#dnaEdit: Bose controversy

The debate began on the leaked papers that showed after Independence, family members of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose were under surveillance. This was cannon fodder for controversy-seekers. This was done during the Nehru years and it ended in 1968 when his daughter, Indira Gandhi, was the Prime Minister. There is an element of irony in this. Nehru was deemed a liberal democrat who did not appear to relish snooping on others, especially the family of a valued colleague. Indira Gandhi was not a liberal in the Nehruvian sense. The intelligence agencies were much more active, especially in domestic politics, in her time. It is, indeed, intriguing then as to why Nehru allowed snooping on Bose’s family if he knew about it at all, and as to why his daughter put an end to it. It is tempting to speculate that Nehru might have nursed certain apprehensions about Bose’s possible return or his linkages with Axis powers — especially Hitler’s Germany and Tojo’s Japan. This is something for the fertile minds of conspiracy theorists to chew on.

What is more interesting than the real reasons for the surveillance of the Bose family, however, is the broader context of political skulduggery. While the Congress clings slavishly to the Nehru dynasty legacy, those outside the Congress, especially on the right end of the political spectrum, are only too willing to pick up any shred of information to mount an attack on Nehru. The latest revelation gives them an opportunity to accuse Nehru of stooping to snoop on the Bose family. The right-wingers in India have been looking for an iconic leader to counter the charismatic Nehru. For a long time, it was Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel who served as a counterpoint to Nehru. Patel was the perfect foil to socialist Nehru because Patel was a true political conservative, who did not conceal his distaste for socialism and socialists. Though the BJP would idolise Patel as an ardent nationalist, it was quite aware that conservatism will not win it many votes. That is why, at the moment of its birth in 1980, the BJP under Atal Bihari Vajpayee adopted the curious formula of “Gandhian socialism”. Of course, it did not stay too long with Gandhian socialism. Under LK Advani it embraced militant Hindutva and made Ayodhya part of its political agenda. There was change, yet again, when the BJP-led NDA under Vajpayee had to pursue economic liberalisation between 1998 and 2004.

Meanwhile, the BJP continues with its search for a hero who will demolish the Nehru myth. For a moment, Advani and Jaswant Singh reached out to Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the creator of Pakistan, as a counter to Nehru. It had seemed that Jinnah was a more genuine secularist than even Nehru. Of course, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) would not accept the adventurism. Advani and Singh were duly snubbed and marginalised for the sin. Now, the BJP is reaching out to icons like Lal Bahadur Shastri, BR Ambedkar and Bose. Shastri remains a weak candidate in terms of charisma. Ambedkar is indeed a towering intellectual and the face of the most oppressed section of Indian society, the Dalits. Ambedkar as part of the BJP pantheon would strengthen the right-wing party’s attempt to shed its image of an upper class and upper caste formation. BJP’s ultimate triumph would be to appropriate Bose. There are however some problems. In the 1930s, Bose ranked along with Nehru as the popular left-winger. The two posed a challenge to the Congress old guard. Bose’s Forward Bloc remains socialist in its political ethos. The BJP would not hesitate to use the iconic Bose to bring down Nehru a notch or two. But it does not solve the BJP’s need for an icon of its own.