Whom are you going to vote in India in 2013-14 elections?

Status
Not open for further replies.
You mean that he did not say "Hey Ram" as he died?
No, he did not say it. You see, it was an automatic pistol. It had a magazine for nine bullets but there were actually seven at that time. And once you pull the trigger, within a second, all the seven bullets had passed. When these bullets pass through crucial points like the heart, consciousness is finished. You have no strength.
When Nathuram saw Gandhi was coming, he took out the pistol and folded his hands with the pistol inside it. There was one girl very close to Gandhi. He feared that he would hurt the girl. So he went forward and with his left hand pushed her aside and shot. It happened within one second. You see, there was a film and some Kingsley fellow had acted as Gandhi. Someone asked me whether Gandhi said, Hey Ram. I said Kingsley did say it. But Gandhi did not. Because that was not a drama.

Had it been for a jury system in India, then Godse would have got a verdict of of not guilty.
Has anyone read the discourse delivered by Nathuram Godse in his defense?
He never challenged his conviction or his death sentence.

http://www.votebankpolitics.com/source/nvg/godselsp.html
 
The thing is history(the one presented to us) was twisted to suit the congress and is being imbibed in everyone's mind from childhood.
So nobody will read the defense of godse or the situations which led to what had happened.
Then there will be people who will despise at smallest instance of reference of godse .
Will be ready to jump the gun and call them names but wont debate those events.

Such twisted history all through has had congress had their way in power for major chunk post independence.

When talked about independence everybody will talk only about gandhi and his sole contribution.

As if there were nobody who contributed to freedom.
 
The thing is history(the one presented to us) was twisted to suit the congress and is being imbibed in everyone's mind from childhood.
So nobody will read the defense of godse or the situations which led to what had happened.
Then there will be people who will despise at smallest instance of reference of godse .
Will be ready to jump the gun and call them names but wont debate those events.

Such twisted history all through has had congress had their way in power for major chunk post independence.

When talked about independence everybody will talk only about gandhi and his sole contribution.

As if there were nobody who contributed to freedom.
Also i never understood the obsession of gandhi's face being present in all the currency denominations.
Its as if no one else did anything except him.
His contribution was there, but there were many others who deserve much better.
 
Had it been for a jury system in India, then Godse would have got a verdict of of not guilty.

Thats the most ridiculous statement I have heard in a long time !!!

If a convicted murder can be judged 'not guilty' then we are not living in any civilized country.

I am not denying that a lot of facts about the incident were obscured from public view but the truth still remains that Godse took the easy way out by killing a defenseless man.

If we all accept what he did as correct anyone of us can use that excuse to kill however we want and use some logic to our actions.[DOUBLEPOST=1366996905][/DOUBLEPOST]
Also i never understood the obsession of gandhi's face being present in all the currency denominations.
Its as if no one else did anything except him.
His contribution was there, but there were many others who deserve much better.

Not saying there was no one else but I am curious as to who else you think had such mass support as Gandhi ?
 
Thats the most ridiculous statement I have heard in a long time !!!

If a convicted murder can be judged 'not guilty' then we are not living in any civilized country.

I am not denying that a lot of facts about the incident were obscured from public view but the truth still remains that Godse took the easy way out by killing a defenseless man.

If we all accept what he did as correct anyone of us can use that excuse to kill however we want and use some logic to our actions.[DOUBLEPOST=1366996905][/DOUBLEPOST]

Not saying there was no one else but I am curious as to who else you think had such mass support as Gandhi ?
That is not me saying , that is what the judge said, who sentenced him.
Those are the judge's words :)
Since we didnt live in those times and we dont know the actual situations, its difficult to agree with such a statement at present.

As far as mass support is considered, I never said he didn't do anything. He did a lot. Just that I felt, that others do deserve a place too.
 
There were many stupid things said by a lot of stupid people but one should not quote such people ! :P

Its common sense that murder is a crime in any civilized country and no one will ever give a not guilty plea to someone convicted of murder !

Again I ask you to name a few other people who you thought deserves to be on the face of the Indian currency. I just want to know your thoughts on who else deserves such an honor or if Gandhi doesn't deserve the honor and someone else does.
 
While I do look upon Gandhi's ideology and actions with contempt, Godse seems like every other Hindu nationalist nutjob to me.
 
