Brothers Against the Raj: A Biography of Indian Nationalists Sarat and Subhas Chandra Bose, by Leonard A. Gordon.

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Brothers Against the Raj: A Biography of Indian Nationalists Sarat and Subhas Chandra Bose,

by Leonard A. Gordon.

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The conclusion, much like the last chapter of Gone With The Wind, seems to have been written first, after Gordon finished interviews and reading. Rest of the book is diluted form thereof, with much abuses and snide comments against the younger Bose and much lies holding up some others such as British or Gandhi. The conclusion could be read first and the rest avoided, and it too offers really nothing not known.

Gordon gives photographs at the very end, but they are not mentioned in the contents. He does not discuss them, either. It's as if anyone who could possibly care for the subject is to be dissuaded from reading it after having bought it, and those who'd love the lies could use it as another weapon.

Somewhere, a third of the book through, Gordon quotes the Nobel laureate poet of India from Bengal

"As Bengal’s poet, I acknowledge you today as the honoured leader of the people of Bengal.

"—Rabindranath Tagore to Subhas Bose, 19391"

And its a pleasure to know that he was where the title bestowed on Subhash Chandra Bose originates, especially if one is familiar with his poetry in the original.

The title "Brothers Against the Raj", by itself alone, wouldn't be clear about the subject, since it would fit several families from diverse regions.

There were four Chapekar brothers of Maharashtra, who were (all four of them) executed by British, for being freedom fighters; then the father and two uncles of Bhagat Singh, known much less than Bhagat Singh himself along with his group; between Patel brothers Vitthalbhai and Vallabhbhai Patel, one was known much more; and of course, Bose family, where roles of other brothers are less known but only so due to one having dwarfed, not only his own clan, but nation and world, as happened in case of Bhagat Singh as well.

So the whole title

Brothers Against the Raj: A Biography of Indian Nationalists Sarat and Subhas Chandra Bose,

is needed, just so one would know not only who it's about, but, if one gets the subtle hint, the slant as well. It's not for the subject, to cut through icing.

It dawns on one quite early on while reading this, that Gordon has no intention of being impartial, nor interest in facts, but was perhaps commissioned to write indicting Hindus, and siding with every accusation however false; he isn't even very interested in the supposed topic as expected from the title, but more in portrayal of concerns regarding British, apart from Bengal muslims in particular and Muslims in general, and merely uses Bose brothers as a background, occasionally mentioned.

In addition he uses Gandhi’s dictatorial manipulations to indicate a rap on knuckles for not only Bose brothers, revolutionaries, or Hindus, but Congress too. That clears it - Gordon assigns righteousness to anyone who can bully and manipulate, more the better; so British were right in India according to him, Gandhi less so, and others don't count, deserving of every brutal atrocity if they don't shut up and suffer in silence. He doesn't say so explicitly, but indicates it in snide comments, or refraining from negative remarks about perpetrated atrocities, or not mentioning brutal murders.

Often, as one reads, one wonders if the agenda given to this author was to demean the subject, especially Subhash Chandra Bose.

If he quotes a speech by Subhash Chandra Bose, or even mentions his interaction with someone, Gordon is just as likely to make a snide comment against Subhash Chandra Bose as not, for no reason other than that Gordon isn't obvious as Asian even in Germany and he's writing about subjects of British colonial empire, from his point of view. From Gordon's perspective, mention of king of Jews as Oriental cannot be overlooked without a swipe.

He failed to realise that readers of his book would mostly be those who had an interest in the subject, and they wouldn't be likely to to share this snide view - but even more, he fails to see that, as he didn't write this for charity, such an attitude makes him a traitor to his earnings. There's a short word for that, but it's in another, Oriental language, not of Indian origin.

Gordon, moreover, is sloppy about factual details!

"While these controversies were being worked out, some other political workers were moving in a very different direction. Late in the evening of 18 April, 1930, not quite on the anniversary of the Easter Rising in Dublin, a band of some 100 revolutionaries calling themselves the Bengal branch of the Indian Republican Army acted to destroy the British hold on Chittagong district and proclaim an independent republic. They took the district establishment by surprise, and seized many arms and supplies at the armoury, but, unfortunately for them, they overlooked the ammunition for these arms. ... "

No, the most important part they'd overlooked was that that Friday was a church event, and so the English were not, as they did every other Friday, at the club.

"An intelligence summary for this period describes the impact of the raid:

"The news of the Chittagong armoury raids was received by revolutionaries all over the province with amazement…From that moment the outlook of the Bengal terrorists changed. The younger members of all parties…clamoured for a chance to emulate the Chittagong terrorists. Their leaders could no longer hope, nor did they wish to keep them back…30

"The Chittagong raid was the signal for a considerable number of violent acts in the following years, aimed particularly at officials of the Raj."

Again, Gordon misses an opportunity of exploring what effect Bhagat Singh and his group, their thinking and actions, by now publicised through India, via court trials and more, as Bhagat Singh intended, had on India.

Surely Surya Sen and his group wasn't unaware of them, surely they had followed every word?

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Actually, there seems to have been a flaw with the Kindle copy, corrected now! So the feeling that chapter titles were mismatched was correct. We shall give corrected titles below the ones that were until now, 01:15, May 13th 2022..

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"S.C. Bose may be dead but much that he did lives still."

"—Government of India, confidential file, 19452"

But the then authorities, in particular the investigating officials of intelligence, weren't, in fact, convinced of the air crash story.

"Here was Islam, his own country, more than a Faith, more than a battle-cry…he seemed to own the land as much as anyone owned it. What did it matter if a few flabby Hindus had preceded him there, and a few chilly English succeeded?

"—E.M. Forster, A Passage to India3"

Flabby? After a thousand years of victimization by invaders, looted, massacred, and mostly poor, Hindus looked flabby to Forster?

Was he limited to the rich invited to viceroy’s garden parties, and never, in fact, saw India? Did he never hear of history that was recent, of what stopped British from an assurance of control of India? It wasn't mughals.

It was Maratha empire, held together by Peshawas of Pune, whose existence didn't allow British to presume control over India.

When Nana Phadnavis died - of natural causes - the British could finally, an English historian wrote, be reassured.

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"…one must understand the evil spirit of 1946, to understand why the partition was accepted in 1947.

"—The Indian Annual Register5"

The said spirit wasn't new in 1946 or restricted to India. It had wreaked havoc and attempted to destroy India, as it had done to Persia and Egypt, and elsewhere, destroying ancient civilisations and wiping them out in a century. It attempted in India for well over a millennium, to destroy her civilisation, and was behind genocides in Europe during WWII, before taking another swipe at India in 1946.

If Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose had been brought back by Jawaharlal Nehru, as he could have, India could have been protected.

"Sarat Bose was free at last, but his health had deteriorated seriously during almost four years imprisonment. Fearing the machinations of the Boses, officials of the Raj had been unwilling to put him in his own house near Darjeeling as they had in the 1930s. ... "

British didn't fear massacres of millions - over eleven million, according to Koenraad Elst - Hindus, and therefore went on encouraging Jinnah even after Calcutta massacre of a few thousand in three days, or Noakhali massacre of 150,000 later; but British feared Bose brothers, despite their anxiety to bring about communal harmony in Bengal, and so kept them incarcerated, exiled, both?

If that doesn't expose British, it's only to the blind fans of British.

" ... The consequence was that Sarat Bose remained in poor health for the rest of his life. He resumed his legal work in order to support his family, but his main focus was to help secure independence with unity for India. Subhas Bose was gone and Sarat was more than ever before in a crucial position as a leading Indian nationalist of Bengal."

Netaji was very much alive, could have been brought back, and benefited India immensely, but Jawaharlal Nehru chose otherwise.

"Sarat Bose had other important matters with which to deal: namely, the Indian National Army; the Azad Hind movement in Southeast Asia; and the legacy of Subhas Bose. Now that the war was over, Bose met with INA and Azad Hind government personnel, and identified the movement with the Congress and mainstream Indian nationalism as an effort to secure India’s freedom. As the British were bringing some of the INA officers to trial, he joined the large Indian chorus that shouted that no retribution must be taken against these patriots."

Notice the anti India slant there - "chorus", "shouted", ... ??????

If anything, it was a ground swell that British hadn't foreseen, exploding with a dull roar until there was a tremendous explosion, which woke London to communications from India being facts, not imaginary fears.

Had they foreseen it, they would have not brought INA prisoners to India for public trials. The hubris, the blindness to their own reality, imagining India to be not human, was what had them lose India.

"Besides Sarat Bose, every Indian nationalist—indeed, every political actor, Indian or British—had to come to terms with the INA in the fall and winter of 1945-46. ... "

In terming it "come to terms", Gordon is speaking of British attitudes, and imposing it on India, as British then did; India saw them as patriots, heroes, India's own army set to free India, and the setback of defeat and capture didn't diminish their glory. It hadn't in case of Queen Laxmibai of Jhansi, and now it didn't for Netaji.

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"As the British Raj moved to put some leading officers of the INA on trial for treason against the King-Emperor and other charges, Indian nationalists closed ranks to defend them. ... "

This was no different from congress appropriations of other philosophies and slogans of national heroes they pushed under without giving credit - mist recently, Bhagat Singh and his group, while slogan "Inquilab Zindabad" had been taken over by congress, as well as socialist program (but more in words than action, until later), while Gandhi did an all out effort by his Salt March, to wipe out the tremendous impression created by Bhagat Singh and his group with their revolutionary act and thinking.

So congress defending INA was their only chance to pull limelight onto themselves, and wipe out memories of their mistreatment of Bose. Once they'd achieved that, they went right back to bsdmouthing Bose, ill treatment of INA, persecution and hounding of Bose clan, and far worse.

" ... The Raj made it easier for all Indians to identify with the defendants by choosing to try together a Muslim, Capt. Shah Nawaz Khan; a Hindu, Capt. P.K. Sahgal; and a Sikh, Lt. G.S. Dhillon. ... "

Gordon is desperate to assign credit anywhere, everywhere other than where it belongs - the fact that India perceived truth of INA as valiant soldiers for freedom of India led by a hero of quality that belonged to legends. But the detractors of Netaji perceived this all right, and set out yo nalign Netaji, discredit ina and take credit to themselves, whether by defending them and later claiming it as charity, or as in case of British, calling it a mistake to have tried them, and having tried these of diverse communities together.

" ... Nehru spoke about the INA in a speech demanding the release of Jayaprakash Narayan:

"The I.N.A. trial has created a mass upheaval. Wherever I went, even in the remotest villages, there have been anxious enquiries about the I.N.A. men. There are profuse sympathies for these brave men, and all, irrespective of caste, colour and creed, have liberally contributed to their defence…The continuance of the trial is sheer madness undermining the position of the British in this country. The trial has taken us many steps forward on our path to freedom. Never before in Indian history had such unified sentiments been manifested…9"

All true.

And yet, in 1946, when he had a communication about Subhash Chandra Bose being in Russia, he chose to promptly inform the then PM Clement Attlee, and forever later lie about his having died in the air crash - which never did take place, on that day in Taipei.

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" ... What followed was a surprise to Viceroy Wavell, Commander-in-Chief Claude Auchinleck and the British military establishment. An example of British military thinking is the view of General O’Connor writing to Auchinleck during the trial: ‘Everyone knew the INA were traitors…Now they…say they were patriots…How can we expect to keep loyalty if we don’t condemn disloyalty?’10"

When they said "Everyone knew the INA were traitors", they were only counting their own race, not Indian people, who hadn't forgotten Jallianwala Bagh, brutal treatment of Lala Lajpat Rai resulting in the elderly beloved leader's death, or execution of Bhagat Singh and his group and horrible conduct of British in chopping up the dead and trying to secretly burn them on river bank without proper funerals; for that matter, they hadn't forgotten British killing the young Queen Laxmibai of Jhansi who didn't want to give up her kingdom, or her rights to adopt a son. And just because India had yo tolerate being treated with racist abuse, first mean India thought it was fair, just or proper.

British were pretty idiotic if they really were surprised, but just as likely, that surprise was a lie, and the reality was they'd expected to get away by terrorizing India again via the trials and executions.

"These military leaders had not counted on the fact that Subhas Bose was a renowned patriot who could not be labeled a mere “Japanese tool”. Furthermore, although there were many opportunists in the INA, there were also quite a few devoted patriots and they had a formidable lawyer: Bhulabhai Desai. He was considerably to the right of the Boses in the Congress spectrum, but he mounted a keen defense backed by legal and political precedents and parallels from British, American, French, Latin American and Asian traditions. ... "

Beginning right with George Washington would have been hitting the nail on head.

" ... The kernel of Desai’s defense was the following: ‘Modern international law has now recognised the right of subject races which are not for the time being or at the moment independent, to be so organised, and if they are organised and fight an organised war through an organised army…’11 Desai pressed his case that the Government of Azad Hind was a recognised belligerent opposing Britain and the British Raj and that the former’s army was operating under the Indian National Army Act. He claimed that the British had turned over the Indian prisoners in Malaya and Singapore to the Japanese and that these Indians could then take an oath to a new Indian government which superseded their oath to the King-Emperor. He differentiated Indian subjects of the King from British subjects and said that Bose’s government claimed and received the loyalty of Indians resident in Southeast Asia. Among the precedents for insurgents becoming a recognised belligerent power, Desai cited the American colonies in North America and included a recitation of the Declaration of Independence in his final speech along with a host of legal citations."

"The rallies and the impact of the INA on the Indian army, navy, and air force were one factor influencing the British to quit India. ... "

Gordon lies again! - "one factor"???? There was none other. Clement Attlee said as much, in response to a query while on a visit to India, specifically about why British left India.

As another source points out, South Africa with its nonviolence succeeded only in 1994.

" ... General Francis Tuker, GOC of the Eastern Command covering the region up to Delhi, has noted that, ‘During 1946 there were serious cases of mutiny in the Royal Indian Navy, less serious in the Royal Air Force and Royal Indian Air Force and minor troubles in the Indian Army.’16 The most serious of these was the Royal Indian Navy mutiny in Bombay, February 1946, which was shortly put down by determined repression and with calming words by Sardar Patel and Nehru."

Lies again - about "shortly put down" and about the"soothing words". Fact is British authorities desperately needed someone to make the naval men stop and surrender, and Nehru and Sardar Patel were the only options available under the circumstances. Indians believed them, but they didn't play fair, asking the Indians to surrender and promising further.

As per Clement Attlee, this mutiny was the chief reason British were terrified enough to decide to leave.

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Here's proof of partisan attitude of the author, and perhaps of the fact that this work wasn't independent, but written according to instructions.

"The real problem to be faced in the fall of 1946 was the spreading communal violence. From Calcutta in August, the focus of the dreadful carnage moved to Noakhali District in East Bengal. What appears to have been a carefully planned attack by a Muslim force on the small Hindu minority was infact, systematically carried out. In the rural areas where one community often greatly outnumbered the other, when there was violence, it became a pogrom. The Hindus were nearly defenseless. Leaders of Hindu resistance were killed, some were forcibly converted to Islam, including some Hindu women whose marriages and lives were broken."

What he's not mentioning, apart from numbers - 150,000 massacred - is that the murdered were not only male, but Hindus of all ages including babies, and in that the last bit he's refraining from mentioning mass rapes of Hindu women.

Also, he refrains carefully from mentioning the dates or the time, saying only "fall of 1946", which is as racist in the context and as fraudulent as it gets.

Fall is at best terminology of Nordic latitudes, more of USA than of England. Indian seasons - six, not four - have a fall, but its in February, roughly, not in accordance with Nordic calendar. Since this book can only have overwhelmingly, predominantly Indian readership, this terminology is deliberately racist, imposing seasons non-existent in India on India, and attempting to wipe out Indian seasons from India's mind.

Far more racist is the attempt to wipe out Hindu culture, in not mentioning that the massacre was perpetrated quite deliberately during Hindu sacred month-long festival days observed majorly in Bengal during first ten days, but hugely throughout India, for most of the month.

This assault by muslims, in such atrocities bring perpetrated during this time, has continued with Pakistan usually taking this opportunity to assault, and China too did the same in 1962.

In global terns, it's comparable to say, Chingiz Khan - or Attila the Hun - attacking everywhere from Rome to California on or day before Xmas.

