whoosh

woh-battameez:

thesavagesalad:

fuckyeahsouthasia:

“Give me blood and I will give you freedom” - Subhash Chandra Bose.

Bose was one of the most prominent leaders in the Indian independence movement and is a legendary figure in the Indian history.

We will always remember his contribution in Indian independence and remember him on this 106th birth anniversary on 23 January.

idk Bengalis are gonna maul me for this one but Netaji was a hella problematic man.

Like I don’t even know where to begin with it but I wish we all had a more detailed education on the history of the Independence movement because similar to the way Gandhi is romanticized- same deal with Netaji. We really need to stop this and look at those who were in this movement a lot more critically. It would do us all a world of good.

In an Indian social history mood today — so here goes. 

Yes, @thesavagesalad Bose is one fucking complicated and twisted leader in Indian history. 

— Bose is cited as a “good opposition” to Gandhi/Nehruvian vision of India. Bose and Bhagat Singh are seen as the only Left opposition India had, hence, in the off chance you don’t buy into Gandhian philosophy, just by virtue of opposition, suddenly everything Bose did is fine. 

— Bose was Leftist, yes. He conceptualised colonisation as economic and cultural and talks of the irrational racial divide. 

— During WWII, he served in Burma, through which he ended up forming alliances with Mussolini and Hitler, building the argument that “enemies of my enemies are my friends” and traced the Indo-German Aryan legacy, claimed racial superiority, even over the Brits. 

— So while we love to talk of Bose’s egalitarian and class-less vision of India, we forget his Hitler connection.  West Bengal, in *particular* is very proud of Bose, again pardoning all his messed up notions of race and gender (for women in his vision, were only workers, people who would birthe the nation and yet not feminine at all). 

This is the problem, when we decontextualise the Indian freedom struggle and make heroes out of ordinary men, who in certain specific contexts meant *something* to the history of the nation. 

At the same time, how come Ambedkar or Periyar (Ambedkar, the ONLY dude who has ever resigned from the Parliament because of a bill drafted by him was severely amended before it reached the masses in a defanged version — the Hindu Code Bill that granted property, inheritance and divorce rights to women, as early as 1950’s — and Periyar who led the South’s biggest anti-caste movement and supported indigenous peoples land rights struggle in Telangana — are *never* idolised — not saying we should make *anyone* a static figure in history, but it’ll be worthwhile to see who gets to claim the history of the nation and who gets to be called a traitor for speaking out against caste, class and gendered constructs of the State.