  • Like
Reactions: kippu
One thing Godse keeps saying is that he was against Gandhi's support of the Partition which is the biggest load of hogwash.

He wanted to kill Gandhi in 1944 itself when Gandhi was strongly against the Partition. In fact Gandhi never supported the partition as he never wanted a divided India. However fundamentalists on both sides brought about the Partition much more than anything Gandhi said or did.

All Gandhi wanted was peace between Muslims and Hindus but neither the Muslim fundamentalists nor the Hindu fundamentalists wanted that.

Godse also used his skewed logic to say that Gandhi was fasting so that the govt should give the remaining 55 crores to Pakistan as reparation.

There is however little to suggest Gandhi ever advocated paying that amount.

The reasoning behind it are taking from www.mkgandhi.org -

  1. Dr. Sushila Nair, as soon as she heard Gandhiji proclaim his decision, rushed to her brother Pyarelal and informed him in a huff that Gandhiji had decided to undertake fast till the madness in Delhi ceased. Even in those moments of inadvertence the mention of 55 crore of rupees was not made which clearly proves that it was not intended by Gandhiji.
  2. Gandhiji's own announcement about his resolve on 12th January in the evening prayer meeting did not contain any reference to it. Had it been a condition, he would have certainly mentioned it as that.
  3. Similarly, there was no reference to it in his discourse on 13th January.
  4. Gandhiji's reply on the 15th January, to a specific question regarding the purpose of his fast did not mention it.
  5. The press release Of the government of India did not have any mention thereof.
  6. The list of assurances given by the committee headed by Dr. Rajendra Prasad to persuade Gandhiji to give up his fast did not include it.
So there was no factual evidence to suggest Gandhi advocated giving Pakistan that money other than Godse's allegation.

As I said before people can say anything to justify their crimes and Godse was no different than most though he was a skilled orator which was the reason he managed to fool so many people.
 
There were many stupid things said by a lot of stupid people but one should not quote such people ! :p

Its common sense that murder is a crime in any civilized country and no one will ever give a not guilty plea to someone convicted of murder !

Again I ask you to name a few other people who you thought deserves to be on the face of the Indian currency. I just want to know your thoughts on who else deserves such an honor or if Gandhi doesn't deserve the honor and someone else does.

I would not go as far to say the judge was stupid, as I am not qualified to do that and that would be stupid to dismiss his comment. :)

And since you asked me the names of other popular leaders who were infact more popular than Gandhi.

1. Sardar Patel - Iron Man of India

2. Subhash Chandra Bose

3. Bhagat Singh

4. Bal Gangadhar Tilak

5. Lala Lajpat Rai

Not to forget the great kings and queens of India like Rani Laxmi Bai, The Marathas and more.


His role in Congress was like of a dictator, where anyone who had a difference of opinion was not tolerated.
History is written by the Victors of War and that is what INC did making him a hero.
Infact World War II was responsible for Independence of India.
Read the below excerpt carefully as to why Gandhi should not be given full credit for the Independence of India.


World War II had a profound effect on the colonial powers because it completely destroyed their economies. Although Hitler committed crimes against humanity, I give him credit—and not Gandhi—for India’s independence immediately after World War II. Hitler destroyed the economies of Britain and France to such an extent that they were no longer able to financially maintain their military forces, and were hence incapable of containing the burgeoning freedom movements in their colonies. It is worth noting that Britain was in such bad shape that it received about one-fourth of the total aid given under the Marshall Plan. Regardless of Gandhi or any other charismatic leader, Britain would have left India in 1947 purely for financial reasons, due to its wholly collapsed economy. After WWII, Britain left not only India but nearly all its other holdings, including Jordan in 1946, Palestine in 1947, Sri Lanka in 1948, Myanmar in 1948, and Egypt in 1952. For the same reason, France also had to grant independence to Laos in 1949 and Cambodia in 1953, and had to leave Vietnam in 1954. Had there been no Hitler and no World War II, it most probably would have taken another 30 or more years for India and some of the other colonies to achieve independence.

