Although “Parakram” means valour, in the era of the Sangh Parivar, it has also come to mean aggression against the weak and defenceless.

Subhas was never a “Parakrami” in the sense that the Sangh interprets. He was a true hero who united the weak and oppressed against the mighty British, risking his life in the struggle.

On this day, the Sanghis claiming to be “heirs” to Netaji’s legacy were the ones who diligently served the British army’s efforts to defeat Subhas during World War II. While Subhas was rallying soldiers worldwide against the British, these Hindutvavadis under Savarkar’s leadership,were brokering the recruitment of Hindus into the British army.

Yet, they now praise Netaji with clear ulterior motives.

Firstly, the Sanghis, who have no legacy of participating in the freedom struggle, are attempting to hijack the legacy of all non-Congress or dissident heros who were leaders of different streams  of the freedom struggle, portraying themselves as the heirs to these streams.

Secondly, they exploit the natural and healthy political and ideological differences that existed within the Congress and between Congress and other streams, and around them, they craft a false narrative to claim that all who disagreed with Gandhi and Nehru were pro-Hindutva nationalists, utilizing this for their current Hindutva nation agenda.

This is the real intention of the Sangh Parivar.

With this malicious intent, they have engaged in propaganda backed and filled with lies and fabrications that Gandhi and Nehru conspired against Subhas Chandra Bose and that the Hindutvavadis like Savarkar stood by him, thereby insulting Subhas to a great extent.

To fulfil their ulterior motives, they obscure the political, ideological, and secular perspectives between themselves and Gandhi-Nehru that Subhas had, as well as publicly expressed disdain towards communalists like the Hindu Mahasabha and Muslim League.

At the same time, they conceal the disdain Subhas had for communalists like Savarkar, the Hindu Mahasabha, and the Muslim League.

This article primarily attempts to explain Subhas’s views on secularism, Hindu-Muslim unity, and his opinions about people like Savarkar. It relies mainly on Subhas’s own writings in “An Indian Pilgrim” and “Indian Struggle” and on works by his grandson and scholar Sugata Bose in “His Majesty’s Opponent” and the edited volumes “Collected Works Of Subasha Chandra Bose.”

All these books are available online, and interested parties can read them to understand the political-historical misdeeds of the Sangh Parivar.

Subhas Chandra Bose was not only a prominent leader of Congress but also martyred in the effort to oust the ruling British during World War II by forming the Azad Hind Fauj.

History textbooks have recounted to non-Bengali students anything more than this bare fact.

Subhas was above all else, an exceptional proponent of communal harmony and Hindu-Muslim unity. As a top-notch nationalist, he dreamed of building a future India based on socialist ideals. His views on the history of India, the way he formed the Azad Hind Fauj, and his clear disdain for figures like Savarkar are evident in these respects.

The Tiger of Tipu was the flag of the Azad Hind Fauj!

The Sanghis who attempt day and night to demonise the revered Tipu-Haider as fanatic monsters should be ashamed when considering the respect Subhas Chandra Bose and the Azad Hind Fauj held for them. Subhas used the flying tiger symbol of Tipu as a symbol of anti-British struggle on the first flag of the Azad Hind Fauj. While unveiling the flag, Subhas explained to his soldiers that this flying tiger was a symbol of Tipu Sultan’s resistance against the British.

That is not all. On October 21, 1943, the Azad Hind Fauj declared the provisional government of India. While making this proclamation, the Azad Hind Fauj and Netaji acknowledged several real leaders of the country along with Tipu and Haider, expressing their gratitude. Reading this makes it clear that it is impossible to appropriate Subhas for the RSS agenda.

The proclamation of the Provisional Government of Azad Hind begins like this:

“Ever since Bengal first faced defeat at the hands of the British in 1757, the people of India have continuously waged a struggle against British rule for a hundred years. This period is filled with the unmatched courage and selfless sacrifices shown by the people of India. During this period in the history of India, the names of Sirajuddaula of Bengal, Mohan Lal, Hyder Ali, Tipu Sultan, Velu Thampi….and others are inscribed in golden letters…”

Interested parties can read the full text and see pictures of this proclamation at the following web address:[https://www.roots.gov.sg/Collection-Landing/listing/1278996]

Hindu-Muslim Unity: the foundation of the Azad Hind Fauj

The Modi government is intent on imposing Brahminical Hindi as the sole language of the country. In contrast, the official language of Subhas’s Azad Hind Fauj was Urdu-Hindustani, commonly used by the people of North India, and English was used to be understood by the soldiers from South India. The motto of the Fauj was written in Urdu:

“Itmad (Trust), Ittefaq (Unity), and Qurbani (Sacrifice).”

