This is our communists on Bose Note:Communists are in power with the same forward block(Netaji's party in W.B)
Author: Publication: Organiser Date: July 21, 2002
================================ With Capt. Lakshmi Sehgal filing the nomination paper for the presidentship of the Republic of India, the Communists have started eulogizing Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, the freedom fighter whom they have so far been describing as "traitor" and %u201Cquisling". They had also described the Indian National Army (INA) founded by Netaji at Singapore in 1943, the women%u2019s wing of which was headed by Capt. Lakshmi Sehgal, as the "hired Bose army of rapists and plunderers". People's War, the mouthpiece of the Communist Party of India (CPI) had published a cartoon on July 19, 1942 during the World War, showing Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose as a donkey carrying on its back Tojo, the Prime Minister of Japan during the war years.
The Bartaman, a Bengali daily published from Kolkata, carried an article on June 27, 2002, written by Shri Pabitra Kumar Ghosh about the views expressed by CPI leaders during the war years. Shri Ghosh quoted an article written by B.T. Randive, the then General Secretary of the CPI, in the people%u2019s War on January 10, 1943. Shri Randive had said in the article that Subhash Bose was misrepresenting "anarchy and sabotage" as freedom struggle. The CPI would respond to this move of Bose by what every patriot would do in respect of "traitors" and quislings". If these "hired" Bose army sets foot on Indian soil for loot and dacoity, they would realise how the people of the country would express their rage, he writes in the article. The article declares, "The Communist Party will rise to the occasion and give the only reply which traitors and quislings have got from honest patriots. Bose's mercenary army of liberation of rapine and plunder will feel the worth and indignation of our people if it dare rest its foot on Indian soil to enact acts of pillage and robbery." So much love and affection the Marxists had for Subhash Chandra Bose. Confidential records prepared by the British intelligence agency are more revealing on the role played by certain members of the INA including "Mrs Major Laxmi". According to one report Major Laxmi was "running a mischievous propaganda". She is said to have been transferred to the civil medical department.
The intelligence report in one place even suggests that Major Laxmi was not part of the INA at all at some later stage. According to the secret reports Netaji left Rangoon on the evening of April 24, 1945 for Bangkok. He was not accompanied by Maj. Laxmi. The secret reports also speak of "treachery by five officers of the H.O. of the 2nd division which seems to have upset Netaji very much." (Translated from the Bengali original).
Shri Ghosh writes that the CPI had directed the meanest abuses against supporters of Netaji in India at that time. It includes "paid servant of the Axis powers", agents of Bose, the traitorous followers of Bose, political maggots, and the like. They had also described the INA as the " army of Tojo and Hitler", a "diseased limb of India which had to be amputed", etc. The Marxists use this language against their opponents even today. According to Shri Pabitra Kumar Ghosh, Randive's successor, P.C. Joshi had written a "personal" letter to the Home Member of the Viceroys Executive Council (Home Minister of the Union Cabinet in today's parlance) Sir Reginald Maxwell on March 15, 1943 saying: "We are waging a war against sabotage, misguided patriotism or the fifth column. We are trying our best to convince people that sabotage is not the way for attaining independence. It is nothing but Fascism" (translated from Bengali). The word sabotage here obviously refers to the August, 1942 movement, when people had indulged in uprooting railway lines or clipping off telephone lines in order to establish %u201Cfree India". Nana Patil of Maharashtra and Matangiri Hazra of Bengal were among those heroes and heroines. Shri Ghosh further writes that the CPI members used to betray freedom fighters of those days to the police who used to arrest them on the basis of their information.
(With inputs from Shri Satyabrata Tapadar. General Secretary, Netaji Study Mission BIIS, Satindra Pally Kolkata- 700 084.)
