against first of these trials; Captain Rashid Ali was tried first after whom the day was called ‘Rashid Ali Dibash’. After many years, wearing a barrister’s gown, Jinnah and Nehru defended Captain Rashid Ali, Major Shahnawaj and Captain Dhillon.
   While a school student in Ballyganj, Calcutta I remember going on strike. We then went in procession to the Wellington Square in Calcutta to join a large meeting presided over by Dr. A.M. Malik, then vice-president of the All India Trade Union Congress. It was addressed amongst others by Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy, then a famous physician, and later the Chief Minister of West Bengal. There I also saw another famous and often controversial personality VK Krishna Menon, then president of the India League in UK who spoke with a rolled umbrella in hand. He later became the High Commissioner of India in the UK. From the meeting area, we heard sounds of gun shots and soon learnt that police had fired on a group trying to come to the meeting through the Dharamtola Street killing two people including a woman. The names of Calcutta Police Commissioner Hardwick and his deputy Doha (later the Inspector-General of Police in East Pakistan) come to my mind in this connection. Protests against the trials spread all over India. The trials finally resulted in the dismissal of the INA officers from the British Indian Army. Since they had voluntarily left that army years ago to join the liberation forces (INA), it was not a big loss for them.
   Subhas Bose was born in 1897 in Cuttack, Orissa where his father Janakinath Bose had a thriving legal practice. He was a brilliant student in school. He stood second in the matriculation examination. He studied at the Presidency and Scottish Church Colleges in Calcutta and took his B.A. degree with first class honours in philosophy. Subhas then went to Cambridge, where he did his undergraduate degree. At his father’s insistence he also took the Indian Civil Service (ICS) examination from the UK in 1920, standing fourth in order of merit. He, however, withdrew his name from the list of ICS probationers in April 1921 by writing to the Secretary of State for India, E.S. Montague. He returned to India and joined the Congress Party. He took the appointment as the Chief Executive Officer of the Calcutta City Corporation at the request of Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das, then the mayor of Calcutta. Later, he was himself elected as the mayor of Calcutta. Though a very eligible young man, he chose to remain a bachelor for a long time and devote himself wholeheartedly to politics and India’s independence. In 1936 while recuperating in Europe, he married an Austrian lady, Emilie, a fact not publicly known until many years later. Subhas had a daughter, Anita Bose. She visits Calcutta from time to time, latest was in January 2005 just before we visited her father’s house.
   Subhas was twice elected the President of the Indian National Congress in 1937 and 1939. As narrated by Nirad C. Chaudhury (then secretary to Sarat Bose, a senior Congress leader and elder brother of Subhas) in his book ‘Thy Hand, Great Anarch!’, Gandhi was unhappy about the defeat of his nominee, Pattavi Sitaramaiya in 1939 for the post of congress president in a close contest with Bose who was elected for the second time. He also disliked Bose’s appearance on that occasion in full khaki uniform on a horseback to inspect the uniformed congress volunteer guards. Subhas Bose had to resign before completing the second term due to serious differences of opinion with and the machinations of the right wing of the Congress, including Gandhi. He formed a new progressive party called the Forward Block. In view of his persistent and fiery opposition to British rule, he was then arrested in late 1940 (for the eleventh time in his political life) by the British. Bose went on a hunger-strike; the British had to free him and place him under house arrest in his own house on the Elgin Road in Bhowanipur in 1941. He vanished from there one night on January 17, and surfaced after some time in Berlin.
   While a student in the MA class in the Dhaka University in 1954 in East Pakistan, a few friends and I had visited Calcutta during the brief euphoric days of the Jukto-front government in East Pakistan. We made it a point to visit Subhas Bose’s house. We had seen in a first floor bed room his clothes and personal articles kept in the exact way he left on the day of his departure. After half a century, in January 2005 I went, this time with my wife, to revisit the Netaji Bhawan.
