Former Indian Navy chief Admiral Arun Prakash has described Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose as a military icon and said that the development of nationalistic leanings in the Indian soldiers during the colonial period was a result of the INA movement, forcing the British to quit India soon after the end of World War 2.
Admiral Prakash, who was in Kolkata on Saturday to deliver the ‘Sarat Chandra Bose Lecture’, lauded Netaji and said that he was a man of strategic vision and had planned a liberation war from two sides of the Indian subcontinent.
“The British ruled their Indian empire through Indians and the Indian army. Once the writing was on the wall that the Indian soldiers had developed nationalistic leanings (as a result of the INA movement), the harsh truth dawned on the British that they could no longer rule and it was time to go,” Prakash, who is also the former chairman of the chiefs of staff committee, said.
The Admiral also quoted Gen Wavell, the then Viceroy of India who had written that it was “no use shutting one’s eye” to the fact that “any Indian soldier worth his salt” had turned into a “nationalist”.
Netaji's grandnephew backs Admiral's views
Sugata Bose, Gardiner Professor of History at Harvard University and grandnephew of Netaji Bose, backed Admiral Prakash’s arguments and said “Netaji noticed that the Indian soldiers had been kept insulated by the British Raj from the swirling currents of nationalism”. He added that Bose put in efforts to overturn the loyalty of the sepoys towards the nationalistic cause, which shook the British grip over India.
Admiral Prakash also pointed out that the first nationalistic army raised by Bose was the Indian legion in Germany from soldiers captured from the North African front, and his declared aim for this brigade strength legion had been for a land or sea invasion from the west.
He indicated that Bose had even mooted the idea of parachuting them into the North West Frontier province as the INA, which was raised in Southeast Asia, and Japanese forces drove in from Manipur and Kohima into eastern India.
The former Naval chief noted that though post-independence, the Indian armed forces had accepted the INA slogan ‘Jai Hind’ and song ‘Kadam, Kadam Badhaye Ja’, it did not accept INA soldiers or give them their due place in military history.
However, he said that “slowly and maturely” the Indian armed forces were now recognising the INA’s role and the place of Netaji as a military icon.
(With PTI inputs)
