The contribution of Indian revolutionaries during the freedom struggle and role of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose in the events leading to country’s freedom have not been well documented, argues Prem Prakash who is the only living media personality to have seen functioning of 14 prime ministers from Jawaharlal Nehru to Narendra Modi in his professional capacity. In his new and revealing book titled, “History That India Ignored” [Vitasta], Prem Prakash, 94, chairman of the Asian News International [ ANI] laments how many youngsters in India are unaware of a massive naval mutiny and about the martyrdom of naval officers who lost their lives in fighting for India’s Independence. A small memorial still exists at Colaba, Mumbai. Prem Prakash, a self-confessed admirer of ‘Punditji” [ Jawaharlal Nehru] and Mahatma Gandhi terms it “tragic” that Independent India has ignored the revolutionaries. “When the Indian National Army and Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose succeeded in reaching Imphal, the British were alarmed and compelled to think afresh about continuing their rule in India. The naval mutiny in Bombay followed by one in Karachi as also in the Royal Indian Air force was enough to show that forces the British relied on to rule India were going against them. The British Prime Minister Clement Atlee himself made it clear that the decision to leave India was taken not because of Mahatma Gandhi or the Congress. ‘Minimal,’ was the exact word he used to describe the influence of the two in the British Raj’s decision to leave India,” records Prem Prakash. For Prem Prakash, it was rather unusual of Jawaharlal Nehru to have visited Singapore before the independence where he had met Lord Louis Mountbatten in 1946 but not reported back the conversation to the Congress or its president Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. Prem Prakash thinks Mountbatten had managed to convince Nehru during his stay in Singapore that the solution to India’s Independence lay in its partition. Maulana Azad, who was the Congress president at that time writes in his autobiography, India Wins Freedom, that Nehru did not report to him about his discussions with Mountbatten in Singapore when he returned from there. He was entitled to receive a report as president of the Congress party. Maulana Azad held him and Vallabh Bhai Patel as being responsible for the partition of India, asserts Prem Prakash. The author is candid in writing that a large section of Muslims had opposed partition on religious grounds and they did not recognize Mohammad Ali Jinnah as their leader. “And they proved their rejection of Jinnah in 1937 when the Muslim League failed to win any Muslim majority in any province where the elections were held. The question that Muslims of India asked was: where were they going to go? This was an unanswered question that bothered them. How could they leave India which was their home for generations and that is where they did all their business. Yet Jinnah was about to be thrust upon them by the British…” Prem Prakash aptly chronicles some mass antipartition demonstrations by the Muslims organized by All India Azad Muslim Conference and several other Muslim organizations in Delhi, appealing to the British and India’s leaders not to divide the country. “They declared and reminded everyone including the British that Muslim League or its leader Mohammed Ali Jinnah had no right to speak on behalf of Muslims of India.Their concern was the unanswered question why should they leave, giving up their homes, businesses and employment in India. Azad Muslim Conference opposing the Partition alleged that the idea of dividing India was to keep Muslims backward and suffer economically. Prem Prakash also quotes famous Deobandi scholar Maulana Syed Hussain Madani’s book, Muttahida Qaumyat Aur Islam, that had passionately argued against the idea of Partition. So was Alama Mashriqi who considered separatist leaders as power hungry and misleading the Muslims. He alleged that the separatists were serving the British agenda. The British ignored the fact of massive demonstrations in Delhi including the one by the Muslim weavers of Bihar and Eastern UP against the Partition. Not just Muslim voices were ignored by the British, but voices of other non-Hindu communities as well. The Akali Party led by Master Tara Singh and Chief Khalsa Diwan were also opposed to the idea of Pakistan. The Parsi community largely resident in Bombay Presidency, but in smaller numbers all over India was a prosperous one. They were opposed to the idea of Partition. Frank Anthony, leader of the AngloIndian community speaking also for the Christians did not approve of Partition. Yet the British were pushing it. Jinnah, in Prem Prakash’s assessment, had managed to convince the British and the Americans that he alone was their friend in the subcontinent, while the Hindu Congress was left-oriented. Prem Prakash wonders why the history of the Independence struggle as has been written since 1947 gives all credit to nonviolence, non-cooperation and time spent in jail by the Congress leaders. The armed struggle fought by the revolutionaries has been downplayed or ignored. Sample this observation, “The fact remains that mass awareness to fight for Independence was inspired by Mahatma Gandhi. His total stress on nonviolence failed to get the people of India to rise and fight when he gave a call for ‘Do or Die.’ Mahatma Gandhi’s exact call to the people was: ‘Here is a mantra, a short one that I give you. You may imprint it in your hearts and let every breath of yours give expression to it. The mantra is ‘Do or Die’. We shall either free India or die in the attempt. We shall not live to see the perpetuation of our slavery. The only people who were doing this long before this call by Mahatma Gandhi were the revolutionaries. While I do not wish to undermine the role of the Congress and Mahatma Gandhi, it is important that we give due credit to all those young and old revolutionaries who fought and died for India.”
