Should we be grateful that Bose failed?

[Spectre]

Indeed.
There's more to this story.
What you just read was the conversation which happened 2 years after Nehru had pleaded for wheat.
India had lost its patience and declared that it would prefer wheat as loan instead of food aid, and that's when American nerves soothed.
Americans finally sent their wheat to India but India, for obvious reasons, wasn't too happy with the delay.
A smaller shipment from USSR got a bigger applause and that got Americans sulking.
Lol
History!!!
Source: B.K. Nehru, then minister for economic affairs at the Indian embassy in Washington.

Since when did Beggars become Choosers? When we are the ones with the begging bowl there is no space for pride. Pride doesn't fill hungry bellies.

 

[Levina]

Americans were very cocky in that time of history, look at what they did with Japan in the name of revenge. And India wasn't really coming under it's alliance or control, thus the harsh reaction i guess.

True.

Since when did Beggars become Choosers? When we are the ones with the begging bowl there is no space for pride. Pride doesn't fill hungry bellies.

Sorry.
You're talking to the wrong person about it.
Beggars can't be choosers- no wonder every powerful nation in the world ensures that every other nation remains a beggar because then they loose their right to choose.

Not interested in this debate anymore.
I joined this discussion because I was tagged in the OP.


Thanks.

 

[jha]

Lol
Now I guess this debate has become an ego clash.
You can go ahead and assume whatever you wanna assume.
But I maintain my stance that if America was genuine in its approach,then it didn't have to humiliate India.


Ciao

Of course.. Onus of proving genuineness was on America. US should have given everything India asked even after Nehru's self-righteous speeches.

I have given facts. You may continue to laugh away..

 

[Levina]

Of course.. Onus of proving genuineness was on America. US should have given everything India asked even after Nehru's self-righteous speeches.

I have given facts. You may continue to laugh away..

Lol
You have quoted what I quoted in the last page. So what am I supposed to make of it?
America delayed sending the grains, many starved and perished. If you wanna continue blaming this on Nehru, then so be it.
How difficult is it to understand that America wanted India to align with itself?

Never mind.
Like you said we both have our diff POVs on this issue. You have seen a long line of ppl outside ration shop while I have not. Sorry I wasn't even born then.

I want you to go through the same link again. All the 4 pages!!!

http://archive.indianexpress.com/news/swallowing-the-humiliation/645168/3


I will take a leave.

 

[Indrajit]

Of course.. Onus of proving genuineness was on America. US should have given everything India asked even after Nehru's self-righteous speeches.

I have given facts. You may continue to laugh away..

We still talk that way, like the US owed us food aid. we have the attitude to all aid, the cringe worthy comment of Pranab Mukharjee about British aid as being peanuts being a good example. If it was peanuts, it should not have been taken; taking it & belittling it was tasteless. It's likely that the Americans were arrogant while they were giving us aid, our leaders managed that even while standing with a begging bowl.

 

[Spectre]

True.






Sorry.
You're talking to the wrong person about it.
Beggars can't be choosers- no wonder every powerful nation in the world ensures that every other nation remains a beggar because then they loose their right to choose.

Not interested in this debate anymore.
I joined this discussion because I was tagged in the OP.


Thanks.

Hey!

Don't take it otherwise. I meant no disrespect and I agree that this discussion was off topic. My bad.

 

[Indrajit]

I want you to go through the same link again. All the 4 pages!!!

http://archive.indianexpress.com/news/swallowing-the-humiliation/645168/3

.

That article is a fairly nuanced one (save the recollection of what Vijaylakshmi Pandit said) and refers to the lack of gratitude from India/Indians towards the U.S. inspite of their aid as much as it does the Indian feeling of humiliation. The article I posted showed a glimpse into American thinking a few years later. There is no all black & white on this subject, plenty of grey & must be seen as such.

 

[jha]

Lol
You have quoted what I quoted in the last page. So what am I supposed to make of it?
America delayed sending the grains, many starved and perished. If you wanna continue blaming this on Nehru, then so be it.
How difficult is it to understand that America wanted India to align with itself?

Never mind.
Like you said we both have our diff POVs on this issue. You have seen a long line of ppl outside ration shop while I have not. Sorry I wasn't even born then.

I want you to go through the same link again. All the 4 pages!!!

http://archive.indianexpress.com/news/swallowing-the-humiliation/645168/3


I will take a leave.

This exactly is my stance. We should have aligned with West. Nehru's hypocritical, self-righteous policies cost us much.

And I have not personally seen queue in front of ration shop. I was born in late 80's. I have read Inder malhotra's account and fortunately have read from other sources as well.

We still talk that way, like the US owed us food aid. we have the attitude to all aid, the cringe worthy comment of Pranab Mukharjee about British aid as being peanuts being a good example. If it was peanuts, it should not have been taken; taking it & belittling it was tasteless. It's likely that the Americans were arrogant while they were giving us aid, our leaders managed that even while standing with a begging bowl.

I am exactly against this hypocrisy. We continued to taunt America even when we were biggest recipient of the PL480 program.

Anyway, enough off topic posts in this thread. I am out of here.

