The Old Monk - The Story of a Legend Who made it Large

Robin Kumar Das Dhaka Diaries /May 2020

This world is made up of stories. Your stories, my stories and every bodies story. Some stories remain just stories and some becomes a legend. What makes one story more interesting than others and what qualifies to be a legend would primarily depend on the human action involved in the story. For a story to qualify as a legend, it should consist of a narrative featuring unimaginable human action, shows a display of intense human values and life qualities that distinctly separates it from the normal.

If I look back at all the important stories of the last century that has impacted our life, one of the biggest stories to remember would be the story of our country’s struggle for independence. In fact, it is not just one story, but millions of stories of millions of our brave patriots who sacrificed from everything to their life for our motherland’s freedoms. Growing up in India, while I see many of the stories being told a multitude of times and all efforts are being made to preserve these stories and preserve that name involved. It could be teaching about these stories in our school curriculum, to dedicating special days and holidays in their names, to naming important monuments and street in their names.

While we have ensured that we keep many of these stories alive, some stores for some strange reason are being forgotten. And to speak honestly, they are not just forgotten but conscious attempts are being made to ensure they are forgotten. One such story is the story of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. His defiant patriotism made him a hero in India, but his attempt to get rid of the British rule in India with the help of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan left a troubled legacy. The story of this charismatic leader is missed out big time. This story is trying to come out in bits and pieces in last 70 years, but this has been buried so deep in the ground, it would take many more years of dedicated efforts by many of us to get the truth and the respect and recognition this story deserves.

Why did I choose to write on this topic from modern history? Well study of history is important because it allows one to make more sense of the current world. We can look at past economic and cultural trends and be able to offer a reasonable prediction of what will happen next. We say ‘history repeats itself’ so why not study success and failures of the past, we may be able to learn from our mistakes and avoid repeating them in future. With that intension in mind started turning a few pages of modern history and India’s struggle for freedom emerged out as the biggest story of that time. I am trying to get the timeline with multiple sources of information and trying to connect dots of why something happened, who was the driving force and what was the outcome it left. The more I read, the more confused I got, the more I get confused the more I read. I clearly see some missing link between the last few years of the British Raj and Subhas Chandra Bose. If education means ten years of compulsory schooling and learning the prescribed history lessons, I am have done it. But now when I am trying to extract information’s from various sources, the facts aren’t matching. Most Indian history textbooks about the freedom struggle are dominated by the role played by the non-violent movement of Mahatma Gandhi. The Ahimsa and Satyagraha are the shining ideals that are central to the idea of how India won its hard-fought freedom. But was India's freedom gained entirely by the non-violent struggle of Mahatma Gandhi and was there no contribution of the use of force?

Let’s read 3 important statement by very important personalities in that period.

1. Clement Attlee, Prime Minister of Britain between 1945 to 1951 and leader of the labour party:  He was the key decision-maker and signed off on the Indian Independence Act 1947, the decision to grant independence to India. Attlee visited India on tour in 1956 spend two days with Mr Phani Bhushan Chakrabarty who was Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court and acting Governor. His direct question to Attlee was - since Gandhiji’s Quit India movement had already faded off by 1944 and Britain was victorious in the World War 2, what did he leave India? The answer from Atlee was – the Britishers left India because of the 3-letter word – Subhas Chandra Bose and INA. Though several other reasons were cited, the principal among them being the erosion of loyalty to the British crown among the Indian Army and Navy personnel as a result of the military activities of Netaji. Towards the end of the discussion, Mr Chakraborty asked Attlee what was the extend of Gandhiji’s influence upon the British decision to quit India. On hearing this Mr Chakravarty quotes “Attlee’s lips became twisted in a sarcastic smile as she slowly chewed out the words ‘m-i-n-i-m-a-l’.
    
2. Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar: In an interview with British journalist Fransis Watson in February 1955 he wonders "I don't know how Mr Attlee suddenly agreed to give India Independence". He had told Watson in February 1955 that from his "own analysis" he had concluded that what prompted Attlee to take this momentous decision to set India free after Great Britain had emerged victorious in the Second World War was the National Army that was raised by Subhas Chandra Bose In the words of Ambedkar:
   “British had been ruling the country in the firm belief that whatever may happen in the country or whatever the politicians do, they will never be able to change the loyalty of soldiers. That was one prop on which they were carrying on the administration. And that was completely dashed to pieces. They found that soldiers could be seduced to form a party - a battalion to blow off the British. I think the British had come to the conclusion that if they were to rule India, the only basis on which they would rule was the maintenance of the British Army”.
3. Micheal Edwardes, a British historian says in his book ‘The Last Years of British India’, “It slowly dawned upon the Government of India the backbone of the British rule, the Indian Army, might now be no longer trustworthy. The ghost of Subhas Bose, like Hamlet’s father, walked the battlement of Red Fort, where the INA soldiers were tried, and his suddenly amplified figure overawed the conference that was to lead to Independence”.

The above three excerpts are from no ordinary people but from personalities who can be trusted. While Attlee was the person who signed of India’s independence, Dr Ambedkar, the architect of the Indian Constitution and Micheal Edwardes, a British historian of that time. There is evidence of these in records. Some of the good sources of information on this would be a book, Bose - An Indian Samurai: Netaji and INA; a military assessment by G.D Bakshi. There is also a movie “Raag Desh” products in 2017, while I have tried hard to get this movie on the internet, unfortunately, it has been removed from all places! So what is the truth the movie exposes and it needs to be stopped? The movie produced by Rajya Sabha TV is based on the INA officers trail carried out by Britishers at Red Fort.

Now let us have a common man view of the whole story. If we look back to what we have taught in the schools and what we have been seeing around, on India’s struggle for independence there would be roughly a dozen of events that comes to our mind – First War of Independence, the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre, Non-Cooperation Movement, the Salt Satyagrah and the Quit India Movement to name a few. And if you take the events that have happened within last 2 to 3 decades of Independence it would 4 to 5. I did small research in my peer group to understand what their recall on the top 2 personalities and top 3 events that is played the most vital role for independence.

The results were:

• Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose appears as top box recall only in 2 out of 15 responses 
• INA is not seen as a top event that has made a contribution to independence. In none of the top box or top 2 boxes it gets a place if I take the top 3 boxes, it appears in 3 out of 15 responses 
• None of the respondents thought that the military revolts in 1946 had any role in independence. Honestly, even for me, I had very little memory of studying the military revolt of 1946

This result is something that gives me a bit of pain and has been the prime reason for trying to write this article. This article is not an attempt or tries to judge which event was more impactful than the other. I think every single story made its impact. I again went back to the history books to understand some of the key element that made them important. To be more specific I studied the events that happened closer to the independence - Jallianwala Bagh Massacre, Non-Cooperation Movement, the Salt Satyagraha, Quit India Movement. Some of the common thread across these movements were:

1. Each of the event connected very well with the masses and take the shape of the revolution
2. Each was intended to weaken the British Raj
3. Each of the events had an immediate reason which leads to the start -  the regulation on Salt tax created the Dandi March in 1930, Jallianwala Bagh massacre against the draconian Rowlatt Act in 1919, the Non-cooperation movement to benefit from the Hindu Muslim unity linked with the Khilafat movement, the Quit India Movement started when the Cripps Mission had failed in 1942.

All these events did play an important role in building the momentum for independence, but each individual did not have the power to change the tide for the mighty British empire. They did mobilise the masses but did not have the power to create the desired permanent impact. Many of these movement were nonviolent that might give the feeling that independence was received without any force. But INA was something very different.