This genocide, this pogrom perpetrated against Hindus by muslims had been in abeyance only most of the time during British rule, but in fact was a resumption of the over eleven centuries long continuous, unprovoked assaults against Hindus by islamic invaders.

Even in early twentieth century there was the massacre of well over a thousand Hindus in Kerala by muslims disappointed with failure of Khilafat, kept out of media by British, and commented by Gandhi only to the effect that he trusted Hindus to not react. But subsequent massacre of Hindus in NWFP by muslims had Gandhi express admiration for muslims and clear statement that he despised Hindus for this.

At Noakhali too, he later came to do a hunger strike - to calm down Hindus, but staying well away from the area where massacre of Hindus had been perpetrated.

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" ... Amidst the rising violence, it was difficult for a tolerant voice like that of Sarat Bose to make itself heard; that of Shyama Prasad Mookerjee, however, became louder. "

The latter probably had far more truth, but notice how hordon muzzles his voice by not mentioning his words.

Shyama Prasad Mookerjee, after independence, was a victim of a deliberately perpetrated murder, but unrecognised as such; he was imprisoned for stepping across border into Kashmir, despite Kashmir then being part of India, and had within a month been reduced to a state of being at door of death, despite having been in perfectly good health when he had stepped across the "border". Some sources allege that thus incarceration resulting in his death, after whatever atrocities were perpetrated, was with accord of the then PM, Jawaharlal Nehru.

"In late November and early December, 1946, Sarat Bose made a tour of Noakhali and Tippera to see the results of the devastation and to talk to survivors. ... "

"Sarat Bose continued the effort to have a political orientation that overarched communal identifications. Sarat Bose was unhappy that “peaceful and sober elements among the Muslims failed to control other Muslims who were attacking Hindus”.33 But this did not lead him into stereotyping all Muslims. He said, ‘I shall admit that the disturbances which began from 16 August have made a large number of Hindus think in communal terms. But I believe it is only a passing phase.’34 ... "

Well, considering it's lasted most of seven decades, calling it passing was inaccurate at best, and proven wrong - by muslims of Bengal - more accurately. Northwest achieved their ethnic cleansing much earlier, by perpetrating atrocities and massacres at time of partition enforcing an almost complete exodus.

" ... Although he did not think “in communal terms”, he was too sanguine about many of his fellow Hindus. He was also too ingenuous in thinking that preaching socialism and freedom to the masses of Bengalis would turn back the rushing tide of communalism."

Funny how Gordon selects Sharat Chandra Bose for the sarcasm and quotes his comments for the purpose, despite Gandhi’s being the obviously atrocious comments and conduct in the context of every time atrocities were perpetrated against Hindus. Gordon blinds it out, and keeps his references to Gandhi limited to what can be contrasted with Bose, or quoted for its worth as comments against Bose - whichever Bose brother it be. The only time Gordon deviates from his bashing of a Bose in what's supposedly a biography of the Bose brothers, is when he can bash up other Hindus thereby.

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Gordon lies again.

"The political deadlock, the frightening communal riots, the growing ineffectiveness of the police, fears about the future economic and defence interests of Britain and the Commonwealth, brought the Attlee government to agree to the transfer of power. ... "

No, it had been discussed between British authorities in India and back in London all through 1945-46, beginning with local authorities in India becoming aware of India's reaction to INA trials and to INA itself, the effect of Subhash Chandra Bose and his feats, on India.

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" ... During the war, the Government of India had effectively carried out the “policy of silence” and blacked out Bose, his army, and the provisional government of Free India. Although Bose sent radio messages to India frequently, few were able to hear him. Now, with the end of the war, and the release of political prisoners, the open functioning of the Congress, and the freer flow of information, the tales of the war period were broadcast everywhere. ... "

No, people did hear his broadcasts, however few, and word spreads by word of mouth in India far more effectively, never mind government blackout on news.

" ... The British officials and the Government of India now gave maximum publicity to Bose’s work and to the way in which they dealt with the INA prisoners, and particularly their decision to put some of them on public trial in New Delhi. Had Bose lived, he could not have arranged for better promotional efforts."

Gordon seems to imply British were resorting to honesty and frankness as suits a democracy with justice and law, which is false.

British simply had no clue that their self projected false image hadn't succeeded, that Jallianwala Bagh wasn't forgotten nor was execution of Bhagat Singh and his group and how despicable the British Government had been in each case, and people hadn't forgotten Indian heroic freedom fighters either.

British had used the huge, two and half million strong Indian army, daunting successful and known now for valour, and assumed loyalty of subjects to a racist master by people treated like less than animals. They were wrong in the assumption.

" ... General Arisue, one of the directors of Japanese Intelligence, described Bose as the embodiment of a samurai. In particular, Arisue mentioned that his seemingly soft exterior covered a strong heart and powerful spirit, and extolled Bose’s insistence on keeping his promises. Another Japanese of those days, an expert in the history of Japanese culture, mentioned the warrior ethic to which Bose adhered: worldly gain was unimportant, physical courage, and devotion to the cause at hand were all-important. A few Japanese military men of the war period said that Bose more fully incarnated the samurai spirit than any of their own leaders. With all of his difficulties in dealing with the Japanese, Bose did impress them and thus truly was an Indian samurai.76"

That's all very well, except Gordon still attempts to discredit by beginning that paragraph with Japanese having been unwilling to work with him, and refrains from really mentioning his much and how many Japanese not only admired him but far more.

Relevant to the matter, however, is his image in India, tremendous just then due to his feat, and growing ever since, despite all efforts to the contrary including this work, supposedly independent of government of India or Britain.

Slant of the work, out of place but deliberate, gives that away.

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One has to wonder what it is that assures certain races, certain creeds regarding their rights and propriety in offending others, even a billion, of race and creed different from that of the categories they profess or respect; and why this continues even from those persecuted for most of two millennia, that too towards precisely those who did not -alone in the world - so persecute them.

Gordon, in the process of writing about Bose family and about the stature of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, already does it more than once, before he's finished prologue!

Why he had to mention that some people question if Netaji was really married, is incomprehensible, but offensive it is, because while he's writing about an Indian family, it's without accepting that India has a different culture, that it has norms very different from West or abrahamic, and imposing other norms isn't polite.

[Later, slightly short of through half the book, he mentions -

" ... Emilie Schenkl later reported that during their brief stay in Badgastein in December 1937, she and Subhas Bose were secretly married. In An Indian Pilgrim, Bose places the development of love at the center of human life. ... in advice to younger friends and relations in 1937 and 1938, he advocated free choice in marriage, rather than arranged marriage by the parents of the prospective couple."

" ... There are several stories of when and how they married, including one she related to a Bose family member, Krishna Bose, who wrote in the Illustrated Weekly of India in 1972:

"Emilie Schenkl says that marriage between Germans and foreigners was not at all encouraged in the Nazi regime. It was discreetly suggested to her that she should break off the relationship. When they… got married during the war they avoided some of the difficulties by getting married quietly according to Hindu rites.22"

If it weren't secret, if there were official records risking nazis finding the documents after anschluss, they'd be risking an extermination camp, depending on whims of any and every official from the lowest nazi up.

But Hindu rites are valid for a Hindu and an Indian, whether or not anybody else likes it.

Moreover, each held on - although as per then custom and law, he could very well have married, and several times too, with plenty of dowry each time, and made profitable connections setting him up in life and career for lifetime.

She meanwhile could have married someone else, since a marriage with an Indian was in a questionable zone regarding legality after racism laws of Germany were applicable post anschluss.

But neither ever considered the option. Emily was free to marry especially after 1945, but never believed he'd died, and never married anyone else.

If anyone still questions their marriage despite these facts, that person needs to look for a life, after acquiring some sense and a bit of heart.

Gordon nevertheless questions it, gives different versions by several sources, but foesnt realise that this bit he's included is the clinching part -

" ... we have a letter from Subhas Bose to his brother Sarat—discovered posthumously—stating that Emilie Schenkl was his wife and Anita his daughter. And we have Emilie Schenkl herself giving testimony that they were married secretly in December 1937. ... "

Why he goes to the trouble, giving offence in the bargain and raising doubts about his sanity, is a good question. Was he paid by per word rate for the manuscript? That'd explain the far too many snide comments, the bits attempting to pull down Subhash Chandra Bose and inordinate discussions about other matters - political chiefly, but persons too - while completely avoiding matters of vital importance for India, such as death of Lala Lajpat Rai and consequences thereof.

"By December 1937, when Bose and Schenkl were in Badgastein, a war was already underway in East Asia, following the Japanese attack on China. The Germans and Italians had formulated the Anti-Comintern Pact and Hitler was putting great pressure on other Central European countries, particularly those with German-speaking populations. In the face of the Nazi military build-up, Britain was only slowly responding to the threat. Her government, headed by Neville Chamberlain, and with former viceroy Lord Halifax as its leader in the House of Lords, was bent on appeasement. Civil war, with international participation, was raging in Spain."

That last bit does make it wartime, in Europe as well - unless it's the normal convention whereby Spain and Portugal are considered only officially in Europe but informally considered not quite so, pretty much as Balkans are, too. ]

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So - why he had to mention that some people question if Netaji was really married, is incomprehensible, but offensive it is, because while he's writing about an Indian family, it's without accepting that India has a different culture, that it has norms very different from West or abrahamic, and imposing other norms isn't polite.

This is even more so when he discusses sadhus, Gods and more, branding beliefs of India as myth and shredding beliefs casually.

And this from someone who refrained from disclosing his identity in Germany in interest of frank answers from them! Someone who feels free to certify that Netaji wasn't on agreement with Germans regarding antisemitism. (Did he miss the import of the first resolution by Israel's Knesset, thanking India for not being antisemitic? Did he think that was work of invading jihadists?)

All this already comes as a couple of stones in a soup would spoil the pleasure of an otherwise good dish - for his writing style is very good, and reading this smooth, so far.

Gordon writes off every possibility of Subhash Chandra Bose having not died in the air crash that in fact never did happen, discussing it instead as mythology generated by a Bengal deprived of power it once had. He's the delusional one, in this, but the delusion is helped by racism.

"A final question, dealt with partially above, is this: Why Subhas Bose? Why is he the hero who is desired, resurrected, not allowed to rest in peace? ... "

And there's more racism! Why assume that souls "rest in peace", or that that's the highest possible alternative? This assumption is Abrahamic and very opposite of any Hindu thinking about departed.

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Gordon begins by being offensive, to India, which he's done in prologue quite well and more than once; did he have to do so already in first paragraph of this beginning too?

" ... In India it is common for the parents of a prominent leader—if they appear at all—to be slotted into familiar stereotypes: noble father and pious mother. ... "

Did he take a challenge with a publisher - or a klansman? - that he'd be more offensive than, say, Winston Churchill, George Eliot and Sheldon Pollock, and write about a hero of India with so abominable a tone that nobody West could accuse him of having "gone native" just because he didn't do this work as a charity project?

Would he have dared to do so, if, say, the hero wasn't Hindu, but likely to be of people who'd declare a few hundred fatwas for every time Gordon gave offence?

Or is solidarity of Abrahamic-I with Abrahamic-II, Abrahamic-III, even Abrahamic-IV, is beyond being broken despite all persecution including holocaust, but non-abrahmic must be given offence no matter what?

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" ... The belief that the fairer were superior had an ancient lineage in India dating at least to the Aryan invasions and was reinforced by the British conquest."

Aryans being a race is a lie invented by British, as is Aryan invasion theory; the first part of that statement above by Gordon is even more of a lie, since nobody was more respected as Arya than Rama, and he's known for his beauty as well, but specifically described as "Shyamavarna", dusky hued, even blue-tinged. Thus is not limited to males. Mahabharata war was to avenge humiliation of the extraordinary beauty of wife of Pandava brothers, and she's described as Shyama, the dark one.

Above all, nobody ascribes any other qualities in India to a lighter skin than just that, lighter hue of skin; certainly no qualities of mind, heart or soul are inferred thereby, or even beauty.

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" ... In India, male children are considered more important than female children since most of India is organized in a patrilineal tradition and the eldest son performs the shraddha or funeral rites for his parents. ... "

It'd be fair if Gordon put it in context, of the then societies of West and up till now. The very few societies which do in fact give more importance to female principle are none in West, certainly not US and definitely not church of any variety or even an Abrahamic except Abrahamic-IV; in US, as described well enough by citizens thereof, a woman has control of her finances only if she's an heiress, a widow not unseated by sons, and capable of handling male predators; few are in any position to earn equally. England was changed slightly by Queen Elizabeth I, and has only now come to legislate about primogeniture of royal heritage including daughters despite being followed by sons, in order of birth. Suffrage was fought for in West, including UK. US still hasn't legislated equal pay for women. Divorce settlement most often leaves first families of men poor, and in eighties it was recognised that new poor were women and children.

As for India, Gordon has just finished a paragraph about Bengal worship of Mother Goddess, which in fact isn't limited to Bengal but common to all Hindus.

................................................................................................

"Writing in his autobiography, Subhas commented on these events:

"In my undergraduate days Aurobindo Ghose was easily the most popular leader in Bengal, despite his voluntary exile and absence since 1909… He had sacrificed a lucrative career in order to devote himself to politics. On the Congress platform he had stood up as a champion of left-wing thought and a fearless advocate of independence… Last but not least, a mixture of spirituality and politics had given him a halo of mysticism and made his personality more fascinating to those who were religiously inclined…. I was impressed by his deeper philosophy… He worked out a reconciliation between Spirit and Matter, between God and Creation, on the metaphysical side and supplemented it with a synthesis of the methods of attaining the truth—a synthesis of Yoga, as he called it… All that was needed in my eyes to make Aurobindo an ideal guru for mankind was his return to active life.11"

Ironically, it turned the other way, instead. Wonder if he realised it in Ayodhya.

"Even before Aurobindo’s influence, Subhas had begun meditating and experimenting with different forms of yoga in Cuttack. It was clear he wanted an Indian religious philosophy that would shape, channel and support action in the world. He found this in the teachings of Vivekananda and Aurobindo. ... "

................................................................................................

"While still in England, Dilip recalled, ‘We often talked far into the night with a glow of heart that only youth can command. Sitting before the crackling fire, we fell to discussing the portents of the Labour Party in England and Communism in Russia.’36 Dilip argued that these new forces embodying the will of the proletariat would come to India’s rescue. But Subhas responded, ‘No. Dilip, Sri Aurobindo was perfectly right when he said in the Swadeshi days that no outsider would help India. If we ourselves can’t win our freedom none will come to our rescue.’37

"Dilip wrote that Subhas went on to advocate revolutionary organization by Indians to combat the Raj. Claiming that the Bengal revolutionaries in the post-Swadeshi period had not failed, Subhas cited an Irish parallel:

"You might just as well say that the Sinn Fein movement is a failure also since it hasn’t delivered the goods yet. … A revolutionary movement for national liberation is not like a chance detonation which makes the age-long prison-walls topple once and for all. It is a slow laborious work of building up brick by brick a citadel of strength without which you can’t possibly challenge the powers that be. The Bengal revolutionary movement at the dawn of this century was the first real movement, real in the sense that it gave our supine prostrate people the first hint about the reality of their own, unaided strength. It was the first movement that created a nucleus of national consciousness…38"

" ... He also saw the need for a mass base, as is clear from a passage in a letter of this time to his friend, Charu Ganguly:

"Swami Vivekananda used to say that India’s progress will be achieved only by the peasant, the washerman, the cobbler and the sweeper. These words are very true. The Western world has demonstrated what the “power of the people” can accomplish. The brightest example of this is—the first socialist republic in the world, that is, Russia. If India will ever rise again—that will come through that power of the people.39"

................................................................................................

" ... great tragedy was unfolding in the summer and fall of 1943: the Bengal Famine. This greatest famine of 20th-century South Asia cost millions of Bengali lives."

Gordon here quotes British propaganda, lies.

"Bengal had become a rice-importing area, after a long period as a rice exporter. The war exacerbated the problem of importing rice from outside: preparing for a possible invasion, the government began a boat-denial policy, later a rice-denial policy, thus interrupting the flow of foodstuff to the Bengal countryside. A severe cyclone hit some of the districts bordering the Bay of Bengal, further hindering the flow."

