Traitorji Subhas Chandra Bose

Mr Bose is celebrated by the fools and scoundrels of India as a patriotic hero and freedom-fighter. They name stadiums, airports, roads, buildings, anything they can put a name on really, in honour of him. They praise him and keep his memory alive, and wish if only he had been there to lead India into the dawn of freedom! And indeed, some are still waiting for his skeleton to return to do the needful. So while witnesses saw him burnt to death in 1945, it remains the official policy of the Government of India to consider Mr Bose as a missing person, not a dead one.

what if this Mr Bose had emerged triumphant at the hour of India's independnce, instead of being burnt alive in a plane crash in a distanct corner of the world? What would the consequences of a Bose leadership have been for India, what would his legacy be? What was his vision for India, what did he want it to become?

I give you his vision in his own words:

"Our philosophy should be a synthesis between National Socialism and Communism."

- speech to students at Tokyo University, 1944.

National Socialism was the fascist philosophy of one of Mr Bose's allies - Adolf Hitler. Nazi was of course just the short form for precisely that - National Socialism.

And what did this synthesis Mr Bose envisaged consist of? Let us turn to an earlier work:

In spite of the antithesis between Communism and Fascism, there are certain traits in common. Both Communism and Fascism believe in the supremacy of the State over the individual. Both denounce parliamentary democracy. Both believe in party rule. Both believe in the dictatorship of the party and in the ruthless suppression of all dissenting minorities. Both believe in a planned industrial reorganization of the country. These common traits will form the basis of the new synthesis.

- Bose, The Indian Struggle (1935)

So why is Mr Bose the hero he is then? Are his followers sorry that India does not 'ruthlessly suppress all dissenting minorities', or do they regret that India became 'a parliamentary democracy'? What part of Mr Bose's vision do they wish to see implemented exactly?

And those of you who do not subscribe to the ideas expressed above, why do you praise and salute this man? What did you want India to be? And now, what do you want India to become?