Indian National Army – What made it unique

1. Clear, Well defined Objective – “Chalo Dilli”; single-focused line of action
2. It was an “Army of Indians for Indians”. It gave a sense of purpose to the Indian soldiers fighting World War II alongside the British who had just handed them over as POW to the Japanese
3. The charisma of Subhas Chandra Bose – So strong was the conviction that people started to believe him when he said “Tum Mujhe Khoon Do Main Tumhe Azadi Doonga”
4. It as for the first time people from the armed forces participated with such intensity. The INA soldiers trusted Netaji so much that they die for him. People of Indian origin living in Singapore, who had never seen the motherland were sacrifice everything for independence.
5. There was no ambiguity in action. For a case let’s compare it with the famous Non-Cooperation Movement (NCM) of 1920. This movement got triggered as the British passed the controversial Rowlatt Act in 1919, which meant that any Indians can be put in jail for up to 2 years without any trial and appeal can be done. This act was popularly called as “Na Daleel Na Wakeel Na Appeal”. So Gandhiji appears in the scene with the anti-Rowlatt Act Satyagraha and starts the Non-Cooperation movement. Gandhi's planning of the non-cooperation movement included persuading all Indians to withdraw their labour from any activity that "sustained the British government and economy in India", including British industries and educational institutions. In addition to promoting “self-reliance” by spinning khadi, buying Indian made goods only and doing away with English clothes.
   So the question is “why were the 25 lacs Indian Soldiers who were in the British Indian Army not involved in the movement! INA had only 60,000 soldiers whereas 87000 Indian soldiers died in World War 2, imagine if the 25 lacs army personal participated in the movement.
6. The INA reached as far as Imphal in Manipur on their march to Delhi, but they were forced to retreat because of harsh weather, disease and inadequate supplies. When this news reaches India, it has tremendous impact on everybody. The audacity of an army formed in a football field called Farrer Park in Singapore, to March 3000 Km from Singapore to India and take the might of the British empire and also win. The people in India were very excited with the victory.
7. The INA had three brigades, named as Nehru Brigade, Gandhi Brigade and on all women brigade called Rani Jhansi Brigade. this was the first unique attempt when the women stood beside the mail counterpart in a complete war.
8. While in the early 40’s all the major parties had seen the communal divide and each faction taking a moral stance to protect the rights if their community, the INA was a unified force were all Hindus  Muslims and Sikhs fought side by side with a single agenda of getting India free
9. It is said that INA might not have won the war of Independence, but the spark created by Subhas Chandra Bose in the Indian armed forces was so strong that it was the revolt in Royal Indian Navy, Army and Airforce that put the last nail in the coffin for the British Empire.

World War II, Indian National Army, RIN Revolt -3 Reasons to Transfer of Power.

Britishers are a very intelligent race and no doubt that they ruled us for 200 years. And they never wanted to go out of India losing. They never say India’s independence in British history, but it is a systematically planned move of “Transfer of Power”. Just after World War ended in May 1945, the UK went to a General Election in less than two months in July. The Conservative party lead by wartime hero Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who used his wartime popularity as the election campaign was sure of a win. But in the results labour party got a thumping majority getting 386 seats out of 640 seats in the House of Commons. Clement Attlee of the Labour Party was seen a more competent leader who would bring social reforms and focus on the rebuilding of Britain after the war. The amount of devastation World War II did to Britain, it was clear that they would not be able to rule a country that is as big as India.

The Indian National Army and its victory of reaching up to Imphal had a greatly shaken the morale of the British Empire. For the first time, they had encountered a revolt in the Indian army. To be honest to themselves the Britishers knew that they had never directly ruled India, it was the Indians who ruled the Indians for them. The Power of the British Empire was the Army and Police that was all Indian. At any moment of time, the number of Britishers in India was not more than  93,000, while the population of India was 33 crores at that time. The soldiers who fired at Jallianwala Bag were not Britishers but all soldiers who were Gorkhas and Balochis!

The big mistake for the Britishers was to do a public trial for the officers of Indian National Army at the Red Fort In Delhi. The first, and most famous, of the approximately ten trials held in the Red Fort in Delhi. In total, approximately ten courts-martial were held. The first of these, and the most celebrated one, was the joint court-martial of Colonel Prem Sahgal, Colonel Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon, and Major General Shah Nawaz Khan. The three had been officers in the British Indian Army and were taken as prisoners of war in Malaya, Singapore and Burma. The charges put were treason, torture, murder and abetment to murder in World War II.