Fact is, much like the so called Irish potato famine, this too was caused by British stealing local harvest for themselves, leaving poor subjects to die.

"Starting in late 1942, cultivators began holding back grain supplies and prices began to rise. The Government of Bengal intervened in the market process, first trying price controls and threats against hoarding, then allowing the market process free rein. The government was also determined to see that Calcutta, centre of the Raj in eastern India, did not experience a significant shortfall. Some traders were allowed to buy up what they could in the countryside to ensure that Calcutta did not starve.

"The full force of the famine hit in mid-1943, after a Muslim League-dominated coalition took office in April 1943, with H.S. Suhrawardy named as minister for civil supplies. Criticism for the inept handling of the deteriorating situation has been laid at his door and at that of food speculators. ... "

The then British government of India had muzzled media - newspapers, radio, local and global - completely, and draconian so-called laws had thrown thousands in jail either no ceremony, no trials. The millions dying on streets were known to British government, and ultimately they were responsible, for stealing harvest and for refusing to allow aid ships filled with grains sent by FDR to reach India, stopping them at Australia.

Gordon quotes fraudulent propaganda by British.

" ... There was ineffectual handling of the grave situation at every level of government. Relief efforts were also inadequate and neighbouring provinces refused to rush to Bengal’s aid."

Is there a pretense here that any of it was not controlled completely by British? That's fraudulent too.

"Subhas Bose, in Southeast Asia, made an offer of grain supplies:

"There can be no doubt that these famine conditions have been largely due to the policy of ruthless exploitation of India’s food and other resources for Britain’s war purposes over a period of nearly four years. You are aware that, on behalf of our League, I made a free and unconditional offer of one hundred thousand tons of rice for our starving countrymen at home as a first instalment. Not only was this offer not accepted by the British authorities in India, but we were given only abuse in return.26"

................................................................................................

"The victory of Subhas Bose in the Congress presidential race came as a surprise to Mahatma Gandhi and his closest colleagues. The leftists throughout India had backed Bose—attaining the high-watermark of their unity in the 20th century. Thus Bose, the much-better known and more charismatic candidate, won through in this round with his 1,580 votes as against his opponent’s 1,375, and was to be Congress president for 1939.

"The victory for a candidate opposing his own choice, however, awakened Gandhi from his somnolence and he issued a hostile and self-accusatory statement two days later. In part, the Mahatma said:

"Shri Subhas Bose has achieved a decisive victory…I must confess that from the very beginning I was decidedly against his re-election…I do not subscribe to his facts or the arguments in his manifestos. I think that his references to his colleagues were unjustified and unworthy. Nevertheless, I am glad of his victory…After all Subhas Babu is not an enemy of his country. He has suffered for it. In his opinion his is the most forward and boldest policy and program…The minority may not obstruct on any account. They must abstain when they cannot cooperate.4

"Here Gandhi gives hints of what is yet to come. He says the vote was a defeat for his principles and for the rightist team of Gandhians who had long run the Congress organisation. And it was a sign of strength for those Bose called the “left” and for a program of resolute opposition to the Raj. But even more than these suggestions in Gandhi’s words, it is a challenge to Bose to direct the Congress executive and run it according to his principles and program."

More than anything, that last bit -

"The minority may not obstruct on any account. They must abstain when they cannot cooperate."

- is the key to what manipulative wheel Subhash Chandra Bose was next racked over by Gandhi and his group.

"Gandhi and his men, angry with Bose’s description of them in The Indian Struggle as “tired old reactionaries” who are not prepared for the coming and necessary struggle, were preparing to teach Bose a lesson. On 22 February, 1939, all the Working Committee members—except the Boses—including Jawaharlal Nehru, resigned, leaving the Congress with a president marked for the helm, but without a crew to run the ship.

"Bose wanted Gandhi’s approbation. He met with Gandhi on 15 February, and thought he would have Gandhi’s support; but having taunted the Gandhians in his book as compromisers, he was perhaps foolish to think they would continue to run the Congress organisation with him. ... "

But if Subhash Chandra Bose and his book were the problem, why did Gandhi nake him a president of congress in the first place, instead of ignoring him and sidelining both brothers? Was it just so he'd stomp on him next and show him who was boss?

That makes one suspect that Bengali common accusations against Gandhi and congress, of deliberately wrecking and dividing Bengal, aren't without foundation.

"Bose went into seclusion with relatives at Jealgora near Dhanbad in Bihar to try to shake off an inexplicable illness which some of his friends attributed to some magical mental effects—and Bose himself to the end maintained that the irregular course of the symptoms showed that there was something “mysterious” in it all. ... "

Is it out of the question that Gandhi's ill will was affecting the young man? Perhaps the perception of illiterate masses in calling him Mahatma had a lower level truth behind it, in yhat he could affect others with a vital power, while outwardly lack of physical aggression and carefully maintained verbal image of non threatening produced illusion of saintliness for those led by words.

"Throughout these exchanges in March and April 1939, Bose wrote to Gandhi most respectfully, imploring him to compromise. Did Bose really believe that the Mahatma had no hand in the counterstrike of the old guard against the insurgent Bose and his supporters? ... "

"The letters to Nehru were a different matter. They were blunt; they were bitter, they were often rude and nasty. Bose claimed that he had been respectful to Nehru in the past, “…ever since I came out of internment in 1937, I have been treating you with the utmost regard and consideration, in private life and in public. I have looked upon you as politically an elder brother and leader and have often sought your advice”.14 But when the crunch came, when Bose decided to challenge the Gandhians at the end of 1938, he found that his socialist colleague, the one he called his “political elder brother”, was not with him. Nehru did not view the Congress in the same left-versus-right terms as Bose; he thought Gandhi was the vital heart of the movement; and felt that Bose’s “aspersion” against the old guard was wrong and unwarranted. And he had opposed Bose’s re-election, as he explained:

"I was against your standing for election for two major reasons: it meant under the circumstances a break with Gandhiji and I did not want this to take place… ... I felt all along that you were far too keen on re-election.15"

Nehru accuses Bose of being too keen on being reelected, although when it came to his own being not elected, he informed Gandhi he'd leave congress, so it's an unfair accusation against someone younger who'd worked ceaselessly and suffered far more from British brutality.

What does come through undoubtedly though is that this letter is excellent incontrovertible evidence that neither congress nor its leaders had democracy after Gandhi arrived in India by invitation of Gokhale - it has always been an autocracy dictated by a Gandhi or a Nehru, and maintained a patently false, fraudulent claim to being a democratic structure.

................................................................................................

" ... Jawaharlal Nehru wrote in his diary on 11 November, 1941:

"Today’s papers contained the Govt. announcement that Subhas was either in Berlin or Rome…One of the head warders asked us if this was true and added that it was like Vibhishan leaving his brother Ravana to join Ramachandra! The British Govt., with all its atyachar [atrocities] in India was like Ravana, he said. Probably this represents a fairly widespread public reaction.74"

................................................................................................

"Through the series of controversies in which Subhas Bose had been involved from late 1938 through late 1939, one prominent figure, the giant of India’s cultural life, Rabindranath Tagore, supported him stoutly. As he explained, Tagore had had his doubts about Subhas, but now, with Subhas besieged, the Poet spoke eloquently for him and to him in an essay entitled, “Deshanayak” [The Leader of the Country]. He wrote, in part:

"As Bengal’s poet, I today acknowledge you as the honoured leader of the people of Bengal.…Suffering from the deadening effect of the prolonged punishment inflicted upon her young generation and disintegrated by internal faction, Bengal is passing through a period of dark despair…At such a juncture of nation-wide crisis, we require the service of a forceful personality, the invincible faith of a natural leader, who can defy the adverse fate that threatens our progress.…Today you are revealed in the pure light of the midday sun which does not admit of apprehensions…Your strength has been sorely taxed by imprisonment, banishment and disease, but rather than impairing these have helped to broaden your sympathies…You did not regard apparent defeat as final: therefore, you have turned your trials into your allies. More than anything else Bengal needs today to emulate the powerful force of your determination and self-reliant courage…Long ago…I sent out a call for the leader of Bengal who had yet to come. After a lapse of many years I am addressing…one who has come into the full light of recognition.37"

This is amazing insight. He'd showed that also in writing a salutary piece about Sri Aurobindo.

"Privately as well, Tagore had made every effort to help Bose, asking Gandhi and Nehru in late 1938 and early 1939 to accept Bose as Congress president again without a squabble. In December 1939, Tagore asked Gandhi to have the ban on Subhas lifted and his cooperation cordially invited in the “supreme interest of national unity”.38 They declined his advice throughout. ... "

They also declined advice from Sri Aurobindo when, one time, he broke silence on politics after having gone to Pondicherry. Their cribbing response was, why is he advising now when he first go to jail with us? In short, Gandhi only tolerated those he could dominate; rest, he tried to break and made every effort no matter what.

"At the end of 1939, their view of Bose differed sharply from that of Tagore. Writing in Harijan in early 1940, Gandhi said, ‘I had thought I had gained Subhas Babu for all time as a son…,’ but that he had suffered the “pain of wholly associating myself with the ban pronounced on him”.39 ... "

Seeing how he broke two out of four sons he had, and kept the rest in background but not letting them grow to carve a path for themselves, it's a horror that he says "I had thought I had gained Subhas Babu for all time as a son", and relief that this association ended soon enough that Subhash Chandra Bose could escape the Mahatma! He didn't deserve being broken the way sons of Gandhi were, certainly. Those who did deserve such a treatment were in fact coddled by Gandhi for perpetrating atrocities and massacres, because they never considered him their leader in any case.

Gordon quotes very imperceptive and denigrating comments by Nehru about Subhash Chandra Bose, and writes in laudatory terms about Nehru being busy because "WWII had begun".

Considering their later trajectories - Subhash Chandra Bose with his INA not only planting India's flag in imphal but affecting India enough to make British run away; Nehru condemning Japan while British were between him and Japanese army but never saying a word in defence of Tibet, pretending India was a friend of China and bring taught finally in 1962 by Chinese about his pontificating on nonviolence - it's a joke, which perhaps Gordon doesn't see. Or if he does, he's making fool of readers who don't.

" ... Bose thought that the British would never leave unless driven out, any negotiations into which the Congress entered were likely to lead to a sellout. Some of his broadcasts were addressed to Gandhi, with whom he pleaded not to make any compromise with the British which would damage the essential interests of the Indian people, including the issue of Pakistan. Bose renewed his pleas to Gandhi at the time of the Simla Conference of 1945, and rejoiced when the conference failed. Bose simply could not imagine a negotiated settlement with Britain of which he would approve."

And subsequent history bears out truth of his thinking.

................................................................................................

" ... The Muslims in Bengal were mostly lower-class cultivators in the eastern districts of Bengal proper and were tenants on Hindu lands; they were much slower to gain Western education in Bengal and even those few interested in regional and national politics often stayed clear of the Congress. In contrast, the dominant Indian minority functioning in collaboration with the British rulers was Hindu. Many of those in the small Muslim elite, moreover, were Urdu-speaking Muslims, who did not identify with the masses of Bengali-speaking Muslims in Bengal, and considered Bengali to be the language of idolatry and cowardice, and the Bengali-speaking Muslims as closer to Hindus than to the world of Islam. ... "

This - and worse - bias later, in an overtly racist Pakistan, was the genesis of East Bengal war for independence, preceded by massacre of 3 million East Bengal civilians by Pakistan military, apart from their keeping half a million local women chained and naked for use of Pakistan military males.

" ... first partition of Bengal, from 1905 to 1912, creating a Muslim-majority East Bengal and a Hindu-majority West Bengal. The legislative councils reforms of 1909 creating separate Muslim and General (or Hindu) electorates further widened the cleavage between the Muslim and Hindu communities. The founding of the Muslim League at a meeting of upper-class Muslims in Dacca during 1906, supporters of the Raj, whose aim was the protection of the rights of Muslims, gave further prominence to the Muslim position."

Gordon refrains from mentioning that formation of this party was at insistence of British government; a British officer invited some muslims to his home and argued with them about it, and they only agreed after seeing that he'd get so other guys to do so anyway.

................................................................................................

" ... post-war steps taken by the Government of India and its superiors in London to extend self-government to India. The latter initiative resulted in the Montagu-Chelmsford Report released on July 8, 1918, laying out a plan for dyarchy, accompanied by the repressive Rowlatt Bills intended to quash the small, but dangerous revolutionary movement, whose cadres were being called “anarchists” and “terrorists” by Raj officials. Dyarchy provided for expanded legislative councils with some departments to be headed by Indian ministers.

"Gandhi declared a national satyagraha the day after the Rowlatt Bills became Acts, leading to widespread discontent and agitation and to Gandhi’s arrest. And then, on April 13, 1919, there occurred one of the blackest actions of British imperialism in India. Ignoring a ban on demonstrations, many Indians gathered in an enclosed park, Jallianwala Bagh, in Amritsar. ... "

Gordon doesn't explain that it was the place locals went out for air, just as English might in an enclosed garden in neighborhood in London. The crowd consisted of old and young, children and babies and mothers, and nit political speakers, much less anything more dangerous.

" ... With scarcely a warning, General Reginald Dyer ordered his troops to fire at the assembled throng, who could not easily exit from the enclosed park. ... "

Dyer had barred the single gate, entrance and exit, with a tank, and soldiers with automatic weapons - rifles - stationed fanned around it, were ordered to fire as long as anybody lived.

" ... Several hundreds were killed, many more wounded. In the aftermath, Gen. Dyer was given the mildest reprimand, the government’s Hunter Commission whitewashed the affair and the House of Lords congratulated Dyer for helping to enforce law and order. This event and the responses to it turned many politically conscious Indians against the Raj and prepared the ground for Gandhi’s non-cooperation movement beginning in 1920."

................................................................................................

" ... Then suddenly, on 25 October, 1924, everything changed. As he would remember the moment a few years later: In the early hours of the morning of 25 October, 1924, I was roused from my sleep as I was wanted by some police officers. The Deputy-Commissioner of Police, Calcutta, on meeting me said: ‘Mr. Bose, I have a very unpleasant duty to perform. I have a warrant for your arrest under Regulation III of 1818.’ He then produced another warrant authorising him to search my house for arms, explosives, ammunition, etc. Since no arms, etc. were forthcoming, he had to content himself with taking a pile of papers and correspondence.13"

"No specific charges were ever made public and Bose—along with seventeen others in this particular round-up—was jailed for an indefinite term. No charges were filed, no hearing occurred, no right of habeas corpus was granted; there was neither judge nor jury. This was the Raj’s special method of dealing with those suspected of revolutionary involvement. Within one brisk October day, taken from his home, family and the highest seat of executive power in the second city of the British Empire, Bose became simply another political detainee in the New Alipore Central Jail."

"In Mandalay, Bose and his seven companions joined some other political prisoners as well as ordinary convicts in a jail built of wooden palisades, exposed to all the elements. In time Subhas came to learn that rain-storms as well as dust-storms could howl through the palisades as he experienced the round of the year in Mandalay. But dust or rain, hot season or cool season, he never felt well or comfortable during almost two years there. Part of this had to do with the construction of the prison, as Subhas sketched it:

"From the outside and especially at night, the inmates of these buildings appeared almost like animals prowling about behind the bars. Within these structures we were at the mercy of the elements. There was nothing to protect us from the biting cold of winter or the intense heat of summer or the tropical rains in Mandalay…we had to make the best of a bad situation.17"

" ... The Bengali political prisoners in Mandalay learned that there was a financial contribution made by the government for religiously-incurred expenses. So in the fall of 1925 they approached the officials seeking financial assistance for all the expenses involved in properly celebrating Durga Puja, the moment in the year when Bose and his Bengali prisonmates felt united with the Bengali people from whom they had been arbitrarily separated.

"It was, therefore, both a religious-cultural and political issue when they confronted British officials over payment for their prison Durga Puja. An official denial of funds for the Puja and a request for a refund from the prisoners of monies advanced to them precipitated the hunger strike which began on 18 February,1926, word of which was soon trumpeted in bulletins printed in Forward. Not only were the officials chagrined that information about the strikers had slipped out, but also unpublished, evidential parts of an Indian Jail Committee of 1919-21 report suddenly appeared in the hands of the Swarajists, revealing that optimistic health reports on prisoners had been fabricated."

