Bose and Nehru: Two Heroes of the Freedom Struggle
Garhwal Post Bureau
DEHRADUN, 18 Dec: On the final day of the Crime Literature Festival of India on Sunday, the book A Bird from Afar was discussed. The author, Anshul Chaturvedi, Executive Editor of The Times of India, Delhi edition, and Aloke Lal, the Festival Director, engaged in a highly absorbing conversation, bringing out the essence of the book, which is written in the historical fiction genre.
Set during the years when India’s struggle for freedom from British rule was at a crucial phase and World War II was raging, the book introduces fantasy into the narrative, resulting in a highly absorbing read. There were gains for the Axis powers: Stalingrad had fallen; in the African theatre, Field Marshal Rommel’s Afrika Korps had emerged victorious; and Rangoon had been seized by the Japanese after their capture of Singapore.
Amidst these developments, Indian nationalist leader Subhas Chandra Bose breaks away from the Indian National Congress to pursue his dream of gaining freedom for the nation by raising an army that would engage in war with the British Indian Army to wrest independence. The book adds a dramatic element of fiction by imagining that Bose’s army actually succeeds in overthrowing British rule in most parts of India, including Delhi.
Lal asked the author whether he felt there was even an iota of possibility that an armed confrontation could have succeeded against the army of the mighty Empire. Chaturvedi emphasised the importance of the dimension Bose’s move added to the situation. His alliance with the Tripartite Powers was indeed something that made the British Indian government apprehensive about the possibility of the Axis powers helping Subhas march into India through the North-West Frontier.
During the discussion, the fact that Gandhi and Nehru were not in favour of the armed option and wanted to continue a peaceful struggle was brought up repeatedly. Nehru had an intense dislike for the fascist ideology of Hitler and the Japanese government, while Subhas was raising the Indian Legion in association with them. In the correspondence between these two great leaders of the time, the ideological divide was quite strong.
