Subhas Chandra Bose sold his soul twice

 While most Bengalis have abused me for my views about Subhas Chandra Bose, I was very happy to receive an email from some Bengalis  who have supported me. This proves that there are rational Bengalis too.

  Bose was patriotic in his youth, having resigned from the ICS to serve the nation. However, he later on became over ambitious, and when Gandhi ousted him from the Presidentship of Congress he went berserk. He went to Germany and hobnobbed with Hitler and Himmler, those mass murderers  ( Bose's photos with them can be seen on Youtube ), and tried to become a Nazi collaborator, offering to raise an army of captured Indian soldiers to fight along with the Nazis, and when that did not work, he became a collaborator of the Japanese fascists.

 Thus, like Faust, Bose sold his soul to a Mephistopheles. In fact he sold it twice, first to the Nazis, and then to the Japanese fascist imperialists..

Tathagata Gupta <tathagatagupta@gmail.com>

7:15 PM (15 hours ago)

 Dear Mr. Katju,

 We saw the debate you had with Arnab Goswami on Times Now, and we had some points to make regarding the show. Before we begin, we shall make our stand clear. We are not going to judge who should apologize to whom or who produced the correct facts or who gave his personal opinion. We are just going to analyze the 42 minutes video that we saw on YouTube this morning.

1) Arnab Goswami constantly interrupted you and asked you to produce facts and not your personal opinion. Now, in history or politics or war, apart from objective facts (like when did India gain independence, who was India’s first prime minister), one cannot say anything conclusive about subjective issues (like why did India gain independence, why did Germany lost the World War II). Answers to subjective questions are prone to personal biases. Contrast this with a scientific fact. In science, when we say that event A is a fact, we can prove or disprove that by reproducing event A. For example, when we say that the sun rises in the east is a fact, we can test it. If tomorrow the sun still rises in the east, the statement is proved or if we see that the sun has risen in any other direction than east, it is disproved. In other words, scientific “facts” are falsifiable. But when you make a subjective historical statement, you cannot verify it. For example, X might argue that India got independence due to Ghandhiji and Netaji, and Y might argue that Britain was forced to give India independence due to World War II and mounting pressures from USA. Now, X or Y cannot prove his/her point in a way a scientific statement can be proved. This a crucial difference between natural science and social science. Theories of social science are not falsifiable.

What this means is this: The “facts” that Arnab Goswami and other panelists there, were producing, are, ultimately, opinions of some people. Arnab Goswami constantly quoted from Attlee’s and Ambedkar’s books. What he quoted from these books were Attlee’s and Ambedkar’s opinions, and not facts. This is a common tactic of mediocre and shallow people. They think if they read some line in a book, it must definitely be true and the book is the “source” of the “fact”. At this point, I should say, you made a tactical mistake, as you did not give name of any book. It is true that to gain knowledge or to analyze history you do not need to remember the book you studied from. But to argue with shallow mediocre people you need to know their practices.

2) The second point begins when we bring the other panelists into the picture. The other three panelists and Arnab Goswami formed a team and took turns in mocking and abusing you. Not even a single one of them showed any interest to listen to your arguments. And as for their arguments, they were hilarious. Anuj Dhar’s theory was that Japan would not attack India because it is the land of Buddha. In the last part of the show, Ardhendu Bose said “Jai Hind” and “Kadam Kadam Badaye jaa” originated from Azad Hind Fauj. Chandra Kumar Bose said Jana Gana Mana was approved as India’s national anthem in 1942 in presence of Netaji. Now all these things had no connection with the topic of the debate and the other three panelists had stopped being logical and were driven by emotion.

In conclusion, I have to say this. In the whole debate, the only person who was being logical and had an open mind was you. Arnab Goswami had to make drama to make the show interesting so that he becomes rich. The Bose duo had to safeguard their Bose legacy. Mr. Dhar had to support the books he had written otherwise people will call him a fool. It was only you, who did not have anything to gain or safeguard. On the contrary, you risked your dignity and honour. So do not feel down or be demoralized. As long as rationality prevails, no honest thought will ever go unheard.

We will be happy if you share this message on Facebook, so that people can distinguish between rational and irrational. By the way, we are a group of Bengali students studying physics in JNU, New Delhi. So all Bengalis are not alike.

                 Have a nice day.

                 Tathagata Gupta

                 Protyush Nandi

                 Anandamay Das Bhowmik