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GRATITUDE TO FREEDOM FIGHTERS

DRAWINGS

STORIES
Best Tribute to Freedom Fighters
As we approach our sixtyeigth Independence Day, once again
we cannot but remember our indomitable freedom fighters,
drawn from all parts of this vast landmass characterised by
unique diversity, who underwent superhuman sacrifices and
shed their precious blood so that we, belonging to a different
generation, live a better life unfettered by the ignominy of
imperialist domination and colonial exploitation. The debt of
gratitude that we owe to them cannot be repaid.
Today, on August 11, we observe the centenary of the
martyrdom of Shaheed Khudiram Bose whose life was snuffed
out even before he could complete 19 years of age; he kissed the
gallows on August 11, 2008. And that incident of his execution
electrified the whole country in general and Bengal in particular.
Following his untimely death the song which moved our toiling
people (almost like sarfaroshi ki tamanna) was:
Ekbaar Biday de Maa, Ghure Aashi
Hashi hashi porbo phansi
Dekhbe Bharatbashi
(Allow me to bid farewell to you, Mother, let me go and
return
The citizens of India will see with their own eyes
How I march to the gallows smiling all the way)

The lilting notes of that song touched the soul of every patriotic
Indian and inspired many to plunge into the national movement.
There is a special reason why we must remember Khudiram
Bose today on the centenary of his martyrdom. All young men
engaged in swadeshi, striving to free the country from the iron
grip of British imperialism in an India subjected to alien
subjugation, were deliberately dubbed as terrorists in order to
defame the noble ideals that spurred them into action. Khudiram
and his friend Prafulla Chaki had thrown a bomb at a horsedriven carriage with the intention of killing the British
Magistrate, Kingsford, who by his misdeeds and acts of
oppression had earned infamy among the youth keen to
emancipate India from the burden of foreign yoke. However,
Kingsford was not in the carriage but two English ladies who
could not survive the attack. In his deposition in court Khudiram
expressed deep sorrow and sincere regret for the death of the
innocent ladies while explaining why they had planned to
liquidate Kingsford. This was the most lucid testimony to the
staunch opposition of national revolutionaries like Khudiram to
senseless killings (as is being resorted to by the religious
fundamentalist militants in their operations in Ahmedabad or
Bangalore and/or by the Maoists in their depredations in the
countryside today) and hence the complete dissociation of those
revolutionaries from the terrorist ideology even though they
were purposely called terrorists. Not only Khudiram. Bhagat
Singh, the icon of the Indian youth in those glorious days of the
freedom struggle, had cogently spelt out his objective of a
socialist India; it was of no mean significance that one of his
close associates, who suffered incarceration with him in Lahore
Jail, in due course became the General Secretary of the

undivided CPI in the early fifties and steered the communist

movement in one of the most critical periods of our postindependence history. (The birth centenary of that immortal
revolutionary, Ajoy Ghosh, will be observed in six months time,
on February 20 next year.) These were the best sons of India
and along with them one must not forget to mention the name of
Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose for he belonged to the same
categorybut the British rulers and their henchmen
intentionally branded them as terrorists in their own vested
interest.
This is also the solemn occasion to remember the most
prominent of our freedom fighters, the Father of the Nation,
Mahatma Gandhi, but for whose extraordinary exploits
equipped as he was with the twin weapons of truth and nonviolence that guided his every actionwe would not have been
able to attain independence in 1947 within a historically brief
time-span since his emergence on the Indian political scene. In
fact he was the nations greatest revolutionary who moved
millions while bringing them into the vortex of struggle on a
scale unsurpassed before and in the subsequent period. But when
freedom came on August 15 that year Gandhi was an unhappy
man and he did not join in the celebrations and festivities. The
vivisection of the nation had profoundly disturbed him and the
fratricidal hatred and violence in its train filled him with
immeasurable anguish and agony, if not a sense of despair. Far
from the countrys Capital, he opened his eyes in free India in a
Muslim house in one of Calcuttas poorest quarters as his
grandson, Rajmohan Gandhi, has written in The Good Boatman:
A Portrait of Gandhi. And he even declined to give any message
on Independence Day 1947, the first after the end of British rule.