In 1857, during the First War of Indian Independence, the Indian forces under the leadership of the last Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar called for “Delhi Chalo.” In September 1943, Subhas’s Azad Hind Fauj also embarked from Rangoon (now Myanmar) to expel the British from India, remembering the 1857 uprising, and Subhas called for “Delhi Chalo” during this grand departure.

That is not all either. On September 26, 1943, a special prayer meeting was held by the Azad Hind Fauj near the tomb of Bahadur Shah Zafar.

As described by Subhas’s grandson Sugata Bose in his scholarly work, the proportion of Muslim soldiers in the Azad Fauj was slightly higher than others, and many of Subhas’s closest associates were Muslims. In 1943, during a secret submarine adventure journey, the only companion who travelled with him was Abid Hasan from South Hyderabad. Throughout his travels across Europe and Asia, Hasan was Subhas’s close assistant.

The first division commander of the Azad Hind Fauj was Mohammad Zaman Kiani. The first to hoist the Tricolor flag of India in Imphal, Manipur, was Fauj officer Shaukat Malik. On their tragic last journey, Habibur Rahman perished alongside them. However, this uprising failed, and the soldiers of the Fauj were captured by the British, who charged them with sedition and held a trial. The three Azad Hind Fauj soldiers who were symbolically tried at the Red Fort were:

Prem Sehgal, a Hindu, Shah Nawaz Khan, a Muslim, and Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon, a Sikh.  This also symbolically represented the secular patriotism prevailing in Subhas’s Fauj.

(His Majesty’s Opponent, p. 4)

Netaji’s rejection of the Hindu-Muslim division in Indian history

The Hindutvavadis depict the history of India as having been engulfed in 1200 years of aggression to suit their communal polarisation agenda. Thus, they portray the entire era under Muslim rule before the British and the Muslim rulers before them as a period during which Hindus suffered under Muslim aggressors.

However, Subhas rejected this communal view of Indian history as propagated by the British, aimed at dividing India along Hindu-Muslim lines. He also noted:

“History will bear me out when I say that it is a misnomer to talk of Muslim rule when describing the political order in India prior to the advent of the British. Whether we talk of the Moghul Emperors at Delhi, or of the Muslim Kings of Bengal, we shall find that in either case the administration was run by Hindus and Muslims together, many of the prominent Cabinet Ministers and Generals being Hindus. Further, the consolidation of the Moghul Empire in India was effected with the help of Hindu commanders-in-chief. The Commander-in-chief of Nawab Sirajudowla, whom the British fought at Plassey in 1757 and defeated, was a Hindu, and the rebellion of 1857 against the British, in which Hindus and Moslems were found side by side, was fought under the flag of a Muslim, Bahadur Shah.” (An Indian Pilgrim, p. 15)

Subhas’s outrage against communal organisations like Hindu Mahasabha and Muslim League

During the period of the freedom struggle, Subhas held deep contempt for the Hindu Mahasabha and Muslim League, which were working for the British and causing divisions among the people. When he was elected president of Congress in 1938, he emphasized this issue, saying:

“We often hear talks of a Hindu Raj. This serves no purpose. Can these communal organizations solve the problems faced by India’s working class? Do these organisations have any solution to the issues of unemployment and poverty?” he questioned vehemently.

He also banned members of the Hindu Mahasabha and Muslim League from holding Congress memberships. The reason? Because:

“Jinnah’s idea is to obtain his dream of Pakistan with the help of the British, not to fight jointly with Congress for India’s liberation.”

“On the other hand, Savarkar’s only goal is to collaborate with the British and get military training for Hindus by joining the  British army. After meeting both, I have concluded that nothing can be expected from them for India’s independence.” (The Indian Struggle, p. 344)

Thus, even if one reads Subhas Chandra Bose’s own writings and the scholarly works about him, it becomes clear how malicious the portrayal of Subhas by these fascist Sanghis is.

Beyond the servitude to British colonialism, corporate capitalism, and communal hatred, these fascists have no history of building or fighting for the country. Now, they are hijacking leaders who had differences with Gandhi and Nehru and were non-Congress, and portraying them in a way that insults these leaders, this country, and its history.

A staunchly secular, anti-communal, and socialist nationalist like Subhas Chandra Bose can never be appropriated by the RSS. Nor should he be allowed to be.

The only way to do this is to expose their false narrative through an exposition of real history, which itself must become a movement, right?

(The writer is a political commentator based in Bengaluru)

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are the author’s personal views, and do not necessarily represent the views of Sabrangindia. 