 

[scorpionx]

I cant believe people think it would have actually happened, japanese would have allowed him to rule the way he wanted, and we would have got a secular democratic republic anyway.
If imperial japan won, democracy would have been the last thing in their mind.... they would have ruled with iron fist, and would have bumped off Bose within hour of him dissenting. We will be considering Bose, a modern day Mir Jafar.
People always look back from present scenario and think its almost inevitable that the we would be seeing something similar if not exactly same. Japanese need not keep india intact, they could easily break it into 4 part for ease of governance. May be we would have seen large scale armed insurgency(depending on availability of weapon in late 40s), but japanese would have put it down with more brutality, and there would have been enough indian who worked for them.

The reason for my belief is this; while great emphasis is being placed upon the horrible atrocities by the Imperial Army in the discussion of the possible consequence of Japanese victory in the great war it is being taken for granted that the India would fall under another colonial power which I do not agree. Regarding India the Japanese did not have any comprehensive plan at all. It simply did not fell within its Greater East Asia Co-operative sphere. Not a single war conference or Imperial conference record suggest that the Japanese had any interest in exhausting all their capacities by extending their military victories in India into a political consolidation.

During the entire period of war, the Japanese objective regarding India was precisely two, strategic and psychological. By securing some part of the North East it was intended to secure the western boundaries of the East Asia Co-operative sphere and to disrupt the air routes between Changkin and India. The origin of the second objective goes bit further in history. Japan had long been nourishing sympathies for the Indian revolutionary ideals. Before it was done in an undisclosed fashion, but after the termination of the first Anglo-Japanese pact the ideological backing started taking more prominent shapes. INA was just the culmination of this attitude. On the other hand, Indian Independence movement and the INA were just part of the war propaganda machinery of Japan. They wanted to show themselves as the liberator of the colonies of Asia from the tutelage of the Western powers.

Apart from the above two, any other arrangement did not really fit into their strategic interest. India, though could have been conquered easily it was not what their war objective dictated then. Archival records show that the Japanese foreign office had in fact assessed that possibility in this way that “in addition to the commitments in South East Asia it was impossible for Japan to control a nation of four hundred million” (Joyce Lebra). These are the reasons why I see the apprehensions about repetitions of Chinese experience on Indian soil completely unfounded.

 

[GR!FF!N]

I think initially he thought British could only be removed by force, could i be correct in this assessment?

See,Bose got disillusioned by Congress and its policy long time ago.But like many Indians,he clearly disagreed about Congress' position of total support towards British Govt during World War.As an opportunist,any sane person would wind up another "Quit India",which would not only rattle spine of British Empire,but it eventually could force them to leave.But Gandhi didn't go for it.

What Bose did was what was exactly needed.A mass protest would subjugate British Raj to the demand of freedom in exchange of fighting their war,because British Empire was loosing its size exponentially day by day at that time.Its major loss of East Asia,Africa,Europe and imminent attack of Germany on Britain itself - there was no more perfect timing to declare independence in the first place.But soon,tide has turned after USA joined and Germany suffered loss in USSR.If Gandhi forced Britain,there could be independence as soon as 1940.But just like my chess skill,Congress blew it when they had an overwhelming advantage.

You can argue the timing of Quit India.If it was in 1939,British didn't have much of a choice.But in 1942,they had.Bose envisioned that Armed Struggle was only way(I disagree though.Had Gandhi not recall Non Cooperation Movement,we'd probably get it even before 1925),because he thought,you can't bargain from the position of weakness,rather we should bargain from position of our strength.Yes,it was true that he was not in a position to fight British War Machinery,but during that time,he could.But he wasted his time with Germany,and when eventually he attacked using Japan's help,Japan blundered.That attack was too weak,too slow.Had it been on 1940s,India's history would have been different.

 

[scorpionx]

Well Reasoned.. Too many grey areas, I agree but in a way scenario will always stay relevant because of multiplicity of choices we face regarding allies, alignments, partners and camps.

For eg: Ideally I would have preferred had India aligned itself with US instead of Soviets, the socialist experiments of Nehru should have been abandoned at inception state but instead India languished and remained a beggar country for 30-40 years post independence. Had we adopted a free market economy, it is quite possible we would have been a middle income country by now.

Nehru was correct in embracing a socialist model if we look at it from his own perspective and not ours. Nehru's 'socialist experiments' had proven its worth. His generation (interestingly which includes Sheikh Abdullah also) saw how the corrupt, tyrannical Tsarist system was replaced with the community system by Russian revolution. Their generation could not have missed the rapid industrial progress the Soviets had made which in effect shaped their survival in the Second World War. In no way, they could have felt excited by the gross inequality, poverty, violence and corruption in the American society and the great depression in the 30's when the Soviet model just looked as an glittering ideal one before his eyes for a vast, diverse country like India which needed quick relief of modernization after the departure of the British from the subcontinent.

There is a popular tendency to look at upon the Nehruvian era as just 'wasted years' of Indian economic history. But lets not ignore the fact that what Nehru inherited from the British. He had a country that needed to be constitutionally crystallized, economically revived and socially moderated. From an unenviable growth rate in the negative, the economy grew at 4.1% during 1950-64. The most number of dams, Industrial towns centering upon heavy Industries are product of his admiration of the Soviet economic model. I see his contribution to India as providing a spring board to leap to the next century; Unfortunately which was lingered if not completely destroyed by his successors.