   Compared to the last time, the house, now a museum, was in a better state of maintenance. There is a small bookshop near the entrance. A few things relating to his illustrious elder brother, Sarat Chandra Bose, like a memorable speech on the diversity and unity of India on a plaque in the wall, were also on display. As we entered through a large gate, to the left of the driveway within a huge glass enclosure was the Wanderer, a German vehicle with the registration number BLA 7169. This is the car in which in the dark of the night on January 17, 1941 Subhas Chandra’s nephew Sisir Kumar Bose drove him away. We also found on the wall the original letter in Netaji’s own hand to Sarat Bose giving the reasons for what he called an ‘eccentric’ decision not to accept the I.C.S. In the letter, he stated that it was time for him to come forward with a little offering of sacrifice and that ‘on the eve of this hazardous undertaking, my only prayer is- may it be for the good of our dear country.’ From then on, Subhas Chandra opted for the path of idealism and moral action.
   There were pictures of Subhas with the commander of the German submarine, Captain Musenberg and of Subhas having a shave on its deck. The most dramatic pictures related to his transfer in the turbulent Indian Ocean from the German to the Japanese submarine in 1943. VDOs constantly played scenes of the INA parades and gatherings in Singapore and Rangoon and Subhas Chandra’s patriotic and emotional speeches in his own voice. Documents and correspondence of Bose, and his clothes, including INA uniforms and boots, are on display. At one end of the exhibits’ hall, were Netaji’s, and his father Janakinath Bose’s bedrooms with the furniture used by them. It was from these rooms that Subhas escaped.
   Here are some of the interesting details of Netaji’s great escape, as narrated by Sisir Bose. Subhas was released from imprisonment by the British on grounds of health in November 1940. Soon after, he had his last correspondence with Gandhi. He had written to Gandhi pledging full cooperation even by non-violent means to expedite freedom of India. However, Gandhi rebuffed Subhas by saying that there were fundamental differences between them and that he and Subhas would have to sail in different boats. That is what Netaji did. He had to do it his way and as a first step started to plan an escape from India.
   Subhas Bose traveled under the name of Mohammad Ziauddin, in the guise of an upcountry Muslim. He posed as a traveling insurance inspector. A few days before departure, Bose declared that he would go into seclusion and would not see or talk to anyone even on the telephone. He had his room curtained off into compartments and his food was passed under the curtain. This was because there were suspicions that the police had recruited an agent amongst the servants in the house. On the fateful day, he had dinner with his mother (Prabhabati Devi) and when everyone retired, he left in the car driven by Sisir at 1 30 a.m. on January 17, 1941. He was wearing a sherwani, loose pajamas, laced European shoes, and a black fur cap.
   [To be continued]
   Azizul Jalil writes from Washington

‘Oil for food’ programme for Iraq began in 1996 and ended soon after America (with Britain) invaded and occupied Iraq in 2003. The Iraqis had resented the Programme; none lamented its demise, and for very good reasons. But the ‘Oil for food’ has been exhumed and exposed; a corruption scandal is on parade. The media is agog with juicy morsels. But the real ‘scandal’ of ‘Oil for food’ is yet to be investigated and exposed; skeletons in its cupboard are yet to tumble out.
   The ‘Oil for food’ was launched by the UN Security Council resolution 986 to bring immediate relief to the population of Iraq plunged into deep humanitarian crisis caused by one of the most stringently enforced economic and trade sanctions regime ever imposed on a country by the United Nations. But the Programme failed to achieve its stated objective; failed to provide adequate, equitable, and with efficiency even the rudimentary human needs like food, medicines, water and sanitation, shelter, and electricity.
   As much as 50-70 per cent of the physical infrastructure of Iraq, once the envy in the Middle East region, was ruined; water, sanitation and power installations were deliberately targeted for destruction during the Gulf War, 1991. But reconstruction never got under way during the sanctions and the ‘Oil for food’. Even two years after the ‘liberation’, Iraqi infrastructure remains in ruins and fall far short of the pre-sanctions (1990) level.
   The UN Security Council had been rigorous with the sanctions regime; the Council remained in effective control of the ‘Oil for food’ but was determined to pursue a disarmament agenda under cover of an essentially humanitarian programme. By retaining the sanctions in place, by frequent and capriciously invoking the ‘dual use’ plea, the US and UK members in the Security Council’s Sanctions Committee at any given time rejected or withheld numerous (Programme) contracts; effectively prevented adequate and timely supply of many essential civilian goods and services desperately needed by the starving people of Iraq.
