Tags:
Journalism of Courage
In an ideological shift, the CPI(M) today finally settled down to rediscover Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose as a national hero.
‘‘The people don’t accept the propaganda that only the Congress and Gandhi brought Independence,’’ said West Bengal CM Buddhadeb Bhattacharya as he received the first batch of motorcyclists who arrived from Orissa and other places to celebrate Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s 107th birth anniversary at Netaji grounds on Red Road. He asked historians to give Netaji his due for ‘‘contribution to India’s freedom movement’’.
Coming from the CM himself, the remarks left people surprised. Never before in the past 27 years, had the CPI(M) put its entire bandwagon into hailing Netaji as today. It appeared for the Marxists that it’s never too late to recognise Netaji as an alternative ‘Left thinker’ whose profile would ‘shelter’ them in times of both national and international crises.
‘‘In times of crisis, triggered by the imperialist forces globally, when the communal forces are rearing their heads, we need to get back to Netaji’s socialist thinking, in his writings and speeches and his relentless struggle against the imperialist forces,’’ he said.
A visiting professor of St Petersburg University, Moscow, Dr Purobi Roy, felt: ‘‘With new facts coming to light no political establishments, Right or Left, are willing to take any chance with Netaji.’’ ‘‘There are revealing documents which say the Communist Party of Soviet Union decided to re-evaluate Netaji in their 20th Party Congress way back in 1956 under Khruschev’s leadership. And Netaji entered the Greater Russian Encyclopaedia,’’ she said.