But he had some words of advice for the West Bengal Ministers
calling on him at Hydari Manzil where he was residing in the
city. In short sentences, he conveyed the following:
Be humble. Be forbearing... Now you will be tested through and
through. Beware of power; power corrupts Do not let
yourselves be entrapped by its pomp and pageantry. Remember,
you are in office to serve the poor in Indias villages.
Dont those words come from a world completely different from
the one we inhabit at present? Do morality and service to the
poor, the Daridranarayan, hold any significance in the globalised
marketplace we have chosen to embrace discarding the idea of a
welfare state, a socialistic pattern of society and a vibrant public
sector geared to reach the commanding heights of the economy?
However, for persons like us, born a couple of years before
freedom came and brought up in the early years of
independence, the words resonate with greater meaning and
substance in the wake of the recent happenings in the country,
especially the incidents in the Lok Sabha on July 22, arguably
the blackest day in the annals of our parliamentary democracy.
In the last 61 years India has traversed a long distance since the
dawn of freedom and our achievements in different spheres of
activity, from the nuclear field to IT in particular, cannot be
overlooked. It is because of our technological strides that the
world today has accepted this country as a major power and that
recognition has come not only from the US, but the European
Union, Russia and China as well. This is doubtless most
noteworthy. Also striking is the rise of the Indian middle class at
home and abroad. Indeed our scientific progress has been simply
outstanding when juxtaposed against the problems and

adversities we had to endure over the years, not to speak of the

four wars we had to withstand for our own survival as a nationstate.
Yet for all our successes we cannot escape the fact that the poor
in Indias villages are to this day in a state of neglect, misery
and despondency even if some fruits of development have
touched their daily lives. The persisting suicides by farmers in
several States, including the relatively prosperous ones, are at
once a stark reminder of the mounting problems faced by rural
India and a reflection of the growing disparities between the
haves and the have-nots in a neo-liberal environment wherein
India has seceded from Bharat and the gulf between the two
appear to be unbridgeable at this point in time.
Two years ago, on Independence Day 2006, it was written in
these columns that the spurt in Maoist operations in the most
backward regions of the country and the increasing incidence of
terrorist actions in metropolitan India warrant a close
introspection of our policies. It was also unequivocally stated
that attempts to tackle both terror acts through strong-arm
administrative measures without any political move to address
and remove the causes of discontent that engender such acts of
terror cannot in the least bring about a lasting solution to the
problem which is intrinsically intertwined with alienation of
large segments of our own citizens in the lowest rungs of the
socio-economic ladder. (Emphasis added)
That alienation, far from being removed, has in fact become
more pronounced to the detriment of national unity which is also
under attack today from the hardline Hindu Right offensive in
Jammu engendering a deep division between the Jammu region

and the Kashmir Valley. Unless checked in time through

concerted joint moves this division would embolden fissiparous
trends, both indigenous and extra-territorial, to damage the
fabric of our national cohesion and composite culture beyond
repair.
The forces of communalism, casteism, regionalism have neither
been contained nor effectively fought during the last four years
of UPA rule at the Centre. This must be acknowledged as our
collective failure. Now the very existence of the UPA
dispensation is at stake following the withdrawal of support of
the Left parties which extended valuable outside backing to the
Manmohan Singh Government in order to ward off the attempt
by the Hindu communal forces to return to power. The mirage of
unveiling a new kind of relationship with the present-day US
Administration has brought about this Left-UPA break-up for
which the Congress will have to come to grief sooner than later.
But immediately the danger to Indian stability comes from all
the forces pledged to perpetuate the neo-liberal paradigm of
development whether through the SEZs in different parts of the
country (including Left-ruled West Bengal) or the manifold
assaults on the aam aadmis life and livelihood as well as the
neocolonial offensive aimed at subverting national sovereignty
and jettisoning our independent foreign policy to subserve the
interests of the hyper power flexing its muscles in different parts
of the globeIraq, Afghanistan, erstwhile Yugoslaviawhile
using every devious means to imperill the existence of Iran
and/or weaken the influence of Russia in the Caucasus and
Central Asia. It is in this context that the anti-imperialist content
of our struggle for national regeneration has taken a new