   It was also a cruel irony that the UN was using Iraqi revenues generated by the sale of limited amounts of Iraqi oil but the Iraqis had no control over their own resources (remaining after deducting 1991 war reparations and the UN administrative overheads). Yet, thanks to efficient media propaganda, the Iraqi regime was singled out and heaped with accusations for failure of the Programme.
   The pursuit of a political agenda by America with Britain (to topple the regime) effectively punished the population; it had a hugely detrimental impact on the humanitarian relief and rehabilitation. Bureaucratic constraints apart, at any given time, contracts valued at a billion dollars or more remained withheld (due to suspicion of ‘dual use’); hundreds of millions of dollars worth contracts were rejected outright. To make things worse, there were contract delays, incomplete, erratic, and sub-standard shipments. Could there be a deadlier (or headier if you like) cocktail of impediments placed on the path of humanitarian work?
   Frustrations reached such a high level that two successive UN coordinators of the Iraq programme (Dennis Halliday and Hans Von Sponeck) had resigned in protest; they could not contain their outrage even though they had been disciplined and dedicated UN bureaucrats. But that changed nothing.
   The UN Secretary General was obliged to submit periodic ‘progress’ reports to the UN Security Council. As expected, these gave a ‘balanced’ measure of ‘progress’ but even then cited instances of why, how and where the Programme had failed. Much of the same was indirectly confirmed by several independent assessments (including some by unofficial US investigators) and studies from time to time during the period of 1991–2002. By one countrywide survey published by the UNICEF, half a million children below 5 years age died directly due to the sanctions. And the former US Secretary of States had famously felt the ‘price was worth it’.
   Malnutrition as seen by stunting and wasting of children more than doubled; chronic illnesses among adults increased; performance by health facilities declined to as much as one third of pre-sanctions level. These were not Iraqi government propaganda; these were monitored and reported by some of the specialised UN agencies and programmes, including the FAO, the World Food Programme, WHO, and UNICEF.
   Apart from chronic semi-starvation and shortage of basic needs to support life and living, the long term impact of these denials tore apart the very fabric of the Iraqi society. While chronic high unemployment led to severe impoverishment, the Iraqi middle-class as reservoir of cultural and intellectual wealth of the country was largely decimated. An entire generation of Iraqi children and youth was lost as a result of physical (classrooms and books) and mental (educational) underdevelopment. The environmental damage done by 300 tons of depleted uranium (DU) ammunitions dropped in 1991 war, the plunder of Iraqi national museum and heritage sites, the selling of Iraq to US corporations by contracts, constitute other crimes
   Crimes against humanity unmatched by anything in recent history have been committed. Some international jurists consider the killing and maiming of unarmed civilian population by lethal weapons and denial of basic necessities of life constitute genocide. This will go down as a dark chapter in the history of the United Nations.
   Tragically and ironically the ‘good offices’ of the UN were used by enforcing an extremely punitive (to population) sanctions regime, by launching a ‘Oil for Food’ while perversely keeping the sanctions intact, by expropriation of Iraqi revenues, and by enforcing an intrusive weapons inspection to disarm Iraq before invading and occupying. All in the name of the United Nations except for the invasion; failure of its endorsement made the UN irrelevant.
   And the cruellest cut of all is the fact having made to suffer all these, even after ‘liberation’, people of Iraq still do not have water, electricity, sanitation and food and medicines. People are without work and income, unable to put bread on the family table; work can only be found as a mercenary for the occupation. People in despair and poverty risk their lives lining up for recruitment. People do not have security of life and liberty.
   A secular Iraq, the only one in the region, has been transformed into a country rife with reactionary and extremist sentiments and elements; sectarian and ethnic overtones are surfacing; now has become a “magnet” for “terrorists”. A country with abundant resources and a country that had been a cradle of civilization has now turned into an impoverished one with a fractured society, unable to be at peace within; a people with their sovereignty stolen and their land invaded and occupied without provocation.
