Did the real Hero of the Nation - Nethaji die on this day ?!?!?!?

Remembering real Hero  Nethaji Subash Chandra Bose

शुभ सुख चैन की बरखा बरसे , भारत भाग है जागा

पंजाब, सिन्ध, गुजरात, मराठा, द्राविड़ उत्कल बंगा

-         Wonder what ??  !! 

Do we understand the relevance and importance of Renkō-ji,    a Buddhist temple in Tokyo, Japan.  

History is most important but most history across the world has been written with a strong bias towards the victor and those in power.  The life history of many Indians who sacrificed themselves in freedom movement was not properly portrayed,  in schools, we took pride in memorizing the name of Lord Curzon, Wellesley, Dalhousie, Minto-Morley reforms –  we read about a lot about this glorified clerk of British East India Company. Later it was capsuled that Gandhi got us freedom without drop of blood and Nehru family started ruling the Nation. 

Give Me Blood! I Promise You Freedom!!   The British are engaged in a worldwide struggle and in the course of this struggle they have suffered defeat after defeat on so many fronts. The enemy having been thus considerably weakened, our fight for liberty has become very much easier than it was five years ago.  .. ..   Our victorious troops, fighting side by side with Nipponese troops, have pushed back the enemy and are now fighting bravely on the sacred soil of our dear motherland – thundered this man.

One man who  was non-submissive, had clear vision and strategy –  made the British fear him, has left the most indelible impression on India – as fighter par excellence, a great martyr, a man who could have shaped the destiny of India -   ‘Nethaji Subash Chandra Bose’ and today is the day when  Nation remembers him.

History records that Subash Bose, whose success in Indian National Congress was not accepted by Mahatma Gandhi had their last face-to-face meeting and ‘long conversation’ in June 1940 before Subhas’s imprisonment and daring escape. Subhas made ‘a passionate appeal to Mahatma to come forward and launch his campaign of passive resistance’. Gandhi was ‘ non-committal’ because he felt ‘the country was not prepared for a fight’. 

This day – ‘18^th Aug’ in 1945 is widely publicized to be the day when the great Nehtaji died -   from third-degree burns sustained after the bomber in which he was being transported as a guest of Lieutenant General Tsunamasa Shidei of the Imperial Japanese Kwantung Army crashed upon take off from the airport in Taihoku, Japanese-occupied Formosa, now Taipei, Taiwan. The chief pilot, copilot, and General Shidei were instantly killed.

The newsreport read that Bose, was soaked in gasoline before exiting the burning bomber, was transported to the Nanmon Military Hospital south of Taihoku, where his extensive upper-body burns were treated for six hours by the chief-surgeon Dr Taneyoshi Yoshimi, two other doctors Dr Truruta and Dr Ishii, and half a dozen technical staff and nurses. Bose went into a coma and died between 9 PM and 10 PM Taihoku time.  Many among Subhas Chandra Bose's supporters, especially in Bengal, refused at the time and have refused since to believe either the fact or the circumstances of his death.  Conspiracy theories appeared within hours of his death and have persisted since then,  keeping alive various martial myths about Bose. The man born on Jan 23, 1897 is believed to be alive even today or least his death not known !!   

The words at the start  are National anthem of INA :  

Rains of auspicious happiness fall, India has awakened!

All of Punjab, Sindh, Gujarat, Maratha, Dravida, Utkala, Bengal,

the wavy seas, the Vindhya, the Himalayas, the blue Yamuna and Ganges,

sing your praises, get life from you,

every body gains hope!

Like the sun it shines over the world, the auspicious name of India,

May you be victorious! May you be victorious! May you be victorious! May you be victorious! 

Subh Sukh Chain ('"Auspicious Happiness"') was the national anthem of the Provisional Government of Free India.  The song was based on a Bengali poem Bharoto Bhagyo Bidhata by Rabindranath Tagore. When Subhash Chandra Bose shifted to Southeast Asia from Germany in 1943, he, with the help of Mumtaz Hussain, a writer with the Azad Hind Radio, and Colonel Abid Hasan Safrani of the INA, rewrote Tagore’s Jana Gana Mana into the Hindustani Subh Sukh Chain for use as the national anthem.  Bose then went to what was then the INA broadcasting station at the Cathay Building in Singapore and asked Capt. Ram Singh Thakuri to compose the music for a song translated from Rabindranath Tagore's original Bengali score. He asked him to give the song a martial tune.

The  Buddhist temple Renkō-ji  was established in 1594 inspired by the God of Wealth and Happiness. It belongs to the Nichiren sect of Buddhism that believes that human salvation lies only in the Lotus Sutra.  It is here that Nethaji’s ashes have been kept since 1945.  Sad still that Nation could not know whether the purported day is real – for most of his fans, he lives !!

Recalling what we must have but did not read in History – is INA trials also known as Red Fort traials where no. of officers of Indian National Army were court-martialled in Nov 1945 and May 1946 on charges of treason, torture, murder and abetment to murder during Second World war.  The first trial, that of Shah Nawaz Khan, Gurubaksh Singh Dhillon and Prem Sahgal was in  the backdrop of general elections in India.  All three of the accused were charged with "waging war against the king contrary to section 121 of the Indian Penal Code". In addition, charges of murder were leveled against Dhillon and of abetment to murder against Khan and Sahgal. The defendants were Punjabis who came from three different religions.

Bose had predicted, “when the British government is thus attacked… from inside India and from outside — it will collapse, and the Indian people will then regain their freedom”.   Bose’s death was a mystery, he was not given the due honour in National struggle – denied by Gandhi, Nehru and Congress as Congi Govt warned that declassification would damage relations with foreign country – was that a reference to China or Russia !!   

Before concluding there was controversy surrounding Bharat Ratna to this greatest son of India.  It was proposed by PV Narasimha Rao but his daughter Anita Pfaff expressed reservations about the award. Her objection was based on the fact that Netaji was a national icon akin to Mahatma Gandhi and hence Bharat Ratna may not be a suitable title for him. Also, the award if given in the 1950s would have been more apt according to Anita Pfaff. She declined to receive the award.   The decision also came for massive opposition from politicians and intellectuals hailing from West Bengal,  objecting to the word 'posthumous' as there was no credible evidence of death. According to a status note which was declassified later, mounting criticism, the PV Narasimha Rao government relied on a technicality to roll back the decision. The fact is that only a press communique and not notification by a gazette was used by the government to pour cold water over this simmering issue.  

The man of this day – NETHAJI SUBASH CHANDRA BOSE – stands tall above Gandhi, Nehru and all others whom we read about.  Nation today remembers and pays homage to the great son of India.

 
With regards – S. Sampathkumar
18^th August 2023.