During the World War II, Netaji became a special bête noire of Indian communists. A patriot to the core, Netaji had sought help of Germany and Japan to the cause of India’s freedom. However, it did not go well with the communists who considered the Soviet Union as their only fatherland. Since the Soviet Union had entered into an alliance with Britain after after June 22, 1941 (when Germany invaded the Soviet Union), the communists’ sympathies were naturally with the Allied camp. Netaji was lampooned and caricatured in different communist literature. He was termed as “the traitor Bose”, “the agents of Jap-fascists who must be wiped out as a political pest”, “Subhas Bose, the henchman of Japanese imperialism”, “the advance guard of Tojo and Hitler”, etc; Indian National Army was termed as “an army of rapine, loot and murder”.
Background
Almost a week before Hitler invaded Poland, he had entered into a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union on August 23, 1939. The pact condoned and allowed mutually agreed invasions by both the countries. The pact frustated the plan of Britain and France which had hoped that Germany would attack the communist Soviet Union, so that they themselves could enjoy “watch the tigers fight.”
Thanks to the non-aggression pact, Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. Soon thereafter the Soviet Union too invaded the eastern part of Poland on September 17, 1939, followed by its invasion on Finland and the Baltic states on November 30, 1939. England and France declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939.
The Indian communists termed the War as the war between Germany on one side, and England and France on the other side as between two imperialist powers. They argued to make use of the war time difficulty of Britain to wrest India’s freedom. They talked about the “transformation of imperialist war into a war of national liberation”. When Congress passed a resolution pledging to continue to fight for India’s freedom in a non-violent manner so as not to impede Britain’s war efforts, the communists criticised it as a party of the bourgeoisie.
Change of Stand
However, on June 22, 1941, Germany invaded their beloved Soviet Union— the only socialist country in the world. The rules of the game were forever changed for the Indian communists when the Soviet Union entered into an alliance with Britain. Overnight, the war, which hitherto was an imperialist war between two imperialist sides, became a people’s war! Arun Shourie says in his The Only Fatherland:
The ‘imperialist war’ had indeed become a ‘people’s war’, that was official now. Everything turned 180 degrees: the task now became to help the British war effort. And the help had to be ‘unconditional’ – ‘We are not,’ said the CPI [Communist Party of India], ‘like the bourgeois parties that have faith in imperialism and therefore want to strike a bargain with it through “conditions”; ours is a principled stand and so our help is unconditional…The party itself was legalized and the eight-year-old ban on its publications, organization, etc., was lifted on 23 July 1942.
In the changed scenario, they heaped slander on Congress and its entire leadership that was fighting the freedom struggle against the British:
Issue after issue of People’s War, the new organ of the Communist Party, while it railed against the British government, heaped sarcasm, scorn, abuse on Gandhiji, the Congress, JP and other leaders of the underground movement, and on Subhas Bose. While formerly they had been accused of leading the country to suicide by not disrupting the war effort, they were now accused of leading it to suicide by disrupting it.
Netaji: A special Target of Calumny
Netaji’s opportunistic yet pragmatic and patriotic course of seeking to free India from the British raj came under special attack by the communists. They termed Gandhiji and Netaji Bose as the “blind messiahs”. People’s War in an article by SG Sardesai in its September 13, 1942 edition wrote:
Subhash Babu based his policies not on patient work for unity and organisation of the people but rather on rackets in ‘power politics’? It is this kind of politics which has driven him to-day to the contemptible and miserable position of a marionette in Axis hands! And now this puppet has the temerity to insult our patriotism and intelligence by attempting to persuade us from the Berlin radio!
The article does not even spare Mahatma Gandhi:
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!
This article came with the following cartoon:
Netaji Bose as a disposable pet held up by German Minister Goebbles;
source: Netaji and the CPI
An article in People’s War of January 10, 1943 tells what kind of treatment Bose will get if he steps in India:
Bose’s mercenary army of ‘liberation’, of rapine and plunder will feel the wrath and indignation of our people if it dare set its foot on Indian soil to enact acts of pillage and robbery.’