Consequences of the INA Red Fort Trials

These trials attracted much publicity and public sympathy for the defendants who were considered patriots of India and fought for the freedom of India from the British Empire. Beyond the concurrent campaigns of noncooperation and nonviolent protest, this spread to include mutinies and wavering support within the British Indian Army. The Congress agreed to give support to the INA officers, with most prominent lawyers to defend the INA soldiers -Bhulabhai Desai, Tej Bahadur Sapru, Jawaharlal Nehru and Asaf Ali. All other major parties also agreed to stand in support of the INA soldiers. The pro-Indian Army sentiments surfaced within the British Army and the British Raj. This leads to 3 major upsurges and revolts in the Army and Navy between Dec 1945 to Feb 1946. The first happened in Calcutta in winter of 1945-46, the British Indian soldiers started protesting the Court Marshal cases going on against their own brothers. Second revolts happen in Calcutta only in February 1946 against the sentence of 7 years prison to INA soldier Rashed Ali.

Another incident happened at the same time in Feb 1946, when the sailors of the Royal Indian Navy of the ship named HMIS Talwar revolted at the Bombay dockyards to protest against racism and bad food and also differential treatment to India sailors. One of the sailors scribbled “Quit India “ on the ship during this time, which leads to his arrest. When the Britishers arrested this Naval Sepoy all the naval officers and soldiers belonging to Indian Community protested the arrest and went on strike. Within 48 hours the British imperialists were faced with the largest revolt ever of their Naval units. The message of this rebellion started to spread by word of mouth and then over the radio (the radio station had been taken over by the rebels) to military garrisons and barracks across India. Some of the leaders of the sailors broadcast the message of the uprising and revolutionary songs and poetry were also broadcast round the clock. The revolt spread to 74 ships, 20 fleets and 22 units of the Navy along the coast. It involved Bombay, Calcutta, Karachi, Madras, Cochin and Vishakhapatnam. and ultimately came to involve over 20,000 sailors in 78 ships and shore establishments. All these above revolts either directly linked to INA trails or not, but they showed a similar pattern:

1. Defies the British authority and they had to be repressed
2. The city people also join in when the revolts spread. This happened in Mumbai and Calcutta. The Mumbai revolt was carried forward at Karachi.
3. People from other parts of the country also joins thus movement and express their solidarity and sympathy.

This episode stands as one of the greatest chapters in the story of the struggle for independence from British rule. In spite of the fact that this uprising was defeated the movement showed the British what was in store for them in the future. One of the effects of this uprising was that the British Prime Minister Clement Atlee was forced to announce that the British would leave India before June 1948. They ruled India with the support of the Indian Armed Forces, and when the revolt happened in the army, they could see the fear of going away from the masses. There was a liberating effect on the minds of the people. So the RIN revolt is seen as the event marking the end of the British Rule. Some historian says that this is the final nail in the coffin of British Raj in India.

The Netaji in Me

Regardless of the role played by Netaji towards independence, and the recognition of the same in history, his life is an epic story every individual should absorb. The values and qualities, the courage and resilience depicted at every stage of his life is a lesson for each of us. He stands out as a radiant inspiration and mentor. Few take ways for me:

1. Ability to communicate and create the passion: Just 2 words “Dilli Chalo “was enough to set the direction to over 60,000 soldiers on what the end objective was
2. Thinking out of Box - Enemy’s enemy is a friend and he did shy away from reaching out as far as Germany to Japan to seek support
3. High advocacy: In spite of the challenges from the old Congress ideology, he rose to become the President of Indian National Congress in 1938. He contested for the post again in 1939, against all odds, with the opposition candidate Pattabhi Sitaramayya, backed by Gandhiji. He won the election, though it was taken by Gandhiji as a personal blow.

Life after Death

History, as we read, is always written by winners and winners have the choice to present the history the way they want it to be perceived. The contribution of Netaji and INA in one such missing piece in the history which needs to be rewritten. In the last 75 years, we have three enquiry commission set up by the Govt of India and have done detailed studies on the mystery behind the death of Netaji. But these inquiries have sprung more ambiguity than clearing the clutter on the issue. Now as more and more secret Govt documents are getting declassified in London, Tokyo and even New Delhi, there are more than enough evidence and pieces of information that can re-create this story.