It's not anywhere close to extermination camps in Germany, but it's on the way - the manner of arrests without legal recourse, no habeus corpus, no trials, no evidence of guilt except informers' word, state of jail that had no protection from weather for inmates, all this on top of two centuries of loot and racism - and finally, stealing funds for Durga Pouja!

No wonder Subhash Chandra Bose did not see German people and state as strange or different!

British in India as experienced by him, and by most others except Gandhi and Nehru, were only different from Germans in East Europe, or to Jews, in matter of degrees.

And as to deaths, British not only ran away when massacres were perpetrated, abdication governance, but also stole harvest and let millions starve to death but refused to allow aid ships from FDR, filled with grain, to proceed to India, stopping them in Australia.

" ... Although he had tried to keep news of his medical problems from his parents, word of his physical condition made the front pages of the nationalist press. Sarat, with other nationalists, began to ask the strikers to give up their fasting, saying they had made their point and made it well. Finally, on 4 March—about two weeks into their fast—the government made concessions and the inmates gave up the hunger strike. Subhas wrote to a Calcutta friend explaining the gains they had made:

"…our hunger strike was not altogether meaningless or fruitless. Government have been forced to concede our demands relating to religious matters and henceforward a Bengal State Prisoner will get an annual allowance of thirty rupees on account of Puja expenses…our principal gain is that the government have now accepted the principle which they refused to do so long…34"

Here's the genesis of the much greater, much longer, hunger strike that was far more in its scope of addressing situations and treatment of Indians in jail, by Bhagat Singh and his group, who were tortured during their incarceration including during hunger strike, the torture resulting in death of one of theirs.

................................................................................................

"After the death of C.R. Das, a leading Swarajist and barrister from Chittagong, Jatindra Mohan Sen Gupta, was chosen to wear the Triple Crown (mayor of Calcutta, leader of the Swarajists in the legislative council and president of the Bengal Provincial Congress). Sen Gupta was from Das’s native East Bengal and had been educated at Presidency College, Cambridge University, and Gray’s Inn, London. He joined the Calcutta High Court Bar, taught law, and plunged into the Non-cooperation movement in 1921. By 1923 he had been elected to the Bengal Legislative Council (BLC) and been selected as secretary of the Bengal Swarajya Party, the Congress group in the BLC, and of the Congress Municipal Association. He had also helped organise strikes by oil workers and railwaymen as president of the Burma Oil Labour Union (Chittagong) and of the Assam-Bengal Railway Union. Sarat Bose wrote to Subhas:

"There has been great excitement lately over filling up the positions held by Deshbandhu. It has been eventually decided (on the advice of Mahatma Gandhi) that J.M. Sen Gupta is to occupy all the three positions. Personally I think it is a great mistake to put any other man into all the places filled by Deshbandhu. But the Mahatma’s decision was accepted.35"

Was this the same person who, later as a sadhu in Shaulmari, was suspected to be Netaji, but denied it, and in fact wasn't?

Gandhi’s sweeping aside opinions of others was probably not new, but got entrenched herein, with elders who had courage of their convictions dying or being rendered ineffective one way or other, and younger leaders being pushed by him more easily, either under or out.

................................................................................................

"In most of his work Sarat Bose was quite composed and business-like. An exception was a debate in the Corporation in August 1926, when Sarat criticised a European member, and charged that the Europeans had surrendered their conscience to an arbitrary executive and that they were not people’s representatives at all. He berated them for their support of the Bengal Ordinance and Regulation III of 1818, finally calling them “tailors of Tooley Street”.36"

"With these remarks in view—and they angered the Europeans and the Indian loyalists greatly—it is no wonder that the Statesman wrote in assessing the quality of the Corporation, ‘Among the Hindus, Alderman S.C. Bose is, by general consent, the best speaker, but racial bitterness mars his otherwise undoubted gift.’38"

That's pretty much akin to a news anchor of yore holding a TV program to let a gang rape and murder instigator and perpetrator go free so he has a chance to change, and like-minded channels calling the bereaved victim's mother bitter for insisting on justice.

"His quotations from Burke and Mazzini were characteristic of one who had studied the speeches of great Western orators and nationalists and had a photographic memory. Burke’s views on the relationship between a legislator and his constituency were familiar to one trained for the bar who had studied the British parliamentary system.

"The comment in the Statesman that Sarat Bose’s gifts were marred by “racial bitterness” raises an important point. British commentators often deemed as “racism” all hostility by Indians against their European rulers. But Indian nationalists were not racists who thought that the British should be removed because they were white or European; rather, they believed they should have rulers who were chosen by the native inhabitants of India. The Boses, like all Indians, were sensitive to color, but did not harbor racial antagonism to all Europeans. Sarat Bose had many European friends who were his colleagues at the bar. As peers before the bar, as friends in the bar library, they were accepted. But as rulers from a small group of islands thousands of miles away, simply because of their conquest of India in the 18th century, they were the enemy."

Author makes several mistakes there.

Sensitive to colour, no; to racist attitude and behaviour, who wouldn't be!

The last part is incorrect as well. It wasn't that British were disliked because they were "rulers from a small group of islands thousands of miles away, simply because of their conquest of India in the 18th century", it's because they were looting and perpetrating atrocities, were fraudulent and had no intention of making India home, but only of bleeding it to death - as later Hitler’s intentions and plans regarding East Europe, including Russia West of Urals, were.

................................................................................................

" ... 1926 Calcutta riots featured attacks on Hindu temples, Muslim mosques and Sikh gurudwaras, and Bengali Hindus and Muslims were involved. If the riots did not sound the death knell of Das’s Bengal Pact between Hindus and Muslims, they certainly hastened its demise.

"The riots began when Hindu drummers in a procession past a mosque provoked a Muslim attack on the marchers. In the beginning, the rioters were Muslims and up-country Hindus, but as attacks on temples and mosques took place, more Bengalis became involved. Troops were called out and when this phase was over, the official figures reported forty-four killed and 600 injured. After a pause of two-and-a-half weeks, riots broke out again, from 22-27 April, and in that aftermath fifty-six were killed and 365 were injured, according to the Home Department. A third phase took place from 11-25 July, for which the official figures were twenty-eight killed and 226 injured. Other incidents took place outside Calcutta, most significantly for future developments, in Dacca, in September 1926. Since the British had disarmed the Indians after the rebellion of 1857, guns were scarce; most of the deaths and injuries were from stabbing or mauling."

It was wrath of an ex-invading regime let loose on a once subjected people for not being terrified enough to convert completely and retain rheir own culture, thinking, philosophy and more, unlike Egypt and Persia which had been wiped out culturally by islamic invaders in short duration.

And that reaction remains, bit hidden behind abuses hurled at majority instead; so calling oneself Hindu without shame is labelled fascist, and celebration of Hindu festivals is labelled provoking, to justify murderous attacks perpetrated against Hindus.

But now, attacks by jihadists aren't limited to being perpetrated against Hindus in India and Jews of Israel; Paris and London, New York and Australia, they've been everywhere. Old women of France have been beheaded for being in church on Sunday morning, and young Australians have died for being out on weekends mornings.

"Writing to Sarat from Mandalay, Subhas Bose said that he was firmly against separate electorates. The question of joint or separate electorates had long been tense. Many Muslims who had once supported the Congress position of joint electorates now insisted on separate electorates, and began to demand a much larger percentage of reserved seats for Muslims in the Bengal Legislative Council. ... "

That's the inevitable fallout of reservations based on population percentage, as opposed to honest merit considerations. In other words, dangers inherent in leftist philosophy versus worth of democracy based on merit.

................................................................................................

Gordon speaks of formation of Simon Commission.

"From its inception, its all-British composition made it anathema to a wide spectrum of Indian political opinion, and Liberals, Congressmen, and one part of the Muslim League joined to boycott it. In response, Indian political leaders chose to form the All Parties Conference which appointed a committee headed by Motilal Nehru to draw up the “swaraj constitution” which some nationalists had called for in 1927. Subhas Bose was invited to become a member of Motilal Nehru’s committee, and as president of the Bengal Provincial Congress Committee, was responsible for organising the Bengal hartal—complete one-day stoppage of activity—against the Simon Commission. It was to become only one of many.

"When the Simon Commission landed in Bombay on 3 February, 1928, a hartal was observed throughout India with thousands of Indians waving signs, “Simon, Go Home!” ... "

Having mentioned Simon Commission, hordon has veered off to attack Hindus instead, to avoid mentioning the brutal police charge ordered by British against the Gandhian congress demonstrators, which almost had Jawaharlal Nehru killed under a horse, and where elderly leader Lala Lajpat Rai was deliberately thrashed by orders of police with large wooden sticks, hitting him on head, so he died a few days later.

This provoked action by Bhagat Singh and his group, resulting soon in their being hanged with Gandhi refraining from protest despite nationwide pressure.

................................................................................................

Gordon brings up a topic without its root causes, Simon Commission and police brutality resulting in death of an elderly beloved Lala Lajpat Rai.

" ... Demands for violent action were being argued out among Bengal’s revolutionary groups in 1929, and on 8 April, members of the Hindustan Republican Socialist Army in northern India blew up a bomb at the Legislative Assembly Hall. No one was injured and the bombers were captured, and put on trial in the Lahore Conspiracy Case. Among them was a young Bengali, Jatin Das, assistant secretary of the South Calcutta Congress Committee, and well known to Subhas Bose for years."

No one was injured, due to that being precise the intention - as they explained, they could have escaped, but intended to be noticed, caught and have their say in court.

As for Jatin Das, he was tortured to death by jail authorities at instructions of British; so were others. They survived, some to be executed secretly because British feared relatives grieving, and their bodies were chopped and burned without informing the relatives, who were alert and caught this attempt.

"When Jatin Das was taken to the prison in Lahore, he joined other prisoners there who were already on a hunger strike for removal of certain kinds of discrimination in the treatment of political prisoners. ... "

That discrimination began with rotten food and included whipping and other tortures, apart from lack of hygiene.

" ... On 13 September, 1929, Das died ... "

Due to torture, Gordon avoids mentioning, as per orders by British.

" ... His body was taken by train to Calcutta and arrived there on the evening of Sunday, 15 September. The next day Subhas Bose, J.M. Sen Gupta and other Congress leaders—bare-headed and bare-footed—headed an enormous procession through the streets of Calcutta. Some said it was the biggest funeral procession to be seen in Calcutta since the death of C.R. Das. Gandhi, however, remained silent, and implied in a later comment that the hunger strike—as well as the HSRA’s activities—should never have been taken up."

Gandhi was capable of a token expression of regret regarding brital attack by British against old Lala Lajpat Rai resulting in his death; on the other hand, when Hindus were massacred by myslims, he did write to say he admired muslims and despised Hindus for the act. So his attitude about Bhagat Singh and his group wasn't moral, ethical or consistent, merely a vicious attempt to discredit and wipe out someone rising in minds and hearts of India.

This work and in particular this chapter was an opportunity missed by Gordon, who doesn't even mention Bhagat Singh and his group, except the death of Jatin Das, and then avoids mentioning cause thereof; did he write this book as per British orders?

................................................................................................

"Even before the end of 1929, Bose anticipated that he might soon have to leave the battlefield of political work for imprisonment. He and about eleven others were convicted under the sedition and unlawful procession charges of August 1929. The Indian judge said that it was unfortunate that such “highly cultured people” should come under the purview of the law, but that since they were creating “bitter feeling of hostility towards (the) government established by law in British India, they deserved the sentence of one year in prison. ... "

What "government established by law in British India"????? Law of sword, cannon and brutal massacres, certainly.

" ... Gandhi and the Congress were moving to implement the Lahore independence resolution and chart out a means that would lead the country—sooner or later—to complete freedom. ... "

Gordon is delusional. When India did get independence it had nothing to do with Gandhi and associates, as intimated by Clement Attlee to those who asked him on his visit to India; it had everything to do with effect that Subhash Chandra Bose and his INA had on India. The British had to flee, and fast.

................................................................................................

"As Gandhi was preparing his forces for the Salt March and a nationwide Civil Disobedience Movement, ... "

Which, Gandhi told someone, was conducted so as to wipe out impact of Bhagat Singh on India.

................................................................................................

"There was a serious communal riot in Dacca, the second city of Bengal, in early May. Muslims in Dacca town and the surrounding mofussil, set upon Hindu shops and homes. After a few days, the police brought order, but the Hindu People’s Association claimed that the police favoured the Muslims and had been very slow to react to the violence. The riots evinced another kind of quietly growing tension between the two major, and fairly evenly balanced, communities. If the political leaders could not learn to work together, then such riots would build upon the leaders’ failures."

Gordon doesn't give date.

................................................................................................

"Subhas Bose continued his regimen within the Alipore Jail. An undated manuscript bookmarked “Alipore Central Jail” that may date from this prison term, contains the plan for a book, but only a few paragraphs entitled “The Meaning of Life” appear in the notebook. He wrote:

"Life means the unfolding of the self. It therefore implies expansion and growth…life demands change…Life is dynamic. It is a play of energy. It is a manifestation of that Supreme Power—call it by what name you will—which pervades the universe—What is unfolded or achieved is not to be conserved for a selfish purpose—but is to be given up for the benefit of the world and for the service of humanity. By giving, we enrich ourselves and the more we give, the more do we thrive and profit…we must give our all and give with a reckless abandon.34"

................................................................................................

If Gordon quotes a speech by Subhash Chandra Bose, or even mentions his interaction with someone, he is just as likely to make a snide comment against Subhash Chandra Bose as not; and here he make another snide comment a page after the previous one, for no reason other than that Gordon isn't obvious as Asian even in Germany and he's writing about subjects of British colonial empire, from his point of view. From Gordon's perspective, mention of king of Jews as Oriental cannot be overlooked without a swipe.

And here's another one, fast on heels of one about mentioning king of jews being Oriental -

"Although the goal of independence and the necessity for boycott and Swadeshi were mentioned to every audience, Bose tailored his remarks to fit the different audiences he encountered. ... "

If there are speakers who make speeches that aren't "tailored ... to fit the different audiences ... encountered", but instead are designed deliberately to fly high over heads of any audience, perhaps Gordon is familiar with them, but such speakers are unlikely to be his own compatriots from bush country, much less politicians; and definitely any freedom fighters who were attempting to awaken people wouldn't do that.

................................................................................................

" ... He also addressed the women of the towns as he was touring the districts, telling them that “women had not only duties to their family, but they had also a greater duty to their country”, which looks “to the mothers to come forward and inspire the whole nation”.40

"Subhas Bose’s district tours and mayoral work were interrupted on 8 December when all of Calcutta was aroused by the attack on the headquarters of the Bengal administration and murder of Mr Simpson. ... Subhas Bose gave his perspective, which many other nationalists in Bengal shared. He said, in part:

"The fact stares us in the face that India today wants freedom very soon. The fact also stares us in the face that there are people in this country…who want freedom not merely by following the Congress program, but if need be they want freedom at any price and by any means.41"

"He then placed the other major share of blame on the repressive actions of the government in restricting meetings, processions, the press, etc., which did not allow the Congress to work in an open non-violent way and drove some nationalists underground and to acts of terror. Trying to visit Maldah in January, he found that he had been banned. When he pushed ahead with his effort to visit the area, he was arrested, tried, and sentenced to seven days’ imprisonment.

"To celebrate their “independence day” on 26 January, 1931, ... "

The quotation marks are another snide comment by someone who hid his own identity while investigating material for this work in Germany, since the person he interviewed expressed agreement with nazi views and more. Yes, British hadn't gone in 1931; but yes, Congress does view the date of their own declaration of India's independence as the date of importance regarding independence of India.