Related:

Debunking “Popular Myths” through a study of Bose

Second killing of Bhagat Singh & Subhash Chandra Bose by the Hindutva Gang

India’s Post Truth Era in ICHR’s Book on Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose

PM Modi to attend Subhas Chandra Bose’s 125th birth anniversary celebrations in Kolkata

The post Can RSS co-opt Subhas Chandra Bose, a staunch secular-socialist and a fond admirer of Tipu Sultan? appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Even though the primary objective of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), as mandated by the Finance Act – 2016 under the Modi Government, is to “maintain price stability” through formulating appropriate monetary policies, the RBI has miserably failed to fulfil the same.

Its incapability has become more visible in the last few months. The inflation was beyond comfortable limit of 4% for more than a year now. While the 2016 act, stipulates the permissible inflation rate at 4% with a band of plus or minus 2%, the retail inflation in India had crossed 6% mark by January itself. According to the recent statement by the RBI, the retail inflation for the month of April has not only breached 7% mark, but also reached an all-time high of 7.69%.

Modi Model and Inflation

The inflation or the price rise, in generic term, is always bad news for the have nots. Inflation is an “indirect taxation” by which the market sucks extra money from the people without any legislation. Inflation becomes deadly to people’s lives and nation’s economy when the real wages and incomes, and hence, the demand, is in decline. Since the inflation cuts into the purchasing power of the masses, consumption decreases. This in turn results in fall in demand leading to decline of business. This may further result in unemployment, under employment and increased poverty. This is a vicious cycle.

India is facing such gory economic situation since demonetisation. This Modi-made economic disaster resulted in at least a fall of 2% of GDP affecting the informal sector, the MSMEs, and the farmers where 92 % of Indian work force is employed. Even before recovering from this shock, GST was imposed which further pushed the informal sector to big chaos. The consumption data partially released and later officially withdrawn from the Modi government, during that period, showed how these policies caused decline in consumption which was lowest in the last four decades. Thus, even before the Covid  pandemic, the real wages of the people and the demand in the economy was declining resulting in the continuous decline in the GDP growth rate.

This situation got aggravated in the wake of Covid pandemic and especially by the most arbitrary and unscientific lockdowns imposed by the Modi government. While more than 4 million lives were lost due to Covid, crores of people have yet to regain their livelihood and gainful employment due to lock downs. Even for those who are in the jobs and semi jobs the wages have been decreasing in its real value.

This situation has moved from bad to worse due to the continuous increases of the prices of essential commodities like rice, wheat, edible oil, vegetables, and above all the prices of petrol and Diesel, which is in fact inflation multiplier, in the last one year. The retail inflation which is calculated on the basis of Consumer Price Index, where food basket constitutes more than 45%, has reached intolerable level of 7%. Even the prices of cement, steel, and manufactured goods are also increasing. Most crucial is the increase of prices of petroleum products, of which 85% are imported by the country. Hence part of the inflation is imported.

Inflated ego and deflated Rupee

Now that the exchange rate of rupee against the dollar has fallen to a historical low of Rs. 77.40/-, and is likely to depreciate further in the coming weeks, Indian imports are certain to become costlier, since the dollar component dominates Indian foreign trade. Because of the slump in the international commodity market, Indian commodity exports are not picking up. In spite of high  claims of the Modi government about the record exports, the fact remains that while India exported USD 417 billion worth of goods in 2021-22, the imports were to the tune of USD 610 billion an increase of more than USD 200 billion than the previous year.

So much for the economy of Hindu Atmanirbharata.

This chronic import dependence has resulted in depreciation of the Rupee against the Dollar since Indian Independence which has become unmanageable after the neoliberal reforms initiated in 1991, where administered exchange rate regime was changed to partial convertibility of rupee rate and later to full convertibility.

Thus, while at the time of independence the exchange rate of rupee against the dollar was Rs. 4.70, it slowly raised to Rs. 17 at the beginning of corporate capital reforms in 1991. After the exchange rate liberalisation was implemented, the exchange rate rose to Rs. 43 in 2000 and to around Rs 55 before 2014.

One of the electoral planks of Modi and BJP was that during the UPA regime the value of rupee and hence the dignity of the nation was depreciated. It was caused not because of any economic compulsions but due to political mismanagement and corruption of the Congress party

The present state president of BJP in Karnataka, Mr. Nalin Kumar Kateel, even went to an extent of publicly claiming that if Modi comes to power, with in a span of two years, Indian economy will  become so strong that instead of an exchange rate of Rs 60 to a dollar, an exchange rate of USD 15 for a rupee will be realised!