Another major consequence of World War II was that it greatly hastened Indian political independence. The highly publicized Cripps Mission that took place in India in 1942 was essentially a political ploy approved by Churchill to buy time for Britain and to try to assuage anti-colonialist feelings in the U.S.[1]

British historians P.J. Cain and A.G. Hopkins described the hopeless situation of the British in India as follows:
By the end of war, there was a loss of purpose at the very center of the imperial system. The gentlemanly administrators who managed the Raj no longer had the heart to devise new moves against increasing odds, not least because after 1939 the majority of the Indian Civil Service were themselves Indian. In 1945 the new Viceroy, Wavell, commented on the “weakness and weariness of the importance of the instrument still our disposal in the shape of the British element in the Indian Civil Service. The town had been lost to opponents of the Raj; the countryside had slipped beyond control. Widespread discontent in the army was followed in 1946 by a mutiny in the navy. It was then Wavell, the unfortunate messenger, reported to London that India had become ungovernable [which finally led to the independence of India].[2]

There is a saying that history is written by the victors of war. One of the greatest myths, first propagated by the Indian Congress Party in 1947 upon receiving the transfer of power from the British, and then by court historians, is that India received its independence as a result of Mahatma Gandhi’s non-violence movement. This is one of the supreme inaccuracies of Indian history because had there been no Hitler and no World War II, Gandhi’s movement would have slowly fizzled out because gaining full independence would have taken several more decades. By that time, Gandhi would have long been dead, and he would have gone down in history as simply one of several great Indian freedom fighters of the times, such as Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Lala Lajpat Rai, Motilal Nehru, Dada Bhai Naoroji, and C.R. Das. He would never have received the vast publicity that he did for his nonviolence movement. Political independence for India was achieved not by Mahatma Gandhi, but rather by Hitler rendering the British Empire a bankrupt entity.

In fact, Gandhi’s popularity among the masses had decreased substantially already in the 1930s, perhaps partially because in reality Gandhi had no idea of how to bring about India’s independence. At the Madras Congress session in 1927, when Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose, two other freedom movement leaders, succeeded in having a resolution passed declaring India’s complete independence, Gandhi was annoyed, and hence—only to cater to Gandhi—the Madras resolution was modified to request dominion status under the British the following year at the Calcutta Congress Session in 1928.

Subhas Chandra Bose was a genius with a superlative academic record. After only six months of preparation, he stood fourth in the prestigious Indian Civil Services (ICS) examination, which in those days was held at regular intervals in Britain. In his book The Indian Struggle, Bose described his first meeting with Gandhi in 1921:

I began to heap question upon question…The reply to the first question satisfied me…His reply to the second question was disappointing and his reply to the third question was no better…My reason told me clearly…that there was a deplorable lack of clarity in the plan which the Mahatma had formulated and that he himself had no clear idea of the successive stages of the campaign which would bring India to her cherished goal of freedom.[3]


Bose was unanimously elected Congress Party president in 1938. The following year, he decided that the party should launch a nationwide civil disobedience movement, giving the British six months’ notice. With this goal in mind, he decided to run for re-election as party president. This was completely within precedent; just before his term, Nehru had also been Congress Party president for two terms. Gandhi, however, was not pleased. He threw his entire support behind Sitaramayya, another senior Congress leader. Despite this, Bose defeated him. Gandhi said publicly that the defeat of Sitaramayya was his own defeat. He then manipulated his followers in ensuing executive committee meetings in such a way that he forced Bose to resign from the party. Commenting on this, Aurobindo Ghosh, the nationally famous freedom fighter turned renunciate, stated:



The Congress at the present stage—what is it but a Fascist organization? Gandhi is the dictator like Stalin, I won’t say like Hitler: what Gandhi says they accept and even the Working Committee follows him; then it goes to the All-India Congress Committee which adopts it, and then the Congress. There is no opportunity for any difference of opinion, except for Socialists who are allowed to differ provided they don’t seriously differ. Whatever resolutions they pass are obligatory on all the provinces whether the resolutions suit the provinces or not. There is no room for any other independent opinion. Everything is fixed up before and the people are only allowed to talk over it—like Stalin’s Parliament.


Ultimately, however, Gandhi and the Congress Party opted for a “Quit India Movement” against the British in 1942 and he spread the slogan “Do or Die,” which in fact Subhas had proposed in 1938. The British government arrested all the top Congress Party leaders and thus killed the Quit India Movement before it had a chance to gather steam. It fizzled out entirely within a matter of months.