dimension. And to blunt this struggle money power is being

blatantly employed to carry out nefarious imperialist designs on
Indian soil. The developments surrounding the confidence vote
in the Lok Sabha have brought this out in bold relief.
Regrettably, the media too has fallen prey to such machinations.
We need to effect a change in our approach to meet the
stupdendous challenges before us. Allout anti-imperialist unity,
as was witnessed in the last phase of our freedom struggle, was
aimed at breaking the vice-like grip of vested interests
represented by Big Business, feudalism and the comprador
classstalling our advance. That kind of unity must be forged
now against imperialism and its accomplices on the economic
plane seeking to perpetuate the exploitative paradigm of
development based on the neo-liberal ideology of the
Washington Consensus. What is vital is to revive the socialist
framework of advance upholding the legacy of the freedom
struggle at this critical juncture of our post-independence
history.
That indeed will be the best tribute to the abiding memory of our
freedom fighters whom we remember with boundless gratitude
on the auspicious day of our freedom from foreign political
bondage 67 years ago.
-S.P.Ramanathan
III-ECE,MIT

How India got freedom - the hidden

story!
Utpal Dutt, the actor who played
comedian in one of most memorable role in Hindi Cinema in
Golmaal, was arrested on December 27, 1965 by the
Government of West Bengal under the Preventive Detention
Act. The Government of Bengal and India feared he was
"subversive". Why? Because he wrote a play called "Kallol"
(Sound of Waves) on an important chapter of Indian
Freedom that is never mentioned in any official History
book. The Royal Indian Navy Mutiny (or Naval Uprising) of
1946.
The Beginning
British were in trouble in 1946. Indians in the Armed forces
were no longer trust worthy. The mutiny, that no one in our
generation has ever heard of, did to the British colonization,
what no other action could have done in the long struggle of
250 years.
Said Sir Stafford Cripps, intervening in the debate on the
motion to grant Indian Indepence in the British House of
Commons in 1947 (The Freedom Struggle and the Dravidian
Movement by P.Ramamurti, Orient Longman, 1987)
The Indian Army in India is not obeying the British officers.
We have recruited our workers for the war; they have been
demobilised after the war. They are required to repair the
factories damaged by Hitlers bombers. Moreover, they
want to join their kith and kin after five and a half years of
separation. Their kith and kin also want to join them. In
these conditions if we have to rule India for a long time, we

have to keep a permanent British army for a long time in a

vast country of four hundred millions. We have no such
army.
In August 1945, Subhash Bose had reportedly died, while he
collaborated with the Japanese and Hitler to fight the
British. After the Second World War was over, three of the
top officers of the Indian National Army (INA) - General Shah
Nawaz Khan (Muslim), Colonel Prem Sehgal (Hindu) and
Colonel Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon (Sikh)were put on trial at
the Red Fort in Delhi. Their crime: "waging war against the
King Emperor"
While Nehru was busy "defending" the three; he (Nehru),
Gandhi, Mohd. Ali Jinnah, and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad
had come to a secret pact that if Subhash Bose was to enter
India (as many knew he hadn't died in 1945), he would be
handed over and charged.
Unprecedentedly, these trials were very public. Due to the
sympathy toward Netaji and the INA in general, there was
an instant and large outpouring of passion and patriotism in
Indians. These stories were being shared via wireless sets
and through media in general on the ships, where the sailors
who were being given bad treatment (lack of proper service
facilties), got inspired to go out and join together in a strike
and rebel against the government.
The Spread
The mutiny started on 18 February 1946 and by next evening
a Naval Central Strike Committee was formed where
Leading Signalman M.S Khan and Petty Officer Telegraphist
Madan Singh were unanimously elected President and VicePresident respectively.