Any way… no magic happened. Rather economy declined further, import dependence multiplied and hence historic decline of Rupee to Rs. 77.60 against dollar. Thus, the decline of rupee will make imports costlier which in turn would lead to higher prices and inflation.

Political risk and capital flight            

Another reason for the depreciation of the rupee and hence inflation is capital flight of foreign investors from the Indian stock market. It is said that after the “second coming” of Modi, more than 22 billion dollars of foreign institutional investment has been withdrawn due to the increasing political risk to their investment due to growing polarisation and violence in the country. After the war broke out the sentiment of uncertainty made the foreign investors pull out of Indian market further.

While these are the inherent reasons for the increasing inflation, there are also additional and immediate reasons like the Russia- Ukraine war. The war has poured salt to the wound of Indian  inflation.

Due to the war induced geo-economic situation, the international crude oil prices are increasing. On the other hand, Indonesia has declared ban on its edible oil exports and likewise Malaysia. India imports 60% of its edible oil from Indonesia, Malaysia and Ukraine. All these factors have increased the prices of food items so, says the Modi government to paint a helpless picture.

But the prices of both petroleum products and edible oil in India is exorbitantly high not only because of increase in its international prices but majorly because of excise duties and the cess imposed, primarily, by the Central government and state governments. 50 to 60 of prices of the petroleum products are taxes and cess and 40 to 50 of price of imported edible oils are import duties.

Modi Made Inflation

Thus, the inflation in India is:

1) Imported- excessive dependence on Imports, aggravated during Modi regime but has its roots in the neoliberal policies for which previous governments are also responsible.

2) Modi Made-

a) Because the prices of imported goods are artificially exorbitant due to Modi taxes

b) The capital flight of investors resulting in decline of rupee and costlier imports due to Modis politics of Hindu majoritarianism.

Hence the moot question is whether these politico-economic factors causing inflation be mitigated by narrow financial instruments available to RBI?

After the Financial amendment act of 2016, the primary objective of the RBI is to control inflation through monetary policies. That is by controlling money flow in the economy.

Myopic monetary instruments and Monstrous Political Economy

The monetary instruments available to RBI to control money flow are by controlling the interest rates through imposing flexible Repo rates and controlling money available for transactions to the banks by imposing flexible CRR – Cash Reserve Ratio.

When the economy is facing demand crunch, the RBI reduces Repo rate thereby effecting the interest rate on the loans there by encouraging spending and investing, which in turn is expected to stimulate demand. Likewise, the Cash ratio, the amount of cash per deposit each bank is expected to rest in RBI is also decreased so that more money is available with banks for transactions.

On the other hand, when the prices are increasing, RBI construes the reason behind it as the over supply of money in the economy. So, to suck back the extra money it increases the interest rates and the CRR so that money available for transactions are curtailed.

The underlying dogma of the central Banks like RBI, under neoliberalism, in controlling inflation is: the primary and sole reason for the inflation is over flow of the money in the economy.

This may be true in some circumstances where economy is over performing. But price rise also happens when there are supply side constraints., when cost of production is increasing due to mismanagement of the economy or chronic import dependence. The Interest rate increase or effecting the decrease of money flow in the economy would not result in inflation control in such circumstances because the root cause of inflation is entirely different.

Such myopic monetary policies may result in an economic disaster in countries where the real income and the demand in the economy is already hit badly and the growth is already declining. In such a situation policies like interest rate hikes may result in further decline of economic activities creating a situation of Stagflation and economic crisis also.

Indian economy is facing a situation similar to the second example. Indian economy needs more demand push, more money flow in the hands of MSMEs etc. The recent RBI measures in the name of curbing inflation by hiking the Repo rate from 4 to 4.4% and the CRR hike from 4 to 4.5% will lead to further demand crunch, further unemployment without decreasing the inflation. Because inflation  in India at present is mainly due to Petroleum and edible oil price hike, which is caused by the taxation policies of the Modi government and not due to overflow of money or excessive economic activities.

It is said that RBI has been suggesting the government to reduce the excise duties to tame the inflation but the Modi government is not heeding. Hence the RBI, in its extraordinary meeting resorted to repo rate and CRR hike.

Through this myopic monetary policy RBI might have satisfied the inflated ego of the prime minister, but these measures will deflate the living conditions of the broad masses of the people.

This might also satisfy the credit agencies who subscribe to neoliberal monetary policy of inflation control, price stability etc., serving the needs of finance capital. But these policies will only protect the billionaires of corporate finance, but result in total destabilisation of the lives of crores of people.

*Views expressed are the author’s own. The author is a Karnataka-based journalist and activist.

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