Although Bose’s Indian National Army (INA), which drew its cadre from Indian POW’s in Japanese camps and fought along with Japanese forces on India’s eastern front towards the end of the war, failed in its ultimate mission, indirectly it succeeded in causing the British to leave India early. When Japan surrendered, the British charged 20,000 INA men with treason. They decided to hold the trial in public at the Red Fort in Delhi. The first three of Bose’s officers to be tried were a Hindu, a Muslim, and a Sikh. This immediately united Indians of all three religions against the British. While the Muslim League was at that time fighting with the Congress Party and demanding a separate state for Muslims, on this issue it joined Congress in the now-national movement against the INA officers’ trial. Most of Bose’s army cadres were Muslims.

On November 21 and 23, 1945, a mass demonstration took place in Kolkata (Calcutta). Participants included members of the Congress Party, the Communist Party, and Muslim League. The police shot more than 200 people, of whom 33 died. Then the British decided to put on trial only those INA men who were charged with committing murder or brutality against other POW’s. However, Kolkata simply exploded when, in February 1946, an Abdul Rashid Khan (a Muslim) of the INA was given seven years’ rigorous imprisonment for murder. The protest began peacefully by students of the Muslim League, but later students of the Congress and Communist parties joined them in solidarity. Both the police and the army were called to put down what came to be known as “the almost revolution.” This time nearly 400 people were shot down, and nearly 100 killed. Since racial discrimination was rampant in the Royal Indian Navy, Khan’s trial gave thousands of Indians the excuse to mutiny. The mutiny spread to nearly 80 ships and 20 sites on land. This came closer to overthrowing the British than anything Gandhi ever did. The reasons behind Indian independence are nicely summarized by the esteemed Indian historian Ramesh Chandra Majumdar:

There is, however, no basis for the claim that the Civil Disobedience Movement directly led to independence. The campaigns of Gandhi … came to an ignoble end about fourteen years before India achieved independence … During the First World War the Indian revolutionaries sought to take advantage of German help in the shape of war materials to free the country by armed revolt. But the attempt did not succeed. During the Second World War Subhas Bose followed the same method and created the INA. In spite of brilliant planning and initial success, the violent campaigns of Subhas Bose failed … The Battles for India’s freedom were also being fought against Britain, though indirectly, by Hitler in Europe and Japan in Asia. None of these scored direct success, but few would deny that it was the cumulative effect of all the three that brought freedom to India. In particular, the revelations made by the INA trial, and the reaction it produced in India, made it quite plain to the British, already exhausted by the war, that they could no longer depend upon the loyalty of the sepoys [low-ranking Indian soldiers under British command] for maintaining their authority in India. This had probably the greatest influence upon their final decision to quit India.”[4]

It was British prime minister Clement Atlee who, when granting independence to India, said that Gandhi’s non-violence movement had next to zero effect on the British. In corroboration, Chief Justice P.B. Chakrabarty of the Kolkata High Court, who had earlier served as acting governor of West Bengal, disclosed the following in a letter addressed to the publisher of Ramesh Chandra Majumdar’s book A History of Bengal:


You have fulfilled a noble task by persuading Dr. Majumdar to write this history of Bengal and publishing it … In the preface of the book Dr. Majumdar has written that he could not accept the thesis that Indian independence was brought about solely, or predominantly by the non-violent civil disobedience movement of Gandhi. When I was the acting Governor, Lord Atlee, who had given us independence by withdrawing the British rule from India, spent two days in the Governor’s palace at Calcutta during his tour of India. At that time I had a prolonged discussion with him regarding the real factors that had led the British to quit India. My direct question to him was that since Gandhi’s “Quit India” movement had tapered off quite some time ago and in 1947 no such new compelling situation had arisen that would necessitate a hasty British departure, why did they have to leave? In his reply Atlee cited several reasons, 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 [Subhash Chandra Bose]. Toward the end of our discussion I asked Atlee what was the extent of Gandhi’s influence upon the British decision to quit India. Hearing this question, Atlee's lips became twisted in a sarcastic smile as he slowly chewed out the word, “m-i-n-i-m-a-l!” [5]


1 Cain, P.J. and Hopkins, A.G., British Imperialism 1688-2000, 2nd Ed., Pearson Education, Harlow, U.K., 2002, p. 560.
2 Ibid., pp. 560-1.
3 “Netaji and Gandhi, 2 Titans of the Independence Struggle”, India Abroad (India), January 24, 1997.
4 Majumdar, Ramesh Chandra, Three Phases of India’s Struggle for Freedom, Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan, Bombay, India, 1967, pp. 58-59.
5 Ranjan Borra, “Subhas Chandra Bose, The Indian National Army, and The War of India’s Liberation,” Journal of Historical Review, Vol. 20 (2001), No. 1, reference 46.