The spread of the Naval mutiny, which started in Bombay

was complete - Karachi, Calcutta, Cochin and Vizag. 78
ships, 20 shore establishments and 20,000 sailors had been
involved in the strike.
Seeing this Naval strike, the Bombay-ites did a one day
general strike. Even the Royal Indian Air Force and local
police forces joined in the other cities. The NCOs in the
British Indian army openly ignored and defied the orders of
the British superiors. In Madras and Pune, the Indian Army
revolted in the British Garrisons.
Riots broke out all over the country. The mutineers were
hoisting 3 flags - Indian National COngress, Muslim League
and CPI. British people in cars were made to get off and
shout "Jai Hind" by the mutineers. The Indian Tricolor was
hoisted on many ships and establishments, by just the
second day.
Such was the crisis that destroyers were gotten and
stationed at the Gateway of India in Bombay to deal with the
mutineers. Navies of Australia and Canada were also
summoned.
The third day into this - the Royal Air Force flew an entire
squadron of Bombers over Bombay Harbor to show support.
Meanwhile the sailors had taken over HMIS Bahadur,
Chamak and Himalaya and from the Royal Naval AntiAircraft School .
It was by that time that the decision to confront the Navy
ratings was taken by the British and the sailors aboard the
destroyer Hindustan were challenged. The sailors lost many
lives and could not fight back much and in the process the
ship Hindustanwas destroyed.
Betrayal by Gandhi, Nehru, Jinnah and Azad

Despite the extensive public support and support from all

the wings of the Armed forces - Army, Navy, Air force, and
even police - apart from unanimous coming together of
people across religious groups at a time when the religious
situation had been made really bad due to Partition debate
and passion, ALL the National Leaders not only did NOT
support the Navy Mutineers and their supporters but instead
condemned them.
They were leaderless, surely, but they had achieved what
NO OTHER generation and group of Indians had achieved in
250 years - turn the Indian Armed forces personnel against
their Masters. Subhash Bose had imagined this kind of
situation. Little did he know that from the failure of his own
Army, would arise a rebellion and a will to fight amongst the
rank and file of Indian soldiers hitherto fighting dutifully for
the British, often against their own countrymen, to strike
back.
The Mainstream politicians - from Jinnah to Gandhi, to
Nehru to Maulana Azad - ALL let these final Freedom
fighters down. They just abandoned them and except for
preaching they did nothing to help them.
In midst of one of most unprecedented religious tension in
the sub-continent, this rebellion and its genesis was a
Godsend to reinforce religious and class harmony, which
was forged instantly WITHOUT any machination. Yet, it was
squandered.... probably deliberately by all those who
promised us peace and harmony.
These people - the so-called Mainstream politicians
spearheaded by Gandhi were interested in only their hold of
their masses.. to see themselves being upstaged by a bunch
of young upstarts with romantic patriotism in their eyes was
unnerving. (James L. Raj; Making and unmaking of British
India. Abacus. 1997. p598) Show of fake "constitutional

process" and "principles" was a good way to brush them

aside despite all they had been able to do.
Real Reason for Independence
So what were the three things which convinced the British
that India could not be governed by force anymore?
Subhash Bose, Indian National Army and the Royal Navy
Uprising..
When Justice P.B. Chakrabarty, the Chief Justice of
Calcutta High Court once asked the British PM Lord Clement
Atlee - responsible for conceding India's Independence, the
all important question "what was the extent of Gandhis influence upon the British
decision to quit India"
His response, with a smirk: m-i-n-i-m-a-l!
So, then why did they have to leave if the Quit India
movement of 1942 had subsided and nothing major
happened in the mainstream politics - then why did the
British have to leave so suddenly in 1947??
Clement Atlee's response:
Erosion of loyalty to the British Crown among the Indian
army and navy personnel as a result of the military activities
of Netaji
Such was the Congress party scared of the truth coming out
that as late as 1965, a Marxist theater actor and writer Utpal
Dutt was arrested for writing a passionate play on the VERY
event that ensured India its Independence - the Royal Navy
Uprising!
But as the story goes in our History books.......
Reference Links:
1. Royal Indian Navy Mutiny

2. Subhas Chandra Bose, the Indian National Army, and the

War of India's Liberation - Ranjan Borra, Journal of
Historical Review, no. 3, 4 (Winter 1982)
3. Inside the actors mind
Vande matram ...........
-PRADAP
III-AUTO (MIT)