Netaji’s Forward Bloc, alleged communists, relied on “gangster methods and stab in the dark tactics”, and appealed for isolating the Fifth-columnist as the arch goonda that trades on people’s blood:
True to their black role, the Fifth columnists suggest blows that help their masters. The Boseites who till yesterday with their ‘nation wide struggle’ and ‘non-compromise’ slogans were the objects of every Congressman’s contempt as national disruptors, find that the present situation means half their job done. How are we to isolate and nail down this black crew? Isolate the Fifth-columnist as the arch goonda that trades on people’s blood… The Boseites stood isolated as unscrupulous disruptors inside the national movement; to-day they are coming back as ‘honest patriots’. The hidden Jap agents dared not show their faces; to-day they are active among the patriots!
The communist People’s War dated December 13, 1942 published:
The Indian people are no allies of Fascism. With the exception of an insignificant minority represented by Bose in Berlin, they no less passionately hate Fascism; their sympathies are with the Soviet people, with the Chinese people, with the cause of the United Nations.
People’s War dated July 18, 1943 noted further:
Bose himself [has] announced that he has been appointed the ‘Commander-inChief of ‘Indian Independence Army’ and is coming with the Jap invasion force. The arch-traitor to India’s freedom and independence calls upon Indian patriots to open a ‘Second Front’ against British, to intensify ‘struggle’ and start a ‘Revolution’ in India while he, the ‘Commander in-Chief with Tojo’s grace, marches in with Japanese invading forces to ‘liberate’ India. But his lieutenants here in India know that here is no ‘struggle’ to be intensified and so they are making a trial start for this game on August 9. Their programme for August 9 must be looked upon as a dress rehearsal for the ‘Revolution’ which has to be started when ‘Commander-in Chief Bose comes to liberate India with the Jap Army.
If any widespread demonstrations take place or any serious disturbances start, ‘Marshal’ Bose will report to Tojo, his master, that India is rotten ripe for invasion. There is no time to lose. Last August Bose was in Berlin. This time he is much nearer, at Singapore. The traitor Bose will never touch the golden soil of Bengal if we make up our mind…
The “traitor” Bose looking for opportunity so that he could report to Tojo, his master,
that India is rotten ripe for invasion: People’s War, August 1, 1943; source: Netaji and the CPI
Yet another issue of People’s War carried the following libel questioning Netaji’s patriotic resolve:
Netaji Subhash Bose, I hear from a very reliable source, is living in sumptuous quarters in Rangoon. His cash comes from the notorious South Regions Development Bank which was established by the Japs to finance all the monopoly concerns that the invaders have established to exploit Burma. His agents, of course, have spread the rumor that he gets all his cash from the Indians of Malaya and Burma. But in fact, even the little he gets this way comes from ‘contributors’, big commercial firms who have been soundly threatened. ‘If you do not give us cash, we shall let the Burmese get at you’—and the feelings of the Burmese towards the Indian moneybags in Burma are by no means too friendly. Bose has also confiscated all the properties belonging to Indians who evacuated. That too has brought him something. Another thing Bose is doing is to help the Japs to round up all Indian patriots in Burma and Malaya who have seen what ‘independence’ has meant for Burma and why the Japs must be fought. Bose, in fact, has become the running dog of Jap Fascism. Petain of France, Quisling of Norway, Wang Ching Wei of China and Bose are all members of the same family. Treachery does not stop at any frontier.
However, in all fairness to the communists, with time, their attitude slowly evolved in adopting a more favorable stance on Netaji and Indian National Army. On Netaji’s reported death, P. C. Joshi issues the following sympathetic statement on August 27, 1945:
It is the British overlordship of our country that creates a Bose. But much worse has happened. The severity of post-August repression and the continued denial of power to the people has to-day led a great majority of our political leaders and the press to glorify Bose as a patriot and martyr ; some, of course, qualify by stating that he was misguided. To think only of his motives and forget the pro-fascist policy that he pursued is to lose the confidence and respect of the democratic elements abroad for the Indian freedom movement. Our differences with Bose and his Forward Bloc have been political. But we are against a foreign Government keeping them in prison. We demand and support the campaign for the release of his followers.
However, when they were questioned regarding this complete change-over without any ‘ideological criticism and self-criticism’ they were informed confidentially, in secret Party Letters—as reported by Sita Ram Goel in Netaji and the CPI— that both the INA and its Netaji are as dead as mutton, are absolutely beyond any mischief against the communist movement in India and that the legend that has grown round the I.N.A. and Netaji is objectively playing a revolutionary role!
Netaji as an inconsequential puppeted dwarf reviewing the Hit army under the supervision of
Japanese imperialists: People’s War, 26 September 1943; source: Netaji and the CPI
Leave a Comment