Link :
http://www.susmitkumar.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=100&Itemid=86
 
reading pradeep's post, it seems congress has not learnt anything from british govt. they are acting exactly like previous british govt, and the people have started protesting now openly on streets. maybe that's why the aap get's so many supporters in common people now.
 
I would not go as far to say the judge was stupid, as I am not qualified to do that and that would be stupid to dismiss his comment. :)

And since you asked me the names of other popular leaders who were infact more popular than Gandhi.

1. Sardar Patel - Iron Man of India

2. Subhash Chandra Bose

3. Bhagat Singh

4. Bal Gangadhar Tilak

5. Lala Lajpat Rai

Not to forget the great kings and queens of India like Rani Laxmi Bai, The Marathas and more.


His role in Congress was like of a dictator, where anyone who had a difference of opinion was not tolerated.
History is written by the Victors of War and that is what INC did making him a hero.
Infact World War II was responsible for Independence of India.
Read the below excerpt carefully as to why Gandhi should not be given full credit for the Independence of India.


World War II had a profound effect on the colonial powers because it completely destroyed their economies. Although Hitler committed crimes against humanity, I give him credit—and not Gandhi—for India’s independence immediately after World War II. Hitler destroyed the economies of Britain and France to such an extent that they were no longer able to financially maintain their military forces, and were hence incapable of containing the burgeoning freedom movements in their colonies. It is worth noting that Britain was in such bad shape that it received about one-fourth of the total aid given under the Marshall Plan. Regardless of Gandhi or any other charismatic leader, Britain would have left India in 1947 purely for financial reasons, due to its wholly collapsed economy. After WWII, Britain left not only India but nearly all its other holdings, including Jordan in 1946, Palestine in 1947, Sri Lanka in 1948, Myanmar in 1948, and Egypt in 1952. For the same reason, France also had to grant independence to Laos in 1949 and Cambodia in 1953, and had to leave Vietnam in 1954. Had there been no Hitler and no World War II, it most probably would have taken another 30 or more years for India and some of the other colonies to achieve independence.

Another major consequence of World War II was that it greatly hastened Indian political independence. The highly publicized Cripps Mission that took place in India in 1942 was essentially a political ploy approved by Churchill to buy time for Britain and to try to assuage anti-colonialist feelings in the U.S.[1]

British historians P.J. Cain and A.G. Hopkins described the hopeless situation of the British in India as follows:


There is a saying that history is written by the victors of war. One of the greatest myths, first propagated by the Indian Congress Party in 1947 upon receiving the transfer of power from the British, and then by court historians, is that India received its independence as a result of Mahatma Gandhi’s non-violence movement. This is one of the supreme inaccuracies of Indian history because had there been no Hitler and no World War II, Gandhi’s movement would have slowly fizzled out because gaining full independence would have taken several more decades. By that time, Gandhi would have long been dead, and he would have gone down in history as simply one of several great Indian freedom fighters of the times, such as Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Lala Lajpat Rai, Motilal Nehru, Dada Bhai Naoroji, and C.R. Das. He would never have received the vast publicity that he did for his nonviolence movement. Political independence for India was achieved not by Mahatma Gandhi, but rather by Hitler rendering the British Empire a bankrupt entity.

In fact, Gandhi’s popularity among the masses had decreased substantially already in the 1930s, perhaps partially because in reality Gandhi had no idea of how to bring about India’s independence. At the Madras Congress session in 1927, when Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose, two other freedom movement leaders, succeeded in having a resolution passed declaring India’s complete independence, Gandhi was annoyed, and hence—only to cater to Gandhi—the Madras resolution was modified to request dominion status under the British the following year at the Calcutta Congress Session in 1928.