" ... Bose was determined to lead a procession at the head of hundreds of Congress workers, from the Corporation to the nearby Maidan, though it had been banned by the police. A game of cat-and-mouse with the police ensued, with the police eager to arrest him before he could bring out the procession. After being beaten, Bose was arrested, kept incommunicado, and given no food nor medical treatment. Brought before the chief presidency magistrate of Calcutta the following afternoon, he was charged and convicted “of being member of an unlawful assembly, rioting and endangering public safety”.42

"Sentenced to six months’ rigorous imprisonment, Bose was shut away in the Alipore Jail yet again. Meanwhile, Gandhi was moving towards a rapprochement with the government, resulting in the Gandhi-Irwin Pact announced on 5 March, 1931. ... "

Again here Gordon omits mention of nationwide tremendous pressure for Gandhi to negotiate for lives of Bhagat Singh and his group, which he didn't even make a token effort towards, since frankly he wished they'd vanish so he could get on moulding India and history to his single will, and he signed on the dotted line as asked by Viceroy; he got, as reward, a round table conference in London, snide remarks from Winston Churchill and nothing for either India or even Congress.

Having been reprieved by Gandhi, British had by then gone on to execute the revolutionaries on evening prior to set date, contrary to custom of morning execution; with intentions of not letting families have the bodies, they chopped them up and stole by back door - front had families and relatives anxious about what was happening inside - to banks of river and set them on fire, without religious processes of a proper Hindu or Sikh funeral. It was as inhuman a conduct as that by nazi butchers in extermination camps of Germany and Eastern Europe. That the relatives could recover the remains despite all this, wasn't credit to British.

................................................................................................

Finally!

"To Bose, Bengal still had some 800 political prisoners, including many held and not charged and never brought to trial. For Gandhi, they were not the same as his satyagrahis pledged to non-violence. On 23 March, days before the Congress session was to open in Karachi, when India awoke to learn that three political prisoners convicted in the Lahore Conspiracy Case including Bhagat Singh had been swiftly executed, ... "

Swiftly? Does Gordon imply that others are but heredd with slow strokes of knife while executioners st parking with bowed heads?

Gordon lies.

The execution was carried out in secrecy, at nightfall, a few hours prior to the set date, unlike usual practice of doing so at or before sunrise after dawn of the set date, deliberately with a view to cheat families of the dead, depriving them of proper funerals.

" ... many condemned the government, ... "

Did anybody expect kudos for the downright cowardly conduct of British in chopping up the dead and trying to secretly burn them on river bank without proper funerals?

" ... while others blamed Gandhi for not making more effective representations to the government on behalf of the condemned."

He could have saved their lives, but never tried, with merely a " ... some people feel ... no? All right" signing away of clout he had, not because he couldn't have but because he wanted them dead, perhaps more so than British did, so he was seen by Indians as sole bargainer for paltry privileges meted out like one drop of rain a year in Sahara.

................................................................................................

"Bose’s view can be glimpsed from an extract from his address to the All-India Naujawan Bharat Sabha on 27 March, ‘India may have to lose many more sons before she can hope to be free. These recent executions are to me sure indications that there has been no change of heart on the side of the Government and the time for an honourable settlement has not arrived as yet.’44"

He at least acknowledged them as fighters whose lives were sacrificed by them in independence struggle - as, indeed, they had, intentionally, to bring an awakening to India and the world.

Bhagat Singh had intentionally planned the assembly bombing with no one hurt, and instead of escaping thereafter, stood ground and surrendered, just so they'd be heard.

"Bose entered the Congress to the cheers of the young. Unlike his role in the past two Congress sessions, he did not oppose Gandhi on any of the three basic resolutions. Nehru proposed a resolution which Gandhi supported, praising the bravery of the victims, while dissociating the Congress from acts of political violence. What Gandhi mainly desired at this juncture was approval of the agreement he had worked out with the viceroy. This he gained by an overwhelming vote.

"With his compromise efforts backed, Gandhi proposed the Fundamental Rights resolution. It included some twenty items, among them freedom of speech, press, association and no bars to any Indian on account of religion, caste, creed or sex. It backed the right to bear arms and stipulated religious neutrality on the part of the state. It then listed a number of measures which were aimed at helping the poorer classes: a living wage for industrial workers; limited hours and healthy conditions of work; no child labour; and protections for women workers. It also called for a progressive income tax, adult suffrage and free primary education for all. In line with Gandhi’s program it mentioned that there was to be no duty on salt and total prohibition. Usury was to be controlled. Then, hinting at socialism, the resolution specified that the state should control key industrial and mineral resources. This twenty-point program was passed by a large majority."

Didn't British nix all of that, every single one, and welch on all promises they - represented by the then Viceroy - had made before Gandhi had signed, as usual?

"When the Working Committee was announced, Sen Gupta, who had spoken passionately in favor of the Gandhi-Irwin Pact, was on it. Subhas Bose was not. Bose and Gandhi continued on friendly terms, but Bose was still not acceptable in the Congress inner circle. Even Dr B.C. Roy, who had replaced Sen Gupta on the Working Committee when Sen Gupta was imprisoned, was more satisfactory than Bose."

Notice the author's slant against Subhash Chandra Bose in whats supposed to be a biography of him and his brother, and attempt to make readers believe that it's pro Gandhi; it's nothing of the sort - it's merely the authors revenging his own insignificance on someone of a stature he is unable to view.

On another level, a similar attempt is made by another author saying Andes are growing faster and will be taller than Everest in a few million years.

................................................................................................

"Following the Karachi Congress, Bose went on a speaking tour of Sind and the Punjab. In Amritsar on 8 April, he substituted for Gandhi in addressing the Sikh League. Bose assured the Sikhs that all Congress leaders including Gandhi and himself would work for justice for small communities like the Sikhs. But then Gandhi’s stand-in went beyond what the Mahatma would have said to the assembled throng, praising the Sikh youth recently executed by the government: ‘Therefore, (I) appeal to the brave Sikhs to produce more patriots having the courage and (spirit of) sacrifice of Bhagat Singh.’45

"Bose’s call for hundreds of Bhagat Singhs did not go unnoticed. The Home Department in Delhi found it “thoroughly anti-Government and seditious” and wondered whether it was better to jail Bose or allow him freedom to go on quarreling with Sen Gupta and thereby weaken the Congress in Bengal. They decided to leave him free."

Seriously, was Gordon paid by joint kitty of British and Congress to write this book with a slighting of the national hero of India every few sentences?

Has Amazon been duped onto selling a propaganda leaflet at exorbitant prices, seeing as it's an image of a priceless jewel portrayed strewn garbage on it?

"Although the Statesman continued to lump all Congressmen and perpetrators of violence in the same camp, there were differences. For one, Bose was sympathetic to the revolutionaries; Gandhi saw them as being as much his enemies as the Government of India: both furthered violence and brutality; both severed the Indians and their rulers ever more from each other. Gandhi’s aim was to work for India’s eventual freedom and reconstruction through non-violent means which would bring the two sides together and convert the opponent. The Mahatma was convinced that these violent acts by young Indians were not bringing freedom closer and were making it more difficult to convert a ruler whose agents and administrators were being shot in the street or even in their own offices. Gandhi had chosen to make temporary peace, call off civil disobedience and go to London to talk. This certainly did not satisfy the revolutionaries who continued their campaigns of assassination and terror. Gandhi’s British visit scarcely pleased Bose, but he, for the time being, decided to be a good Congress soldier and work within Congress parameters."

That Gandhi was wrong about this, as well as about Hindus massacred by muslims, was proved by subsequent history. British were forced to flee only due to effect of Subhash Chandra Bose and his INA; s for muslims, they massacred Hindus and Sikhs with impunity, until Hindus decided to not be Gandhian. By then, however, muslim jihadists - through the world, but centered and spreading chiefly from Pakistan - were used to assaulting everywhere around the globe: Israel, USSR, US, UK, France, Germany, Australia, Canada, and not only India.

Only Burma has stopped them cold, so far. China has been a step ahead, banning their creed and holding untold numbers in "re-education" facilities, banning all but Chinese flags on mosques, and more.

................................................................................................

"It must be noted, however, that Gandhi’s criticisms of terrorist acts and Bose’s own, do read differently. Gandhi is absolutely opposed to terrorism for violence is evil and evil means cannot lead to beneficial ends. Bose, like his mentor Aurobindo Ghose, is against acts of terrorism because they do not work, they do not “achieve their objective…expeditiously”. If he had sufficient force to oppose the Raj on equal terms, would he not then use it?"

Gordon risks being reminded that, if resorting to non-violence, Israel wouldn't last the six day war, with Arab nations determined to drown Jews in Mediterranean as per their declaration and promise to their (invited) Palestinian refugees. For that matter, the jews and other civilians exterminated by nazis WERE nonviolent for most part, all but the few in Warsaw ghetto uprising which was towards the end; and the victims weren't adult males alone, but of every age and both genders.

What makes him think British were different except in degrees of inhuman conduct?

And Gordon is wrong about Gandhi, too. His behaviour regarding anyone in his way to monopoly of power or status wasn't humane or decent or courteous but was short of every possible natural or friendly conduct, with chiefly manipulation and verbal violence as weapons. A father refusing to support a child cannot be accused of cutting its throat, but isn't a decent man all the same.

However, chief fault of Gordon here is a severe lack of perception in assertion that Gandhi believed in non-violence and wasn't merely using it as necessary political tool. That's false.

His assertion that Hindu and Sikh refugees from Pakistan be forced back to face their murderers with love, and meanwhile be evicted from the only shelter they had found onto streets in bitter winter cold of Delhi in January, just so he could enjoy a festival wasn't nonviolent.

Nor so was his ousting of Subhash Chandra Bose and later Patel, against all democracy or legitimacy, from congress president's position. Or his approval of execution of Bhagat Singh and his group, while refraining from denouncing British for brutal death of Lala Lajpat Rai and not even going on a strike as protest. Or his treatment of his first-born, stopping every endeavour of the young man to force him into following his father meekly lifelong.

Inhuman, yes, manipulative, yes, single minded pursuit of power at all costs, yes, but non-violence, that was merely his tool, limited to physical but but not applicable to verbal sphere.

................................................................................................

"Gandhi did not achieve success abroad in ways that were satisfactory to the Congress. ... "

It was amply satisfactory to British, of course. They'd duped India with a trip to London for a handful of Indians, and nothing else given away, although promises had been made before Gandhi signed.

" ... On 5 December, he left Britain and on 28 December, landed in Bombay, where Subhas Bose was among the Congress leaders present to greet him. In a speech to the Commonwealth of India League immediately after returning, Gandhi again criticised the Bengal Ordinance and the punishment of a large population “because a few persons ran amuck”.50 On 29 December, he discussed the Bengal and national situation with Bose, who had been saying all fall that the Congress needed a plan of action if no results were forthcoming from Gandhi’s London visit.

"The Congress Working Committee decided that civil disobedience would have to be resumed if the Government of India did not make any positive conciliatory moves. A small news item in Liberty on 3 January indicated the direction in which the Government of India had decided to move: ‘Mr Subhas Chandra Bose who left for Calcutta this afternoon was arrested on the train at Kalyan, thirty miles from Bombay, under Regulation III of 1818. He was taken by the same train to an unknown destination.’ 51"

Notice the location of arrest, a smaller railway junction instead of Mumbai or Calcutta. Cowards much?

"On 4 January, with the Congress moving to civil disobedience, the government arrested Gandhi, Patel, Prasad, Nehru, and many other Congressmen in Bombay, Calcutta and Delhi. Four further ordinances were promulgated to facilitate this repression and all Congress organisations were declared unlawful. Although civil disobedience was resumed in a few isolated areas such as the eastern parts of Midnapore in Bengal, the government effectively deprived the Congress of many of its leaders for some time to come. On 6 February, 1932, another small item appeared in Liberty concerning its managing director:

"Sjt. Sarat Chandra Bose, Bar-at-Law and Alderman of the Calcutta Corporation, was arrested on Thursday night at Jharia, where he went on a professional call, under Regulation III of 1818, and taken by Bombay Mail to Seoni sub-jail, where Sjt. Subhas Chandra Bose has been kept detained under the same Regulation.52"

" ... the prisoner was never allowed to know precisely why he was being held."

Exactly like hundreds of others that Sukhdev had written to Gandhi about in his open letter before his execution.

Fruits of Gandhi's refusal to recognise that other freedom fighters were just as valid as his own self?

................................................................................................

" ... did he intend to close his eyes to the brutalities of these regimes? Did he believe that the positive lesson of these regimes could be separated from the bestialities, and then transferred to India?"

He had certainly seen brutalities perpetrated by a supposedly democratic UK in India against Indians, and also might equally have been aware of brutalities in US as described by Upton Sinclair and others; in all probability, je did not believe that brutalities were indivisible from political systems other than capitalist democracy, as US commonly hold almost as a creed, but connected it with other factors, such as philosophy and religion, psychology and racial characteristics. He'd not be wrong if so.

................................................................................................

"From Rome, Bose embarked on a second tour during the first half of 1934, which took him to Switzerland, Germany, Czechoslovakia, and then back to Italy, Hungary, Rumania, Turkey, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia. In his essay, “India Abroad”, written during his European stay, Bose had argued: ‘Everywhere there is a colossal ignorance about India—but at the same time there is a general feeling of sympathy for, and interest in, India.’21 Feeling that “Indian propaganda abroad was absolutely necessary for our national advancement”, his objectives—and those that he felt were necessary for Indian propaganda in general—were the following:

"1. To counteract false propaganda about India.

"2. To enlighten the world about the true conditions obtaining in India today.

"3. To acquaint the world with the positive achievements of the Indian people in every sphere of human activity"

"To reach these goals, Bose wanted Indian representatives at every international congress, positive articles about India in every European language, prominent Indians travelling abroad and speaking about their country, the development of films and slides on India, the invitation of foreign scholars to India, and the creation of mixed societies of Indians and foreigners in every country to foster closer cultural and commercial relations.

"Bose realised that he did not have the resources of the British government. But he did his best to establish the kind of cultural and commercial associations which might grow, endure and contribute to long-term links. He also wanted active Indian student associations wherever possible and he was in constant touch with Indian students wherever he went. He saw students and their training in science, engineering, medicine and other subjects as the preparation not only for their individual futures, but for the future of India, and Bose talked to European industrialists, businessmen, and officials about internships for Indians with relevant advanced degrees.

"Bose also returned to Germany. In a lengthy memorandum to the German Foreign Office councillor, written on 5 April, 1934, Bose sharply criticised negative aspects of German-Indian relations since the National Socialists had come to power. He said that he did this in the hope of improving relations. Of particular concern were derogatory articles in the German press and hostile statements by German leaders about India, and Nazi race propaganda as it impinged on Indians in Germany. He wrote:

"The most serious factor threatening friendly relations between Germany and India is the unfortunate effect produced by the present race propaganda in Germany.…the general attitude of the people towards Indians is not as friendly…as it formerly was…in Munchen…, Indian students have been even pelted with stones…the draft legislation embodied in the National Sozialistische Strafrecht published by the Ministry of Justice states that legislation against Jews, Negroes and coloured people is under consideration…. This draft…has…roused considerable anxiety and resentment among Indians.22"

"Bose insisted that relations between Germany and India would only improve if the negative statements were stopped and the racial legislation shelved. ... Of course, in 1934, Bose did not yet know how the Nazis would work out their program, particularly the Final Solution to the Jewish question. He cultivated a personal friendship with a highly intelligent Jewish woman, Kitty Kurti, and her husband in Berlin. Bose warned them to leave Germany in the mid-1930s as conditions for Jews darkened in Germany. Another Jewish friend, Helen Ashkanazy, president of several women’s groups, also had to leave Austria before the decade was over. Even with these Jewish friends and his understanding of Nazi racism, he was willing to work with the devil in order to free India."

"After a tour of the Balkans, Bose was back in Vienna by June 1934, engaged with a supportive circle of friends who noted that he had only one interest which consumed him: the liberation of India from British rule. He collected books on India in French and German which he could not read, and most of what he could read was about world politics as it related to India. He did investigate European politics and watched European politicians at work to see what this might teach him vis-à-vis the British. He looked into municipal experiments in European cities, so that he might get ideas about the improvement of Calcutta. ... "

"As Bose returned to Vienna in June 1934, he had secured a contract from a British publisher to write a book on Indian politics with a deadline later in the year. In Vienna he looked for a secretary, a trustworthy person who could help him with the preparation of the book. Through an Indian doctor, he was introduced to Emilie Schenkl, a young Viennese woman. She was born on 26 December, 1910, to an Austrian Catholic family. Her paternal grandfather was a shoemaker, and her father, a veterinarian. Her father was not eager for her to have a formal education, but late in World War I, he permitted her to attend primary school and then begin secondary school. Displeased that she was not learning grammar well, he sent her to a nunnery for four years to continue her education. She thought briefly of becoming a nun, but eventually dropped the idea. She attended two more schools for a year each and completed her education when she was twenty."