Though as per all official records, Netaji got killed in the air crash in Taiwan in Aug 1945, I go with the theory that he survived the crash and made his way to India and lived as Gumnami Baba in Uttar Pradesh’s Faizabad for several decades. An American handwriting expert, Carl Bagget has also concluded that Bose lived in India for several decades after Independence as Gumnami Baba. The expert reached this conclusion after studying the letters written by both Netaji and Gumnami Baba. Bagget is an authority on document examination with over 40 years of experience. He was given two sets of letters without being told the identities of the writers. After he said they were written by the same man, it was revealed to him that the person in question was Subhas Chandra Bose. Bagget stood by this conclusion and gave a signed statement to that effect. There is a book: Conundrum: Subhas Bose Life After Death by Chandrachur Ghosh and Anuj Dhar have over 10,000 pages of documents to establish that Subhas Chandra Bose and Gumnami Baba is the same person.

The Old Monk Rum

The next few lines would be an interesting part of this story, though not established but I go with the group which believes it is true. I am sure many of us would have a nostalgic story around the Old Monk Rum. This is the most popular dark rum among the rum lovers.  This is the largest selling rum in the world, and the most interesting part it has never been advertised. It got its popularity for its taste and quality, almost all thanks to word of mouth. In the same way, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose is also an iconic figure who will always be remembered for his contribution to India’s independence. So you might think about how are these two stories related. Let’s read an interesting tale connecting these two cult brands!

The quintessential drink, which took the country by a storm in the 70s, looks at its lineage that goes back to Edward Dyer in 1855. The Englishman fathered two strains that struck the country hard — the first one disastrous — his son Colonel Dyer who oversaw the Jallianwala massacre on 13 April 1919, but the second one not as harmful as the first —a brewery in Kasauli in Himachal Pradesh, from where he launched the Lion brand of beer. The Brewery changed few hands before becoming Mohan Meakin Pvt Ltd. Old Monk Brand of Rum was created by Ved Rattan Mohan former MD of Mohan Meakin and first introduced in 1960. Mohan named the rum “Old Monk” in honour of Gumnami Baba of Faizabad. And now we have 25 boxes of evidence which clary indicates that Gumnami Baba was none other than Netaji, living in disguise for so many years. Even Wikipedia in its page on Old Monk Rum says “Mohan named the rum in honour of Gumnami baba who was Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose in disguise by whom he was fascinated. Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose never died out of the plane crash and came back to India as a monk and lived a spiritual life in disguise”. So, can it be true that the Logo on the bottle of Old Monk Rum is of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose?

My Tribute to Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose

This article is an accumulation of information from various sources I could reach out to. However, this is too minuscule an attempt to reach any close to understanding this most Charismatic leader of the Indian independence struggle. But while preparing this note, it did give an opportunity to study history all over again. This time it was not reading the history that the syllabus for school prescribed. This time I had the opportunity to analyse things from a different prism. Growing up in a state outside Bengal always makes you miss some of the glorious pages of Bengals history. Even though I am a Bengali, I could not get the flavour even in the neighbouring states sharing borders. Perhaps a little more effort was needed to ensure these glorious histories had more audience outside Bengal. Though a bit late, the life of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose is creating a great impact on my life. The more I read about this great character, the inquisitiveness to dig deeper and deeper gets more intense.

Today I pay a very small tribute to Netaji by committing that

1. I will share this story about Netaji to at least 10000 people I associate and reach out.
2. I will study further from all possible sources the life of Netaji. 
3. I will continue to write on such facet of Netaji’s life which can be a source of light and motivation for us.
4. I will join and associate myself with organisation or association which are working on this path to give the rightful place to this great personality Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.
5. I will celebrate the 23rd of January with the same fervour and enthusiasm as I celebrate 15th August and 26th January.

Kadam kadam badhaye ja khushi ke geet gaaye ja

Yeh zindagi hai kaum ki tu kaum par lautaye ja

The Old Monk had made in Large in life, let's follow his path and make our life large.

Regards

Robin

Note: Extensive reference has been taken from interviews and work done by Mr Anuj Dhar, author and former journalist. Major General Gagan Deep Bakshi a retired Indian army officer. Chandrachur Ghose, write on economics, environment, history and politics.