Cartoons demeaning Netaji published in People’s War
Indian Communists launched a massive hate campaign against Netaji Bose during the Second World War. In the party’s mouthpiece, article after article, they vilified Netaji with worst names!
Communists derided Netaji as running dog of imperialism when he defied the Communist call for support to the British during World War II. They, through the mouthpiece of the undivided CPI, hurled choicest epithets against Netaji, variously describing him as a cur held up by Goebbles, the running dog of Japanese general Tojo, the donkey carrying Tojo, a midget being led by a Japanese imperialist, and as a mere mask of the Japanese imperialist ogre.
On the 105th birth anniversary of Netaji, then West Bengal Chief Minister and CPI (M) leader Buddhadev Bhattacharjee admitted that the communists had misunderstood Subhash Chandra Bose’s actions during India’s freedom struggle. He said that “We still oppose Netaji’s role in aligning with axis powers like Germany, Italy and Japan to liberate India from the British. But we [the Communists] should apologise for making a wrong evaluation of the great leader.”
Communists Launched a Hate Campaign Against Netaji
People’s War, Vol.I No.2 dated July 19, 1942 came out with front page cartoon sharply indicating the new line of the CPI vis-a-vis Subhash Chandra Bose.
Reviewing the war, G Adhikari, a prominent Communist leader who wrote the official CPI history, wrote in People’s War dated July 18, 1943: “Hitler has sent Bose to Tojo. Tojo has made the Deshagaurabí (Sic.) the Commander-in Chief of a fifth-column Indian Army. Bose is screeching every day over the Singapore Radio. The significance of Hitler-Tojo Bose conspiracy is clear enough. We can and must smash it in the interest of our brother of China.”
People’s War dated September 13, 1942 came out with another front-page cartoon and a long article by SG Sardesai. Sardesai bewailed the Gandhi-Subhash combine : “Not for nothing does Azad Hind Radio shout Hail to Gandhi and Subhash together. The logic of Gandhi’s line inescapably leads us into the arms of Subhash-a hangman at the head of a life-saving mission! What a picture! Moscow patriot Sardesai could not understand that, inspite of all their differences and quarrels, Mahatma Gandhi and Subhash Chandra Bose were bound together by a commonly shared loyalty to Mother India.
People’s War dated July 25, 1943 warned about ëTraitors from the Airí with the following appeal: “Bose recently announced over the Singapore Radio about the formation of an Independence Army with himself as its Commander-in Chief. The first act of this Independence Army formed under the aegis of Japanese militarists will be to drop parachutists in India. These traitors from the skies, though they may be of Indian origin and dressed in some kind of national garb, are not messengers of freedom but of slavery.”
Congress and Communists Conspiracy
Historian and Netaji researcher Purabi Roy believes the Communist Party of India, Communist Party of Soviet Russia and the Congress were co-conspirators in Netaji’s disappearance. She holds all three responsible for the mystery that shrouds the enigmatic leader to this day.
Roy, who made several trips to Russia (formerly USSR) to unravel the mystery surrounding Netaji’s death has time and again emphasised that, “Don’t blame Congress alone. The Communists are equally to blame. While Congress hushed up the matter to protect Nehru’s link, isn’t it curious that Indian Communists have never once demanded the truth on Netaji be revealed?”
It is fact that Netaji wrote two letters to Russian Communist leader Joseph Stalin, seeking help to fight against the British. One was in 1941, and the other in 1943. However, he didn’t receive any help at all!
(The references to the People’s War can be found and read in more details in Netaji and the CPI, Sitaram Goel, 1955)