"Bose did try to come to terms with Gandhi’s hold on the masses, which none had been able to challenge or break. Bose wrote:

"As we have already seen, a large and influential section of the intelligentsia was against him, but this opposition was gradually worn down through the enthusiastic support given by the masses. Consciously or unconsciously, the Mahatma fully exploited the mass psychology of the people, just as Lenin did the same thing in Russia, Mussolini in Italy and Hitler in Germany. But in doing so, the Mahatma was using a weapon which was sure to recoil on his head. He was exploiting many of the weak traits in the character of his countrymen which had accounted for India’s downfall to a large extent. After all, what has brought about India’s downfall in the material and political sphere? It is her inordinate belief in fate and in the supernatural—her indifference to modern scientific development—her backwardness in the science of modern warfare, the peaceful contentment engendered by her latter-day philosophy and adherence to Ahimsa (Nonviolence) carried to the most absurd length. In 1920, when the Congress began to preach the political doctrine of non-co-operation, a large number of Congressmen who had accepted the Mahatma not merely as a political leader but also as a religious preceptor—began to preach the cult of the new Messiah.24"

"Bose further condemned numerous blunders of the Mahatma, especially Gandhi’s lack of planning for the second Round Table Conference. At the root of Gandhi’s errors, Bose declared, was confusion between the Mahatma’s two roles as political leader and world preacher. ... "

Gordon comments here -

" ... Perhaps Bose never thought to consider that Gandhi’s very success may have resulted in part from his effective fusion of religion and politics, or that his own popularity in Bengal may have been related to a religious aura that surrounded him because of his sacrifices and his years of imprisonment. ... "

As to the latter part, Subhash Chandra Bose wasn't alone, there were hundreds jailed by British at any given time; few arise in Indian hearts to statures that Subhash Chandra Bose, Bhagat Singh and his group, and few others did.

As to Gandhi’s success, Gordon is only correct at a preliminary level, but it's best answered by a story about a bear by (Thurber?), who stops drinking and tries to prove it by bending backwards too far, falling as a result- as in case of Gandhi, who argued that a tiger can eat only so many cows. As Koenraad Elst points out, the tiger might be satiated for the day but no tiger has ever turned vegetarian; and as anyone can see, the argument has no consolation for cows, and the experimenting theorist isn't losing anything in preaching nonviolence to cows.

" ... what was to become manifest was that his outspoken criticism of colleagues was not to do him any good in the future."

Gordon's shortness of vision is breathtaking - he's measuring a Himalayan peak from a Mediterraenean beach or a Caribbean one, and finding it shorter than the palm tree he's relaxing under!

................................................................................................

And here's evidence of the said short vision -

"On the ideological side, Bose seemed to create confusion by running fascism and communism together. He considered himself part of the left or radical tendency of the nationalist movement, but the kind words for fascism were anathema to most of the other members of the Indian left. ... "

Most people of allied nations, UK, US, even France, at that time had only admiration for the efficient and shining Germany and Italy, and a horror of bolshevism since such a philosophy threatened private property and individual rights and opportunities; any citizen of US, however poor, would and does feel threatened by a thinking that demands sacrifice for greater good, and votes for less taxes, never mind health care or education. As for fascism, people always justified it with mention of trains running on time. Wealthy socialites of US of nineteen-thirties were most happy and impressed by the tall, blond, polite young men they invited to tea, who were soft-spoken in their pleading for Germany being right.

And the fact that US or at least CIA helped far too many war criminals to escape, not only to destinations across South Atlantic but to US too, helping them settle, isn't a secret any more.

As for leftists in India, few like Bose or Bhagat Singh and his group were or are independent thinkers - most tow a line, amounting to quite a circus when Hitler’s pact with Stalin was made known, and another when Hitler broke it to attack Russia.

But independent of who else said or did what, Subhash Chandra Bose was always thinking about what would be needed for and best for independence of India and future of the nation. And if he envisioned a combination of all poor fed, clothed, housed and educated well, paid fairly, and all this combined with a spic-and-span shining nation with everything running on time, well, that was utopia.

He did protest and denounce the negatives he saw, and publicly too. Unlike Gordon, who's refrained from mentioning why Bhagat Singh and his group shot a British policeman after death of Lala Lajpat Rai, and why Bhagat Singh deliberately made the plan to throw the bomb in the assembly with care taken to not hurt anybody. He mentions Simon Commission, but not the beating of an elderly man who died as a consequence.

................................................................................................

"Among other matters, Nehru was concerned with Muslims’ objection to the song, “Bande Mataram” from Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s novel Ananda Math, and widely used as a nationalist anthem. It was a Bengali, Hindu song which the Muslim League said the Congress was “… foisting … as the national anthem upon the country in callous disregard of the feelings of Muslims”.18 Following Bose’s advice, Nehru arranged to come early to the AICC session that was to be held in Calcutta and discuss the matter with Rabindranath Tagore. Subhas Bose, though nationalist and Bengali, was not dogmatic about the use of the song. Later a song of Tagore’s, which was clearly secular and had none of the overtones of “Bande mataram”, was transliterated into Hindi and used as the national anthem."

This argument has continued, pretending that it's about muslims being not allowed to worship Motherland; reality is that it translates as salute, not worship, and muslims do salute a million things, chiefly other men; the real objection, which they are unwilling to explain, is about the "Mother" bit, Abrahamic-III being more virulent than Abrahamic-II in branding female as evil originating from satan; but if the image and word had been, a la German concept, "fatherland" and father figure, there'd be far less opposition, while as it is, it's hysterical.

And this is borne out by the finally fixed national anthem, incidentally chosen by Subhash Chandra Bose and sung first in Germany - it speaks of victory to "God of India's Destiny", and of whole of India (including also Sindh) singing in worship thereof; but it's a male noun in Sanskrit, understood throughout India as such. So there have been no objections.

................................................................................................

"The victory for a candidate opposing his own choice, however, awakened Gandhi from his somnolence and he issued a hostile and self-accusatory statement two days later. In part, the Mahatma said:

More than anything, that last bit -

"The minority may not obstruct on any account. They must abstain when they cannot cooperate."

- is the key to what manipulative wheel Subhash Chandra Bose was next racked over by Gandhi and his group.

That makes one suspect that Bengali common accusations against Gandhi and congress, of deliberately wrecking and dividing Bengal, aren't without foundation.

Nehru accuses Bose of being too keen on being reelected, although when it came to his own being not elected, he informed Gandhi he'd leave congress, so it's an unfair accusation against someone younger whod worked ceaselessly and suffered far more from British brutality.

................................................................................................

"Just before the AICC was to convene in Calcutta on April 29, 1939, Bose and Nehru met, a meeting Nehru later said was quite amicable. Gandhi also met with Bose just before the AICC conclave, but nothing was resolved. When the AICC met, Bose described his inability to work out a compromise formula with Gandhi and laid a letter to this effect from Gandhi before the assembly. Then he tendered his own resignation, saying, in part:

"Mahatmaji’s advice to me is that I should myself form a Working Committee leaving out the members who resigned from the previous Working Committee.… If I formed such a committee.…I would not be able to report to you that the Committee commanded his implicit confidence.

"…my own conviction is that in view of the critical times that are ahead of us in India and abroad, we should have a composite Cabinet commanding the confidence of the largest number of Congress possible…

"I have been pondering…what I could do to help the A.I.C.C. in solving the problem…I feel that my presence as President at this juncture may possibly be a sort of obstacle or handicap in its path.…After mature deliberation, therefore, and in an entirely helpful spirit I am placing my resignation in your hands.24"

................................................................................................

"Within a week of his resignation as Congress president, Subhas Bose announced in Calcutta on 3 May, 1939, the formation of a new grouping within the Congress to be called the “Forward Bloc”. He said that the object was to “rally all radical and anti-Imperialist progressive elements in the country on the basis of a minimum programme, representing the greatest common measure of agreement among radicals of all shades of opinion”.28 ... "

" ... In early July, Bose named the members of the Forward Bloc Working Committee, and by early August, the Forward Bloc had a weekly paper of the same name, for which Bose regularly wrote editorials."

Gordon resorts to snide comments about Bose, again.

................................................................................................

This is amazing insight. He'd showed that also in writing a salutary piece about Sri Aurobindo.

................................................................................................

Gordon titles the chapter dealing with Subhash Chandra Bose escaping British house arrest with spies set on him, and crossing over from Calcutta to Kabul via Peshawar and thence via Moscow to Berlin, "Axis Collaborator? Subhas Bose in Europe, 1941-43"!

Which idiot suggested the first part of title for this chapter, one wonders.

A subject of a repressive regime, treated brutally by their throwing him in prison for years, repeatedly, exiled for several years, not any part of British government - and Gordon seriously thinks he could "collaborate" with Germans? To what, celebrate Hindu festivals?

There was only a one way street, them helping India, if any transaction were in question.

" ... Jawaharlal Nehru wrote in his diary on 11 November, 1941:

Gordon ends this chapter, that by any decent author is a thrilling account of Subhash Chandra Bose escaping for not only life but for struggle for independence of India, with a tirade blaming Subhash Chandra Bose for imprisonment of Sarat Bose, and questions if the failure of the brothers was responsible for communal enmity!

If only he'd read Ragnarok by Ignatius Donnelly, he could have piled on and blamed Subhash Chandra Bose for the Great Chicago Fire! Or even for Ragnarok. As it is, we're surprised he's retsrained enough to not blame him for WWII or any specific invasions by Hitler.

So far.

................................................................................................

"Most of the German Foreign Office group felt an intense dislike for Schenkl. For her part, Emilie Schenkl did not like Trott whom she accused of aristocratic snobbery. Whatever the personal sensitivities involved, there also was a strong class bias at work. The Foreign Office officials were highly educated and had aristocratic and upper-middle-class backgrounds. They looked down on Schenkl, a less educated lower-middle-class secretary from Vienna whom they saw living and eating much better than they were in the midst of the war. One woman agent, Dr Freda Kretschmer, assigned by the Foreign Office to watch Fraulein Schenkl and ensure that she kept clear of politics, developed a loathing for Bose’s “personal companion”, as she is called in many Foreign Office files, and claims that the relationship had a very harmful effect on Bose.8 Yet the relationship—which began in the 1930s—continued and deepened with the pregnancy of Emilie Schenkl in 1942. On 29 November, 1942, Fraulein Schenkl gave birth in Vienna to a daughter, whom they would name, Anita Bose. Bose acknowledged his family. ... "

Gordon makes yet another snide comment, about "woman he chose" alienating nazis whose help he needed. Did Gordon expect Subhash Chandra Bose to find a convenient German aristocrat wife, for the purpose of his work in Berlin? Is that normal in US or in West, expecting men to get fresh wives for every trip, however important?

One recalls Nancy Reagan hanging around with US TV crews, disbelief in reality making her stay on, expecting to be invited for wedding breakfast after wedding of Diana. Would that be failure of US, not having a president married to someone who'd have been invited by the Queen?

................................................................................................

"Subhas Bose, however, had left another legacy to his Congress colleagues: the call for a mass struggle against the Raj. With the debacle of the Cripps Mission, and little British interest in conciliating nationalist India to the war effort, Gandhi was making his own way towards a mass movement against the Raj in wartime. As a Forward Bloc leader wrote at the time: ‘Mahatma Gandhi and the Congress Working Committee are now following in the footsteps of Subhas Chandra Bose and the All-India Forward Bloc.’43 Gandhi did not want to admit that he was now taking up Bose’s line. ... "

" ... I have made up my mind that it would be a good thing if a million people were shot in a brave and non-violent rebellion against British rule… ... "

Gandhi was, as Koenraad Elst points out, generous with lives of others; this was all the more so when Hindus were massacred in millions. He demanded that refugees fleeing massacre be forced back across the border by government of India, not because India was too poor but because it was against his ideals to let Hindus escape massacre by muslims.

................................................................................................

" ... At dawn of 8 February, 1943, Bose and Hasan climbed into German submarine U-180, manned by four officers and fifty-one sailors. It was a bigger sub of the 9D type, and had a special E motor to enable it to go faster. It departed the following day for its long journey through dangerous waters around the British Isles, and south through the Atlantic. Not only were the waters infested with enemy ships and some patrolled by enemy planes, but the U-boat sent the usual radio messages which were in all likelihood decoded by the British. Ronald Lewin, an expert on Allied intelligence in the war, wrote:

"…his [Bose’s] trip was not so secret as was assumed. Special messages were transmitted to him by radio to keep him abreast of the nationalist situation. Intercepted and deciphered, these told the Allies not only about his presence aboard but also a great deal about the Free India Movement and its membership.57

"Though it is very likely that the British knew of Bose’s trip from the Japanese diplomatic messages which were deciphered by the Americans and passed on to them, and from their own cracking of the German cipher, the British either could not or did not choose to intercept the submarine. Indeed, it is not clear whether or not they had the appropriate air and sea forces to do so.

"The U-180 was not closely pursued or attacked and on one occasion, on 18 April, 1943, it sank the British merchant ship Corbis. Everything was done in close quarters and, according to Hasan, everything stank of diesel oil. Bose worked hard, preparing changes for a new edition of The Indian Struggle, and making detailed plans for East and Southeast Asia activities.58

"On 24 April, 1943, they made their connection with the Japanese submarine 1-29 in the Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar. The seas were rough and the transfer took some time. Bose now became a guest of the Imperial Japanese Navy. When he made his choice to go to Europe, Germany and Italy were at war with the British Empire and Japan was not. Had he been in Southeast Asia in early 1942 when the Japanese were on the offensive, he might have persuaded them to push on into India then. A year had passed during which the Japanese had not made moves towards India and were feeling the weight of American muscle against them. Just as Bose was getting set to journey to the East, the Germans suffered their greatest defeat at Stalingrad. The momentum of the war was shifting against the Axis powers. But Bose was now closer to the Indian troops and Indian community who could give him the manpower and material backing he had been seeking for a political-military venture into India from outside."

................................................................................................

"Finally, on 10 June, 1943, Bose had his first meeting with Tojo. The prime minister, a reserved man of a rather narrowly military and nationalistic outlook, was impressed, and became his firm supporter. Tojo assured Bose that he unreservedly backed Indian independence. Bose wanted a military push across the border from Burma into India. Tojo hedged. Tojo knew that the Allies had been sending their Chindit raiders into Burma since February and were moving against Japanese positions in the Arakan. In the Pacific, the Japanese were beginning to lose land battles and the Allied counter-offensive called “Cartwheel” was on the drawing board. But at a session of the Diet on 16 June that Bose attended, Tojo said, ‘We firmly resolve that Japan will do everything possible to help Indian independence.’5"

"The steps taken by Bose indicate the shape he wished for an independent India. One of his innovations in the INA, and eventually in the provisional government, had to do with the role of women. For two decades he had wanted to make Indian women full partners in the struggle for independence. Now Bose proposed a women’s regiment trained to fight alongside Indian men, also believing that seeing Indian women fighting at their side, the men would fight even more fiercely. He found some remarkable women who were willing to participate. In Singapore, a young Indian doctor Lakshmi Swaminathan (also written Swaminadhan), who had been active in the women’s section of the IIL, met him for a lengthy discussion on 12 July. She recounted years later:

"He frankly told me that it was his ambition and dream to form a regiment of women who would be willing to take up arms and fight just as the men…he asked me straight, ‘Would you volunteer yourself for such a fighting unit?’ and I said, ‘Yes.’ Then he said, ‘Do you think that you can get a hundred other women from Malaya to do it?’ I said, ‘Hundred is no number, I think we should try and get at least five thousand women and if it is gone about in a proper manner, I think we will be able to do it.’12"

" ... Japanese agreed to vacate a training base for the women, who were trained there by male members of the Azad Hind Fauj. They eventually numbered about 1,000, of whom the less suited to fight were assigned to nursing and support duties. The most able became NCOs. They were all sent later to the Burma front. When Bose formed his provisional government a few months later, he appointed Lakshmi Swaminathan to be minister for women’s affairs."