Subhas Chandra Bose was a genius with a superlative academic record. After only six months of preparation, he stood fourth in the prestigious Indian Civil Services (ICS) examination, which in those days was held at regular intervals in Britain. In his book The Indian Struggle, Bose described his first meeting with Gandhi in 1921:

I began to heap question upon question…The reply to the first question satisfied me…His reply to the second question was disappointing and his reply to the third question was no better…My reason told me clearly…that there was a deplorable lack of clarity in the plan which the Mahatma had formulated and that he himself had no clear idea of the successive stages of the campaign which would bring India to her cherished goal of freedom.[3]


Bose was unanimously elected Congress Party president in 1938. The following year, he decided that the party should launch a nationwide civil disobedience movement, giving the British six months’ notice. With this goal in mind, he decided to run for re-election as party president. This was completely within precedent; just before his term, Nehru had also been Congress Party president for two terms. Gandhi, however, was not pleased. He threw his entire support behind Sitaramayya, another senior Congress leader. Despite this, Bose defeated him. Gandhi said publicly that the defeat of Sitaramayya was his own defeat. He then manipulated his followers in ensuing executive committee meetings in such a way that he forced Bose to resign from the party. Commenting on this, Aurobindo Ghosh, the nationally famous freedom fighter turned renunciate, stated:



The Congress at the present stage—what is it but a Fascist organization? Gandhi is the dictator like Stalin, I won’t say like Hitler: what Gandhi says they accept and even the Working Committee follows him; then it goes to the All-India Congress Committee which adopts it, and then the Congress. There is no opportunity for any difference of opinion, except for Socialists who are allowed to differ provided they don’t seriously differ. Whatever resolutions they pass are obligatory on all the provinces whether the resolutions suit the provinces or not. There is no room for any other independent opinion. Everything is fixed up before and the people are only allowed to talk over it—like Stalin’s Parliament.


Ultimately, however, Gandhi and the Congress Party opted for a “Quit India Movement” against the British in 1942 and he spread the slogan “Do or Die,” which in fact Subhas had proposed in 1938. The British government arrested all the top Congress Party leaders and thus killed the Quit India Movement before it had a chance to gather steam. It fizzled out entirely within a matter of months.

Although Bose’s Indian National Army (INA), which drew its cadre from Indian POW’s in Japanese camps and fought along with Japanese forces on India’s eastern front towards the end of the war, failed in its ultimate mission, indirectly it succeeded in causing the British to leave India early. When Japan surrendered, the British charged 20,000 INA men with treason. They decided to hold the trial in public at the Red Fort in Delhi. The first three of Bose’s officers to be tried were a Hindu, a Muslim, and a Sikh. This immediately united Indians of all three religions against the British. While the Muslim League was at that time fighting with the Congress Party and demanding a separate state for Muslims, on this issue it joined Congress in the now-national movement against the INA officers’ trial. Most of Bose’s army cadres were Muslims.

On November 21 and 23, 1945, a mass demonstration took place in Kolkata (Calcutta). Participants included members of the Congress Party, the Communist Party, and Muslim League. The police shot more than 200 people, of whom 33 died. Then the British decided to put on trial only those INA men who were charged with committing murder or brutality against other POW’s. However, Kolkata simply exploded when, in February 1946, an Abdul Rashid Khan (a Muslim) of the INA was given seven years’ rigorous imprisonment for murder. The protest began peacefully by students of the Muslim League, but later students of the Congress and Communist parties joined them in solidarity. Both the police and the army were called to put down what came to be known as “the almost revolution.” This time nearly 400 people were shot down, and nearly 100 killed. Since racial discrimination was rampant in the Royal Indian Navy, Khan’s trial gave thousands of Indians the excuse to mutiny. The mutiny spread to nearly 80 ships and 20 sites on land. This came closer to overthrowing the British than anything Gandhi ever did. The reasons behind Indian independence are nicely summarized by the esteemed Indian historian Ramesh Chandra Majumdar:

There is, however, no basis for the claim that the Civil Disobedience Movement directly led to independence. The campaigns of Gandhi … came to an ignoble end about fourteen years before India achieved independence … During the First World War the Indian revolutionaries sought to take advantage of German help in the shape of war materials to free the country by armed revolt. But the attempt did not succeed. During the Second World War Subhas Bose followed the same method and created the INA. In spite of brilliant planning and initial success, the violent campaigns of Subhas Bose failed … The Battles for India’s freedom were also being fought against Britain, though indirectly, by Hitler in Europe and Japan in Asia. None of these scored direct success, but few would deny that it was the cumulative effect of all the three that brought freedom to India. In particular, the revelations made by the INA trial, and the reaction it produced in India, made it quite plain to the British, already exhausted by the war, that they could no longer depend upon the loyalty of the sepoys [low-ranking Indian soldiers under British command] for maintaining their authority in India. This had probably the greatest influence upon their final decision to quit India.”[4]

It was British prime minister Clement Atlee who, when granting independence to India, said that Gandhi’s non-violence movement had next to zero effect on the British. In corroboration, Chief Justice P.B. Chakrabarty of the Kolkata High Court, who had earlier served as acting governor of West Bengal, disclosed the following in a letter addressed to the publisher of Ramesh Chandra Majumdar’s book A History of Bengal:


You have fulfilled a noble task by persuading Dr. Majumdar to write this history of Bengal and publishing it … In the preface of the book Dr. Majumdar has written that he could not accept the thesis that Indian independence was brought about solely, or predominantly by the non-violent civil disobedience movement of Gandhi. When I was the acting Governor, Lord Atlee, who had given us independence by withdrawing the British rule from India, spent two days in the Governor’s palace at Calcutta during his tour of India. At that time I had a prolonged discussion with him regarding the real factors that had led the British to quit India. My direct question to him was that since Gandhi’s “Quit India” movement had tapered off quite some time ago and in 1947 no such new compelling situation had arisen that would necessitate a hasty British departure, why did they have to leave? In his reply Atlee cited several reasons, 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 [Subhash Chandra Bose]. Toward the end of our discussion I asked Atlee what was the extent of Gandhi’s influence upon the British decision to quit India. Hearing this question, Atlee's lips became twisted in a sarcastic smile as he slowly chewed out the word, “m-i-n-i-m-a-l!” [5]


1 Cain, P.J. and Hopkins, A.G., British Imperialism 1688-2000, 2nd Ed., Pearson Education, Harlow, U.K., 2002, p. 560.
2 Ibid., pp. 560-1.
3 “Netaji and Gandhi, 2 Titans of the Independence Struggle”, India Abroad (India), January 24, 1997.
4 Majumdar, Ramesh Chandra, Three Phases of India’s Struggle for Freedom, Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan, Bombay, India, 1967, pp. 58-59.
5 Ranjan Borra, “Subhas Chandra Bose, The Indian National Army, and The War of India’s Liberation,” Journal of Historical Review, Vol. 20 (2001), No. 1, reference 46.


Link :
http://www.susmitkumar.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=100&Itemid=86
Till the last two paras whateversaid, i believe, is perfectly agreeable to most. The idea being that gandhi was not the sole reason for independence and that the World War was the major event that made things possible.

And the last two paras mentions that Gandhi does not have the stamp of apporval of a british PM as a freedom fighter of any worthwhile contribution. Really! thats the reason to dispute his contribution? Agreed that we look for goras finally stamp of approval on anything indian, but this is going too far. And to top it you have draged in majumdar in as well by some totally irrelevenlant linkages.
 
I don't know for some reason I always felt that our independence delayed till 1947 because of people like Gandhi and his supporters:(

Other thing I'm always wondered is why our great kings were not honoured as like gandhis or Nehru s :(
 
Where is this thread going? Why cant we have another thread for discussing the above points?
because people are under the impression that only congress gets the default right to rule the country.
Other parties are either right wing nut jobs or anything but congress since they bought us independence.
 
@pradeep - Ill readily admit that a lot of what you said made sense. However some of the things are contradictory. First you say that the British left due to the World War which makes a lot of sense.

Then you say the INA were responsible for freedom. Which is it ? If the World War really was the only factor for their retreat then the INA troops died for nothing. Plus they helped the Japanese which committed far greater atrocities during the World War than Britain even managed in their entire history. He was photographed with Himmler who had murdered countless Jews. However anyone can associate himself with a monster like Himmler is beyond me.