   If naming one or two UN functionaries alleged for corruption makes news, revelation of those who brought about this colossal moral and human outrage upon an entire people surely makes much bigger scandal. By all accounts this is beyond and above a mere scandal; extreme and callous hypocrisy and cruelty perpetrated on humanity- in this case on the Iraqi people- is massive.
   But lest we forget, it also is a unique opportunity to denounce once for all imposition of sanctions that kill and destroy the innocent. The UN General Assembly might wish to resolve with the resoluteness at its command that economic sanctions shall never again be permitted in the name of the United Nations; that the ‘good offices’ of the UN shall never again be available to pursue unilateral political agenda by any single member state. And the Assembly may be equally determined in defend the UN from blackmail, threats, and being called irrelevant.

One can argue that if other nuclear powers would not have such weapons, Iran or North Korea would never have sought to develop them. But how much water does such argument hold? Does it mean that if United States had not developed nuclear weapons in 1945, other nations would never have developed them? One may argue so but this can at best be termed silly. History of humankind gives every support to the notion that human beings have always been intent in devising the most lethal weapons based on its capability. With nuclear weapons, it could have been different? The knowledge of nuclear science was just becoming mature in 1930s and if not the US, USSR, China and France, another nation or more would have developed these weapons anyway. It was just about time, not the lack of intention.
   Be it the so-called war-mongers US president Bush and UK Prime Minister Blair or Russia’s Putin or North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong II or any leader, nobody would want the annihilation of the human race. But it is also true that if Hitler had the nuclear weapons in his hands in the 1940s, countries like the UK, the US, Canada, Australia and USSR etc. would not have existed today, unless they would have gone for a complete submission. Also if Saddam was the sole holder of nuclear weapons, the complexion of our world would have been very different today. And history tells us that world has always produced people like Hitler, Nero, Saddam Hussein and Genghis Khan from time to time and would continue to produce such psychopaths. It must also be realised that had the Christian crusaders or the Islamic invaders would have had monopoly in nuclear weapons in their triumphant days, the demography of the world would have been very different. It also remains an almost infallible likelihood that if the Talibans, Osama bin Laden or the Mullahs of Iran would become the sole owner of nuclear weapons tomorrow, Israel and the US would be destroyed at the first blow whilst the entire world would have to submit under the nation of Islam or face terrible destruction. Under such circumstances, when our world is still driven by various devastating ideological passions (forget about man’s instinctive craze for power), it will be impossible to convince the nuclear powers to eliminate their stockpile of nuclear weapons.
   Although the Russell-Einstein manifesto was driven by the fear of nuclear weapons’ ability to eliminate human race, it did not explicitly demand the abolition of all nuclear weapons. The manifesto clearly defined the hope for prohibition or elimination of nuclear weapons unrealistic as it read:
   ‘This hope (for prohibition of modern weapons) is illusory. Whatever agreements not to use H-bombs had been reached in time of peace, they would no longer be considered binding in time of war, and both sides would set to work to manufacture H-bombs as soon as war broke out, for, if one side manufactured the bombs and the other did not, the side that manufactured them would inevitably be victorious.’
   The two most brilliant minds of the 20th century had correctly recognised the futility of urging nuclear nations to get rid of their modern weapons or prohibit them in situations of war. Yet, they had pointed to the most plausible solution which will not only avert a nuclear war but also might result in elimination of these dangerous weapons. They made an emotional plea in the concluding clause of their manifesto:
   ‘There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge, and wisdom. Shall we, instead, choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels? We appeal as human beings to human beings: Remember your humanity, and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death.’
   So to Einstein and Russell, the only panacea to human conflicts and to avoid an earth-shattering confrontation involving modern weapons was to think all of us as human beings, discarding all existing manmade divisions. They urged us to think ourselves not as Muslim, Christian or Jew, not as Bangladeshi, Indian or American, not as Communist or Capitalist, not as Asian or European but only as human beings. They further wrote:
   ‘Most of us are not neutral in feeling, but, as human beings, we have to remember that, if the issues between East and West are to be decided in any manner that can give any possible satisfaction to anybody, whether Communist or anti-Communist, whether Asian or European or American, whether White or Black, then these issues must not be decided by war. We should wish this to be understood, both in the East and in the West.’
(To be continued)