"Capt. Lakshmi described the impact of this first interview:

"When I came out of that meeting, I would say that I was completely awestruck because I could have never imagined such a man who had such a big vision and yet who in himself was very simple…His utter, absolute sincerity struck me most and I felt that this man would never take a wrong step and that one could trust him completely and have the utmost confidence in him.16"

................................................................................................

" ... great tragedy was unfolding in the summer and fall of 1943: the Bengal Famine. This greatest famine of 20th-century South Asia cost millions of Bengali lives."

Gordon here quotes British propaganda, lies.

Fact is, much like the so called Irish potato famine, this too was caused by British stealing local harvest for themselves, leaving poor subjects to die.

Gordon quotes fraudulent propaganda by British.

" ... There was ineffectual handling of the grave situation at every level of government. Relief efforts were also inadequate and neighbouring provinces refused to rush to Bengal’s aid."

Is there a pretense here that any of it was not controlled completely by British? That's fraudulent too.

"Subhas Bose, in Southeast Asia, made an offer of grain supplies:

"At the end of the year, Sarat Bose and the entire Bose family had to bear with renewed sorrow when his mother Prabhabati died at the age of sixty-six. As his mother was near the end, Sarat Bose requested permission to see her; he was refused. He was also denied leave to participate in the ceremonial rites. He wrote to a friend:

" ... The only request she ever made to the authorities was to permit me to come to her bedside…even that was turned down…28"

" ... Subhas Bose had been in exile at the time of the death of both parents. ... "

................................................................................................

"As monsoon broke in 1942, advancing Japanese forces had reached the Chindwin River in west-central Burma, near the Indian frontier. Here they halted as the depleted and demoralised British and Indian troops and Indian refugees from Burma dragged themselves across the mountains into Manipur and Assam. The British feared an imminent attack on India against weak defenses. ... "

" ... In December 1943, Tojo finally gave approval for the campaign.

"Meanwhile, Bose returned to Singapore in late 1943, where he pressed for a prominent role for his forces in any move across the Indian frontier. As in Germany, Bose made every effort to build a unified Indian identity. He wanted his men and women to be Indians first: to work, eat, talk—using Hindustani, to be written in Roman script—and fight together. ... "

" ... Since the Japanese were overextended and starting to lose supplies, weapons, and air and shipping capacity heavily in other sectors of the war ... Bose tried other arrangements. The key operative in this procurement effort was Zora Singh, a native Punjabi who had been raised in Rangoon. He was put in charge of supplies for the army and the civilians who had moved with Bose to Burma in the beginning of 1944. Some provisions were sent from Singapore, but medicine supply was very short, and had to be obtained for gold (collected from the Indian community) on the black market. He tried to get this medicine to the frontline INA troops. Later on he traded liquor to the Japanese for engine oil. Although Mr Singh was resourceful at his job, the shortage of supplies remained a major hurdle for the INA."

"Bose had made a close connection to Gen. Mutaguchi, who had favored a plan by which the Japanese would drive deep into India, and had found a kindred spirit in Bose. ... Bose wanted the INA to have a vital function, including a sector of the front in which they would be the spearhead.

"When Shah Nawaz Khan—commanding the Nehru Regiment, one of the guerrilla regiments which constituted the First division of the INA ... was ordered to help in the assault on Kohima which was already faltering, and when they arrived, the Japanese were retreating. Near Kohima, in India, Shah Nawaz’s men raised the Indian tricolor. The INA had entered India, but only briefly."

" ... Indian troops fighting with the British had a long period of indoctrination in their imperial mission. They were kept from knowledge of the nationalist rationale of the INA by the British “policy of silence” which blacked out information about it in India. Bose knew that the British were engaged in anti-INA propaganda, and could do little about it."

Gordon is quoting British sources. Facts on ground were different. When the INA troops shouted across, the Indian troops facing were surprised, responding to the call for fighting Gordon a chance to free India. This was the effect Subhash Chandra Bose intended and expected. "

" ... Bose had worked assiduously to raise the morale of his men for the coming fray. The evidence of British intelligence reports, Japanese military reports, and memoirs of participants on the INA side demonstrate that before they were demoralised by British dominance in this campaign, the INA men fought courageously; but their patriotic fervour could scarcely make a dent on the military conduct of the campaign. For example, in an account prepared by the Intelligence Department of the Government of India, it is noted, “A measure of courage cannot be denied to the leaders of INA front-line units in Burma in 1945 when…they faced up to British equipment, tanks, guns and aircraft with rifles and bullock-carts and empty stomachs.”33"

Gordon is of course quoting British government of India, at best condescending, at their normal adept at lying, theft, and racist, abusive, brutal conduct. Admission of courage of INA by them, therefore, must translate as British surprise at INA giving a toughbattle.

As for tide turning, it's not a secret that that was due to US being in the war, and slowly because US was hugely with British. It's only Russian troops that fought alone, with not even a western front until quite late.

" ... Shah Nawaz recounts that about 70 percent of his men were stricken ill; medicines, already in short supply, ran out, and many of his men died in the jungle. The rate of such illness and death on the British side fell appreciably from their 1942 rates; not so on the Japanese side. A great majority of the Japanese and INA troops that had braved the Indo-Burma frontier died in the fighting for Imphal and Kohima, or during the retreat."

Shah Nawaz Khan had later turned for sake of favours from government and helped propagate a lie suitable to British and Nehru governments, and his writing about INA isn't likely to be untainted. Those who did not turn were hounded by both governments, well into '70s, Era of government of the daughters.

"After the monsoon hit, the Japanese finally decided that they had to retreat from the Imphal plain and the neighborhood of Kohima. Bose resisted the order to retreat and said he wanted his men to stay and fight to the last. Shah Nawaz explained:

"Netaji was supremely confident of our victory. He said, ‘Even if the Axis powers lay down their arms, we must continue our struggle. There is no end to our struggle until the last British quits the shores of our country.’ He was of the opinion that the British should not be allowed to advance or break through our front, even if all the I.N.A. soldiers were killed. What he wanted most was that the I.N.A. “shaheeds” should leave behind such a legend and tradition of heroism that future generations of Indians would be proud of them.35"

................................................................................................

"In the end, Bose accepted the order for retreat, but wanted his men to continue fighting the enemy as well as they could while so doing. For the better part of a year, during the second half of 1944 and the first half of 1945, the Japanese and the INA retreated down through Central Burma to southern Burma and then through Thailand back to Malaya and Singapore. ... "

"As Bose reflected on the retreat:

"We started the operations too late. The monsoon was disadvantageous to us…In the Kaladan Sector, we routed the enemy and advanced. In Tiddim we advanced, in Palel and Kohima also we advanced. In the Haka Sector we held them. And all this in spite of the numerical superiority that the enemy had, plus equipment and rations…We have received our baptism of fire…36"

"In a post-war report of the Government of Japan on the alliance with the INA, the author compared the Indian response favourably with the treason of Burmese nationalist Aung San, who turned his forces against the Japanese in the spring of 1945: ‘When we compare this with the INA led by Bose which fought to the last even after the Imphal operations and regardless of the very adverse turn of events, how can we help loving the INA with all our heart?’37 ... "

"During his few weeks in Japan, Bose met with top Japanese military officials and the new prime minister, and went to see the dying Rash Behari Bose and the dismissed Prime Minister Tojo. He also visited a group of Indian teenagers, his cadets receiving Japanese military training. ... Bose returned via Shanghai to Burma near the end of 1944. When Bose returned to Rangoon, a War Council to direct INA operations was chosen, and recruiting efforts were redoubled, so that the INA reached about 50,000. Bose also broadcast on the radio nearly every day exhorting Indians in Southeast Asia and those who could hear him in India to support the campaign. Carrying out the agreement reached in Tokyo, a new Japanese ambassador was dispatched to Rangoon ... "

................................................................................................

This chapter, even more than others, is littered with obvious efforts by Gordon to throw as much verbal garbage heaped on Subhash Chandra Bose as he could source; since INA prisoners of war were treated by the British and subsequently by immediately following Indian governments with anything but honour, this wasn't difficult; a few were, in addition to British (who were smarting at one man, an Indian, achieving this tremendous feat), willing to comply.

The real test is the number of INA and Japanese who were, forever after, willing to hold to the pact they made with Subhash Chandra Bose and the elaborate play covering his exit.

" ... S.A. Ayer wrote:

"…he was a democrat at heart and a dictator in effect…he was conscientious and fastidious in his democratic ways, and yet I know in my heart of hearts that he had his own way every time…He did high-powered thinking, planning and working out of the minutest details…occasionally sounding his “inner cabinet” on broad policy and details…he would take his own time to look at his plans and details from every possible angle…he would come to the Cabinet meeting or meeting of his Military High Command fully prepared to explain, patiently…the why and the wherefore of his main idea, listen attentively to the differing viewpoints of his colleagues, answer every one of the objections…41"

" ... Sahgal has argued that:

"He made it clear…that it was for the people of Free India to decide freely the form of government they wanted to have. There was no question of imposing the will of say Subhas Chandra Bose himself or the groups of people who would come with him…from private conversations and discussions with him, one could gather that his idea was more for a presidential form of government than a parliamentary form of government. There again, his idea for a presidential form of government was not a dictatorship but an elected government.42"

"Sahgal and others close to Bose during the war have objected to the label of fascist or dictator. Instead Bose was the unquestioned leader of the movement for many Indians in Southeast Asia. He had been summoned to the region by the IIL. Sivaram, another critic and friend of A.M. Nair, has mentioned that Bose saw himself as a “man of destiny”.43 This, too, may have been true, but this linked into the desire of the Indian community and INA men who called for Bose to rush to East Asia and take charge in 1942. He was a controversial figure in India, but a man of political standing in the nationalist movement, and, furthermore, had escaped British control and was available. Bose would not refuse any call to leadership from a constituency of the people of India."

Gordon is lying in effect, in saying "He was a controversial figure in India", which is only true of those unwilling to admit truth of Subhash Chandra Bose because they saw him as the man masses would see as greater, which must impede their own hold on power. As Gandhi reportedly said to Nehru after independence, if Subhash Chandra Bose returned, he'd take away the power from all of them - and this, because people were sure to prefer him.

Hence the persecution of INA and Bose clan by the government of India well into eighties, combined with a determinationto wipe out memory of his life and existence, in all but name. It didn't succeed even then, as Gordon knew first hand. Hence this work to throw garbage, pretending to be a biography. Commissioned by dynasty?

................................................................................................

" ... Aung San, encouraged by the British, turned his Burma National Army against his former allies, the Japanese."

Subsequent history of the land, then, has its roots there, in that turncoat act.

" ... Shah Nawaz Khan, Sahgal and Dhillon—these three were later tried together for treason—all say most of their men fought valiantly and that many died during the long retreat. Shah Nawaz and his men, overwhelmed by the odds, finally surrendered in May that year ... "

"During the retreat, Bose, with his bodyguards and military advisers, came under fire several times. He took extraordinary chances, exposing himself to enemy attack on several occasions. ... Shah Nawaz Khan wrote: ‘ He was absolutely fearless and did not seem to care for his life, or comfort. He seemed to lead a charmed life for I have personally seen him miss death by inches several times…’45 ... "

Gordon has paragraphs above littered with his usual garbage, such as questioning whether Subhash Chandra Bose wanted to die. Is there a limit to indecency a racist exhibits in dealing with a great person who isn't what West fraudulently terms "white" (presumably no bride of that race ever looked naked at her wedding in churchjust by wearing a white bridal attire, or was there one?) - but Gordon forgets Asian roots of his race, the very cause of antisemitism in West.

"Bose relaxed by reading about the Irish struggle against British rule. Major Ihaho Takahashi, of the Hikari Kikan, reported what Bose said to an INA commander:

"Looking at the hills, Bose said, ‘The book on Irish independence says that, at the beginning of the campaign…all the patriots were killed…But after some decades, people appeared who followed the line of those patriots and finally won independence. Now we face (such a) situation. And I am prepared to die in my last fight with my soldiers of the first division against the British-Indian army.’ He called divisional commander Kiani and said clearly, ‘I will die here.’47

"Takahashi and Kiani argued with him. Then Takahashi telegraphed the Hikari Kikan headquarters in Rangoon and had them send Bose a telegram urging him to withdraw to Rangoon. Takahashi said if Bose was to offer his life, then he too would have to offer his. Finally, Bose agreed that he should not die uselessly in a local skirmish against vastly superior forces and deprive the movement of its leader.

"In April, the Japanese in Rangoon told Bose that they were withdrawing and that he must too. Reluctantly, he agreed to withdraw with his forces to Bangkok, and then Malaya, as the British pressed hard on their heels."

................................................................................................

" ... For Jinnah, there was to be one Hindustan and one Pakistan. However, for Abul Hashim, general secretary of the League organisation in Bengal, it was not as simple: his version, presented in ‘Let Us Go to War,’ (1945) stated:

"Free India was never one country. Free Indians were never one nation…Liberated India must necessarily be…a subcontinent having complete independence for every nation inhabiting it…Muslim India to a man will resist all attempts of the Congress to establish dictatorship in India…Pakistan means freedom for all, Muslims and Hindus alike. And the Muslims of India are determined to achieve it, if necessary through a bloodbath…51"

Funny, it doesn't occur to them that a retreat into past need not stop at a millennium prior but could very well be at a date five, ten, twenty millennia before their day.

" ... The communists, following Stalin’s view on the nationality question, maintained that India was composed of many viable nations, including a future Pakistan."

And they continued being anti India not only long past partition, hounded out of Pakistan which they helped create and travelled to help set up, but till date, despite failure of their creed everywhere.

"The Boses, though they were devoted to communal cooperation, were steadfastly against the division of India. So was the Hindu Mahasabha, one organisation that operated openly and firmly rejected “any truck with Pakistan”; as the case was put by the president of the Bengal Provincial Hindu Mahasabha office on 6 October, 1944: “…No Hindu worth the name will support the vivisection of India…not a single patriotic Hindu of Bengal will ever flinch from fighting the move of vivisection to the last drop of his blood.”52 Sarat Bose was keen to find some solution to the communal problem. He lamented that Gandhi, Nehru, Azad and Patel had not agreed to coalition ministries in 1937. ... "

" ... Jinnah insisted that the League be accepted as the bargaining agent for all Indian Muslims, a stipulation to which Gandhi would not concede. ... "

Gordon mentions imprisonment of members of Bose clan -

" ... Sisir was held incommunicado for some time and moved to the Lahore Fort for serious interrogation. After some months, word was sent to his family that he was in good health. Yet they remained anxious. Aurobindo and Dwijen Bose were also imprisoned during the war, as were almost all those active in the Bose-BV network."

Gordon refrains, of course, from informing his readers that they were imprisoned from time of discovery of escape of Subhash Chandra Bose, and tortured by British, without success. They stuck to the loyalty to Subhash Chandra Bose.

"An argument continued about moving Sarat Bose back to Bengal, but the Home Department insisted that if he was returned to Bengal, he would be considered as the head of the secret network of agents and revolutionaries. So he had to remain in Coonoor. There was some reason for caution on their part, since Subhas Bose and the Japanese continued to send in parties of agents. Among them several contacted the BV network, including Sisir Bose, some were captured, and held as long as the war was on; some were executed; one, Americk Singh, escaped. ... "

................................................................................................