So basically they helped a greater evil fight a lesser evil. No real disrespect to Subhas Bose since he gave his life for the country but I really hate what the Germans and Japanese did during the war and I remember I was very shocked when I read in school that that he fought with their support in the war.

Also as much respect as I have to Lala Lajpatrai and Bhagat Singh they real contribution to the freedom struggle was martyrdom and their deaths while great still cannot measure to the long struggle Gandhi had to endure during the struggle neither did he have the mass support that Gandhi enjoyed.

Similarly Bal Gangadhar Tilak did not have the mass following Gandhi had. He was even against the British governments attempts to ban certain Hindu traditions like raising the age of consent for women from 10 years to 12 years. Gandhi however fought for womens rights and the dalits which is the real reason he was killed and not the made up stuff that Godse came up with.

I however agree with you about Sardar Patel was also a great man and perhaps he also deserves to be on our currency notes. I didn't like his rather divisive tactics between Muslims and Hindus but no one in this world is perfect and his positive actions during the struggle far outweigh any negatives.

Its very easy to copy paste from a website but I find so many statements were made with no real proofs whatsoever.[DOUBLEPOST=1367070936][/DOUBLEPOST]
because people are under the impression that only congress gets the default right to rule the country.
Other parties are either right wing nut jobs or anything but congress since they bought us independence.

I am interested to know which people are you referring to ? :)

Why not name and shame such people ?
 
Last edited by a moderator:
i am against name game.
And no i do not consider you in those category but i consider barkha dutt and the cnn ibn host (ghosh) and earlier pankaj pachauri who consider themselves freelance congress spokesman.
 
journalists are people too , they can also have their biases in regards to politics, yes they should be fair in reporting , but if they can influence people to their part of thinking then whats wrong in it ?

are you saying bjp wont have any biased journalists in their pocket?
 
^
names please.
I am yet to come across reporters who spread the bjp word through press voluntarily.

The wrong part being twisting of facts to show them as devils.
There was another guy an ex aaj tak reporter, who was game in crucifying the bjp with made up incorrect ,half cooked stories. And when it was the curious case of sanjay dutt , he was defending him with all the emotional drama as if his life depended on it.
 
^^ take an example of west Bengal, previous party were not saint but after mamata came thing gone worst, she killed the finance system , stopped Tata factory for her own political will, gunda-raj in street level is multiplied.
the state has no source of income. 90% of the new never came in public/media as Mamata is major stack holder in all big media house, (ABP is her own company).

at this point of time, although i wanted Modi to became the PM, im very scared on other hand what will happen to general people in BJP ruled state... im seeing the deterioration of Karnataka ( Bangalore -in general) after SM Krishna.
The so called BJG govt has only one rule. tax the IT-guys make their lives miserable, force them to spend all money in Bangalore itself don't let them save anything. local infra such as road has gone for a toss long back.
 
journalists are people too , they can also have their biases in regards to politics, yes they should be fair in reporting , but if they can influence people to their part of thinking then whats wrong in it ?
are you saying bjp wont have any biased journalists in their pocket?
i agree with you, media is VENAL regardless of any party, who show them more money they will do just that.They DONT show news.... rather MAKE news.

a great example is from yesterday : 27-04-2013
IBN7 on Sector-110, Noida where guards open fire on agitating workers in Noida.
between 1:0pm - 2:30 pm IBN7 repeatedly broadcasted the news, they caught a local worker who was saying, " they didn't get salary for 3 month, calculated Rs.160/day. one worker dont had money for buying food for his family, so we went ahead ( along with 5 other worker) and ask for money, in return the guard get order to chase them out from the builder. worker refuse to go away, fight started & guard shoot 2 worker to death & 3 were seriously injured. builder promise to give Rs.4L to the dead & 1L to the injured - outcome: agitation stared as the guard killed 2 workers "

I was super surprise to see the same news in night around 11:30 PM, the same labor-worker saying, " we didn't get salary for last 3 month, so we are protesting. And due to stampede, caused by guard firing on air, 2 of our worker are injured and admired to hospital. Outcome:- agitation stared as worker didn't get paid. no-one killed only 2 injured.

Come on muthafaker Media. accept you are sold, sometime to Naveen Jindal some time to Bhandari Brothers and change your side to any party as per your financial benefits.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Superbad
Status
Not open for further replies.