Skip to main content

Netaji Bose was no Hindutva sympathizer, favoured India as socialist republic: Noted historian Irfan Habib

Veteran historian Prof S Irfan Habib has taken strong exception to what he calls efforts to drag into controversy one of India’s topmost nationalist icons – Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose – by those who have little to with him – or with his "politics during the freedom struggle.”
In a strongly-worded critique in a well-known left-of-centre site, scroll.in, Prof Habib, who is among India’s top-ranking historians, says that Bose has been “invoked by the right-wing political groups during the past two years.”
Habib’s view comes even as a well-known right-wing site declared that Netaji considered Hinduism “as an essential part of Indianness”, insisting he was “thoroughly influenced” by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, the founder of the concept of Hindutva.
Suggesting that Bose was not a Hindutva sympathizer, Prof Habib said, Bose, in fact, favoured a socialist India. Thus, the historian quotes Bose as saying, “I want a socialist Republic of India. I want political freedom and complete economic emancipation.”
Bose, Prof Habib adds, further noted in the Karachi session of the Congress in 1931, “Every human being must have the right to work and right of living wage. There shall be no drones in our society and no unearned incomes.”
Bose had continued, adds Prof Habib, that “there must be equal opportunities for all. Above all, there should be a fair, just and equitable distribution of wealth. For this purpose it may be necessary for the state to take over the control of the means of production and distribution of wealth.”
Prof Habib further quotes Bose as saying, “I want social equality for all. There should be no caste, no depressed classes. Every man will have the same rights and the same status in society.”
Suggesting all this showed where Bose’s sympathies lie, the historian further quotes Bose as saying that “there shall be no inequality between the sexes, either in social status or in the law, and women shall be, in every way equal partner of men.”
Regretting that such Netaji’s statements have “remained under wraps”, Prof Habib says, unfortunately, there has been an effort to create “a mystique around his disappearance” and generate “huge controversies.”
A Marxist historian, Prof Habib created flutter decades ago by differing from Karl Marx’s notion Asiatic of mode of production, according Asian, including Indian, societies, were characterized by absence of private ownership of land, autonomous village communities, and a despotic centralized state in charge of public works.
“The tragedy with the right is that its unique selling proposition in politics is nationalism, while its share in creating a plural nationalist ethos, particularly since 1925, is abysmally poor”, says Prof Habib, adding, “This leaves the right with no credible nationalist icon to look up to and their only option is to hang on to the most popular ones at the slightest opportunity.”
“These icons are conveniently reduced to being just nationalists and ‘martyrs’, with no reference to their ideas and politics so as to somehow fit them into the current right wing politics of nationalism and slogans”, he adds.
“Nationalism is not empty rhetoric – it can’t be flaunted by mere chest thumping or even by branding some fellow citizens as anti-nationals”, says Prof Habib, adding, Bose was a nationalist and “in the vanguard of our freedom struggle and not engaged in some apolitical and safe socio-religious reform programme.”

Comments

TRENDING

Dalit rights and political tensions: Why is Mevani at odds with Congress leadership?

While I have known Jignesh Mevani, one of the dozen-odd Congress MLAs from Gujarat, ever since my Gandhinagar days—when he was a young activist aligned with well-known human rights lawyer Mukul Sinha’s organisation, Jan Sangharsh Manch—he became famous following the July 2016 Una Dalit atrocity, in which seven members of a family were brutally assaulted by self-proclaimed cow vigilantes while skinning a dead cow, a traditional occupation among Dalits.  

Powering pollution, heating homes: Why are Delhi residents opposing incineration-based waste management

While going through the 50-odd-page report Burning Waste, Warming Cities? Waste-to-Energy (WTE) Incineration and Urban Heat in Delhi , authored by Chythenyen Devika Kulasekaran of the well-known advocacy group Centre for Financial Accountability, I came across a reference to Sukhdev Vihar — a place where I lived for almost a decade before moving to Moscow in 1986 as the foreign correspondent of the daily Patriot and weekly Link .

Boeing 787 under scrutiny again after Ahmedabad crash: Whistleblower warnings resurface

A heart-wrenching tragedy has taken place in Ahmedabad. As widely reported, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner plane crashed shortly after taking off from the city’s airport, currently operated by India’s top tycoon, Gautam Adani. The aircraft was carrying 230 passengers and 12 crew members.  As expected, the crash has led to an outpouring of grief across the country. At the same time, there have been demands for the resignation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and the Civil Aviation Minister.

Ahmedabad's civic chaos: Drainage woes, waterlogging, and the illusion of Olympic dreams

In response to my blog on overflowing gutter lines at several spots in Ahmedabad's Vejalpur, a heavily populated area, a close acquaintance informed me that it's not just the middle-class housing societies that are affected by the nuisance. Preeti Das, who lives in a posh locality in what is fashionably called the SoBo area, tells me, "Things are worse in our society, Applewood."

Global NGO slams India for media clampdown during conflict, downplays Pakistan

A global civil rights group, Civicus has taken strong exception to how critical commentaries during the “recent conflict” with Pakistan were censored in India, with journalists getting “targeted”. I have no quarrel with the Civicus view, as the facts mentioned in it are all true.

Remembering Vijay Rupani: A quiet BJP leader who listened beyond party lines

Late evening on June 12, a senior sociologist of Indian origin, who lives in Vienna, asked me a pointed question: Of the 241 persons who died as a result of the devastating plane crash in Ahmedabad the other day, did I know anyone? I had no hesitation in telling her: former Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani, whom I described to her as "one of the more sensible persons in the BJP leadership."

Whither SCOPE? Twelve years on, Gujarat’s official English remains frozen in time

While writing my previous blog on how and why Narendra Modi went out of his way to promote English when he was Gujarat chief minister — despite opposition from people in the Sangh Parivar — I came across an interesting write-up by Aakar Patel, a well-known name among journalists and civil society circles.

A conman, a demolition man: How 'prominent' scribes are defending Pritish Nandy

How to defend Pritish Nandy? That’s the big question some of his so-called fans seem to ponder, especially amidst sharp criticism of his alleged insensitivity during his journalistic career. One such incident involved the theft and publication of the birth certificate of Masaba Gupta, daughter of actor Neena Gupta, in the Illustrated Weekly of India, which Nandy was editing at the time. He reportedly did this to uncover the identity of Masaba’s father.

Why India’s renewable energy sector struggles under 2,735 compliance hurdles

Recently, during a conversation with an industry representative, I was told how easy it is to set up a startup in Singapore compared to India. This gentleman, who had recently visited Singapore, explained that one of the key reasons Indians living in the Southeast Asian nation prefer establishing startups there is because the government is “extremely supportive” when it comes to obtaining clearances. “They don’t want to shift operations to India due to the large number of bureaucratic hurdles,” he remarked.