"As ... INA, retreated from north to south in Burma through the second half of 1944 and the first half of 1945, they still fought fiercely. But without air cover and supplies and with ammunition running low, even as determined a fighting force as the Japanese began to fall apart. For the INA, recently organised, insufficiently trained and equipped, it was even worse. ... "

"After another argument with his own officers and the Japanese, Bose was finally convinced that he should not allow himself to be killed or captured in Rangoon, the target toward which the British pressed, and therefore left on 24 April, 1945. He told those whom he left behind as well as those evacuating with him:

"If I had my own way, I would have preferred to stay with you in adversity and share with you the sorrows of temporary defeat. But on the advice of my ministers and high-ranking officers, I have to leave Burma in order to continue the struggle for emancipation. Knowing my countrymen in East Asia and inside India, I can assure you that they can continue the fight under any circumstances and that all your suffering and sacrifices will not be in vain.55"

"Bose’s party for the retreat from Rangoon to Bangkok included members of Bose’s military and civilian staff, the Japanese ambassador, and some Japanese personnel from the Hikari Kikan. Then there was the question of the remaining women from the Rani of Jhansi regiment. Some had been sent home as early as the middle of 1944; some, including Captain Lakshmi Swaminathan, remained in Burma through the Allied victory. But several hundred who were to be sent back to Malaya and Singapore were stranded, and Bose would not leave without them. In the end, Bose and his party retreated with the Ranis. It was an arduous and dangerous trip as Allied fighters controlled the air and the Allied forces were pressing ahead rapidly behind them.

"Bose, his party, and the Ranis did not reach Bangkok until the second week of May, 1945. By then another stage had been reached in the great conflagration. Hitler had committed suicide and Germany had surrendered on 8 May. The home islands of Japan were under bomber attack. In a broadcast a few weeks later, Bose looked back and ahead:

" ... the collapse of Germany will be the signal for the outbreak of an acute conflict between the Soviets and the Anglo-Americans…In post-war Europe there is only one…power that has a plan which is worth a trial, and that power is the Soviet Union…"

Gordon here takes occasion to accuse Subhash Chandra Bose of saying nothing about victims of nazis, although he hasn't accused Allied nations of refusing to help when they could; he quotes a colleague about Subhash Chandra Bose being limited in his thinking to a single idea, independence of India, but does not mention that Jawaharlal Nehru had strongly opposed any suggestions about offering refuge in India to Jews of Europe.

Fact also is that Subhash Chandra Bose wasn't in the know about extermination camps just because he was a political refugee, and a feted guest of the regime; but Allied governments knew far more than he could, and yet US turned back ships filled with Jews from port, because they didn't want more jews; and British did the same at Palestine despite the plan to create Israel, to appease local muslims.

When knowledge of the camps exploded due to arrival of Allied soldiers, and subsequently Nuremberg trials, everyone was stunned, but until then, it was Allied governments - and therefore likes of Gandhi and Nehru - who knew more than Subhash Chandra Bose, who wasn't likely to have been informed by his hosts. Nevertheless it was he who had not only had Jewish friends in Germany and Europe, and advised them to leave, but also told off nazis, including Hitler, publicly and also face to face, of impropriety of their racism and of his displeasure thereof.

He was the unique one with courage to tackle the beast in their dens when he needed them for help with independence of his country. If they were any less impressed with his sheer persona, he might have been another statistics. Had British had that honesty, that selfless courage, there might be no WWII, but instead a Czechoslovakia and an Austria, and rest of Europe too, never overrun by nazis.

No Khatyn.

................................................................................................

" ... For the Japanese the choice to surrender was finally made.

"But Bose was the head of a separate “government”, however weak, and was ready to move in a new direction. On 16 August, Bose sent the following message to the Japanese: “Along with the trusted persons of my cabinet I would like to go to the Soviet Union. If it is necessary I shall enter the Soviet Union alone…I request the Japanese Government to allow any of my cabinet members to take charge.”58"

This book was published in early to mid seventies. Was it ignored in India? How likely is that? Or did people get so incensed by his derogatory treatment of Subhash Chandra Bose, that those who cared to read it in the first place, being necessarily precisely those who cared about Subhash Chandra Bose, threw it in garbage long before this paragraph above was read?

" ... One important Japanese source indicates that the Japanese agreed to help Bose reach Manchuria and make contact there with the advancing Soviet army."

"Bose took the remainder of the funds at his disposal and distributed them to his military and civilian personnel. He also tried to see that all the women of the Rani of Jhansi regiment had been safely sent to their homes. About a month before the final moment in Singapore, he had a tribute erected to the INA which read,

"The future generations of Indians who will be born, not as slaves but as free men, because of your colossal sacrifice, will bless your names and proudly proclaim to the world that you, their forebears, fought and suffered reverses in the battles in Manipur, Assam and Burma, but through temporary failure you paved the way to ultimate success and glory.59"

"Bose was still in Malaya when he learned of the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese surrender offers of 10 August and final capitulation on 14 August. ... "

So the claim that India's independence date was set by Mountbatten on Japanese surrender is incorrect, and that surrender date in fact is what Jinnah chose, however unwittingly?

" ... He hurriedly made his plans. Some top military personnel were left behind in Singapore, as well as key personnel behind in Rangoon to care for Indian affairs when he left.

"On 16 August, Bose flew to Bangkok (Thailand), then on to Saigon (Vietnam) on 17 August, where he gathered together several of those closest to him through the last two years of the war. Bose hoped to take these supporters with him as he took his step into the unknown. A few other top INA and Azad Hind government personnel were shortly to arrive.

"In Saigon, however, plans had to be changed, for Bose learned that no special plane was available for his party. He also came to know that Lt. Gen. Shidei, a Japanese expert on the Soviets, was to fly to Dairen, Manchuria, where he was to take command of the Kwantung Army and work out the surrender there. Bose was at first told that there was only one place available on this plane which was to leave the same day for Taipei and then Dairen. After further negotiations with the top officers of the Southern Army staff, one more place was secured. Bose had to accept the two seats on this plane or stay in Saigon. He decided to take them, insisting that the rest of his party be sent on as soon as possible. He selected INA Colonel Habibur Rahman to accompany him. He declared that he would become a Russian prisoner, saying, ‘They are the only ones who will resist the British. My fate is with them.’60"

"Others of Bose’s party were unhappy, but the Japanese decided who were to go. There was a problem about the luggage because the plane, a twin-engine heavy bomber of the 97-2 (Sally) type, was overloaded. They could not take all of Bose’s luggage. He discarded a good deal. Then two heavy suitcases possibly filled with gold and jewellery were brought to the plane, and, after Bose’s insistence, they were loaded on.

"On the plane, besides Bose, and Shidei, were also several Japanese military and air staff officers, among them Lt. Col. Tadeo Sakai, a staff officer of the Burma Army; Lt. Col. Shiro Nonogaki, an air staff officer; Major Taro Kono, an air staff officer, who was sitting behind the pilot and assisting him; and Major Ihaho Takahashi, a staff officer. The crew was in the front of the aircraft and the passengers were wedged in behind, some, like Bose, with cushions, because there were no proper seats on this aircraft. The plane finally took off between 5.00 and 5.30 p.m. on 17 August, 1945. Since they were so late in starting, the pilot decided to land for the night at Tourane, Vietnam, then start early the next morning. Tourane later became famous as the huge American base of Da Nang and is an air field in the People’s Republic of Vietnam.

"Bose already knew Shidei and was introduced to some of the other Japanese officers, all of whom had heard of him. Bose and the others spent the night at a hotel serving as an army hostel in Tourane. While they were resting, the pilot and Major Kono, who had noticed the difficulty in taking off at Saigon due to overloading, did their best to lighten the cargo. Major Kono later said that they took off about 600 kilos of machine guns, ammunition and excess luggage.61

"The take-off from Tourane at about 5 a.m. on 18 August, 1945, was normal and they flew at about 12,000 feet. It was quite cold in the plane, but the weather was favourable and they flew to Taipei (Taiwan; Japanese: Taihoku). Major Kono has testified that they received information during the flight that the Russians had occupied Port Arthur, so it was essential for them to hurry on and reach Dairen before the Russians reached there too. The flight took six to seven hours and the landing was smooth. They stopped for lunch and Rahman changed into warmer clothes during the break. Bose, he said, laughed off the need for more appropriate clothing, but he handed him a sweater anyway."

So far, it's history of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose after he left Singapore.

Next is story as told by various witnesses.

................................................................................................

" ... His wife, his daughter, many of his relations, almost all the INA officers, and all the personnel with whom he worked have accepted his death, some later than others. ... "

The first part is a lie. His wife never did accept it, and when contacted by the then minister of government of India, asking her to sign for bringing his ashes home, threw him out and refused to see him again, decades after 1945.

As for many relatives accepting it, those Gordon thanks most for his work, did. Suresh Bose, another older brother of Subhash Chandra Bose, did not, as a member of Khosla commission, and wrote a dissenting report, but was maneuvered by other two members and the then government who treated him badly as a consequence and kept his dissenting report out, separated from main part.

The third commission, headed by Justice Mukherjee, was the only one to visit Taipei. There never had been an airplane crash on 18th August 1945, there was no documentation of Death or of cremation of Subhash Chandra Bose, but all other entries and documentation were in perfect order.

Other commissions and people who applied to enquire had been discouraged strongly and told by government of India that Taipei would not cooperate because India had no diplomatic relations with them, but that was a ruse. They did cooperate when anyone enquired.

Gordon next justifies the lag in news coming out.

He refrains from mentioning the only possibility that is correct, which is, Japan gave out the news after Subhash Chandra Bose was already safely across in Manchuria.

"Sarat Bose, still in Coonoor, learned of his brother’s death on 25 August, 1945, and wrote:

"Today’s Indian Express and Hindu brought the heart-rending news of Subhas’s death as the result of an aeroplane crash. Divine Mother, how many sacrifices have we to offer at your altar! Terrible Mother, your blows are too hard to bear! Your last blow was the heaviest and cruellest of all. What divine purpose you are serving thereby you alone know. Inscrutable are your ways!

"Four or five nights back I dreamt that Subhas had come to see me. He was standing on the verandah of this bungalow and appeared to have become very tall in stature. I jumped up to see his face. Almost immediately thereafter, he disappeared.70"

That last bit about his appearing "very tall in stature" again is defying the death story.

"In these immediate responses of Sarat Bose there seems not the slightest hesitation in believing that Subhas died from the burns suffered in the crash. Sarat may have had doubts—quite a few did—but at first it seems quite clear that he did not. In Bombay, 25 August, 1945, was observed as “Subhas Day” out of respect for his memory."

Sharat Chandra Bose was in incarceration, and wasn't indulging later in intuition when he questioned and disbelieved the story of air crash and death.

Gordon attempting to make him sound like a lier in questioning the story reminds one of the insistence of authorities on signatures of family of SSR on the documents needed from them for his death certificate and their refusal to provide documentation in a language the family could understand, so that later they could claim that the family did sign to having no doubts.

"The Government of India was pretty much convinced of Bose’s death in the crash by early September and began to move on Sarat Bose’s release. Finally, on 14 September, 1945, after nearly four years of imprisonment, Sarat Bose was released. He was given an ovation from friends, family and supporters when he arrived at Howrah Station on 17 September."

Gordon does not mention Gandhi communicating to Sharat Chandra Bose to not conduct last rites of Subhash Chandra Bose, which only implies Gandhi being convinced of the story of his death by an air crash being just that - a story.

................................................................................................

No, people did hear his broadcasts, however few, and word spreads by word of mouth in India far more effectively, never mind government blackout on news.

Gordon seems to imply British were resorting to honesty and frankness as suits a democracy with justice and law, which is false.

Slant of the work, out of place but deliberate, gives that away.

................................................................................................

"S.C. Bose may be dead but much that he did lives still."

"—Government of India, confidential file, 19452"

But the then authorities, in particular the investigating officials of intelligence, weren't, in fact, convinced of the air crash story.

"—E.M. Forster, A Passage to India3"

Flabby? After a thousand years of victimization by invaders, looted, massacred, and mostly poor, Hindus looked flabby to Forster?

It was Maratha empire, held together by Peshawas of Pune, whose existence didn't allow British to presume control over India.

When Nana Phadnavis died - of natural causes - the British could finally, an English historian wrote, be reassured.

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"…one must understand the evil spirit of 1946, to understand why the partition was accepted in 1947.

"—The Indian Annual Register5"

If Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose had been brought back by Jawaharlal Nehru, as he could have, India could have been protected.

Notice the anti India slant there - "chorus", "shouted", ... ??????

"Besides Sarat Bose, every Indian nationalist—indeed, every political actor, Indian or British—had to come to terms with the INA in the fall and winter of 1945-46. ... "

" ... The INA movement made a powerful impression on the Indian public in the months after its capitulation. Among Indian nationalists, Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru—both of whom had been extremely critical of Subhas Bose from 1939 to 1945—found it easier to deal with him in death than in life. When Gandhi first learned of Subhas Bose’s death, he wrote: ‘Subhas Bose has died well. He was undoubtedly a patriot though misguided.’7 Later Gandhi thought that Bose was still alive until he talked with Habibur Rahman and allowed Bose to rest in peace. ... "

Gordon is either wrong, which implies his research was faulty, or lying, which implies that this work was paid for to support the lie of death of Netaji.

Fact is, after Gandhi had met Habibur Rahman, his remark was to the effect that the man was very loyal. In the context of questioning him about the air crash, that only makes sense as his having stuck to the story he was asked yo, but not exactly coached word by word, to tell.

But even long before he met Habibur Rahman, he'd sent a message to Sharat Chandra Bose to not conduct last times of his brother yet. Since this isn't about leaving a dead body unattended and ignored, it can only be about the brother being alive.

................................................................................................

"As the British Raj moved to put some leading officers of the INA on trial for treason against the King-Emperor and other charges, Indian nationalists closed ranks to defend them. ... "

" ... Nehru spoke about the INA in a speech demanding the release of Jayaprakash Narayan:

All true.

................................................................................................

Beginning right with George Washington would have been hitting the nail on head.

"The rallies and the impact of the INA on the Indian army, navy, and air force were one factor influencing the British to quit India. ... "

Gordon lies again! - "one factor"???? There was none other. Clement Attlee said as much, in response to a query while on a visit to India, specifically about why British left India.

As another source points out, South Africa with its nonviolence succeeded only in 1994.

As per Clement Attlee, this mutiny was the chief reason British were terrified enough to decide to leave.

................................................................................................

"Sarat Bose had several areas of difference with Nehru, including one on the issue of China. In an interview in Blitz in September 1945, Sarat Bose called Chiang Kai-shek, “the Arch-Fascist tyrant of China”, and continued, ‘I accuse Chiang Kai-Shek…of indulging in numerous bloodbaths in China, with the sanctification of foreign powers and the financial help of foreign capitalists.’17 Bose then went on to praise Mao Tse-tung and the Chinese Communists. Nehru wrote to Sardar Patel, saying Bose’s opposition to Chiang Kai-Shek was harmful:

"…Chiang Kai-shek…happens to be the head of the Chinese State and so far as India is concerned his attitude has always been very friendly. For my part I have kept up friendly relations not only with Chiang Kai-shek and the Chinese Government but with many of his critics in China. I do not want this controversy with Sarat, but to remain silent became impossible for me.18"

And yet, the moment tables turned in China, Jawaharlal Nehru did too - not only he dropped Chiang Kai-shek like a proverbial hot potato, but did the same to Tibet and Dalai Lama too, and moreover, adopted the policy of appeasement of China at cost of interests of India, spouting ethics!

"In his statement to the press on 29 September, 1945, Nehru suggested that Sarat Bose was not very well informed after his years in prison, that he did not speak for the Congress, and that it was no business of the Congress to criticise the heads of friendly states. He reiterated his thanks for the warm hand which Chiang had extended to Congress nationalists during the war. Yet, although Sarat Bose may have been intemperate, he had a more accurate view of what was to come in China than did Nehru. When the Chinese Communists came to power in 1949, Sarat Bose immediately sent off a congratulatory telegram to Mao Tse-tung. Mao thanked Sarat Bose for his greetings to the People’s Republic.

"While Sarat Bose was full of praise for the Chinese Communists who, he said, were “true nationalists”, he did not have the same positive view of Indian communists—on which point he was in full accord with Nehru. In fact, he saw Indian communists in the CPI and M.N. Roy’s Radical Democratic Party as enemies of Indian nationalism for their collaboration with the Raj during the Second World War. In a speech to students in Patna on 1 February, 1946, Sarat Bose said:

"The Communist Party and the Radical Party are all branches of British organisations. When the Congress went to jail, the Communist Party found the field open, entered it and raised the false slogan of “People’s War” to mislead their countrymen…these parties which thrive on British patronage can never serve the interests of the Indian people which are diametrically opposed to British interests.19"