Netaji at India Gate: A New Narrative

This article is published by the renowned news portal MyIndMakers with the title: Netaji's Hologram at India Gate Marks a New Shift in the Narrative. Here below the link.

https://myind.net/Home/viewArticle/netajis-hologram-at-india-gate-marks-a-new-shift-in-the-narrative

On the 125th birth anniversary of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, our Prime Minister Sri Narendra Modi has unveiled a 3D hologram of Netaji in the very place where the statue of King George V, the colonial symbol of the British Empire, was present till 1968 at India Gate and a grand statue, made of granite, of Netaji will be there by the Independence Day this year. “This would be a symbol of India's indebtedness to him”, Modiji declared. The Indian Government had already declared the 23rd January, the birthday of Netaji, as ‘Parakram Diwas' last year and instituted ‘Subhas Chandra Bose Aapda Prabandhan Puraskar'. The Prime Minister has conferred this award to the awardees on the Netaji birthday this year.

Now the decision to install a statue of Netaji Subhas at India Gate is not only a symbolic gesture but it also symbolizes a new narrative indicating a paradigm shift in the narrative of Indian freedom struggle. This change of narrative has started with the Modi Government's policy on acknowledgement of ‘other’ paths of freedom movement along with the so-called ‘non-violent’ movement. 

‘Dilli Chalo’- March to Delhi- was a clarion call of Netaji after regrouping the ‘Azad Hind Fauz’- the Indian National Army, and this call was not only to overthrow the colonial British power by armed forces but also to erase the colonial legacy in Bharat. With the recognition of armed and revolutionary struggle of freedom movement the present Indian government has set right the history of Indian freedom movement from the perspective of Dharmik civilizational legacy.

“Ahimsa Paramo Dharma” has been the highest and supreme ideal of Dharmik legacy in the Land of Bharat. But this ideal has also a contextuality in that Ahimsa can’t be equated with non-violence in an absolute and unqualified manner as was practiced and propagated by Mahatma Gandhi in his freedom movement through Non-cooperation and Civil Disobedience movements. Dharma is Duty with multi-dimensional perspectives. If Satyagraha had been a kind of dharma for Gandhiji, then Nyaya Yudh or Justice War in armed manner had been dharma for Netaji. 

The Indian freedom movement has a long and rich legacy of armed revolutionary struggle. Veer Savarkar had rightly justified the 1857 Revolt as the First Indian War of Independence. Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose had rightly followed this Dharmik legacy of armed struggle to free our motherland Bharat. 

Being an ardent follower of ‘Cyclonic Hindu Monk' Swami Vivekananda, Netaji had chosen the path of armed struggle as justice war against the oppressive mighty colonial empire. To realise the dream of Swaraj- the self-rule, Netaji had to use his political pragmatism to choose the Kautilya principle: ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend'. Because Netaji had no ideological inclination to fulfill his ultimate goal of freeing his Bharat Mata from the shackles of colonial chains. Only ‘ism’ for him was unqualified ‘nationalism’ and national interest. 

The present Modi-led Indian government has rightly placed the statue of Netaji at India Gate in drawing our ‘collective memory' to the much neglected dharmik legacy of armed freedom struggle, because Netaji has been the epitome of supreme sacrifice and eternal inspiration for the cause of our motherland. 

@ Sujit Roy

N.B.: You may go through my earlier article on Netaji and our present foreign policy here.