Vakavaka Pakapaka vs Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose

by Guest Sat Apr 15, 2017 7:29 pm

This is from a speech given by Netaji Bose. It is clear that Netaji would have personally thrashed anyone preaching the communal propaganda Vakavaka and others have been propagating. Bose was clearly secular in his thinking and approach.

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At the venue Bose climbed on to a makeshift platform. A full-throated roar rent the air. 'Netaji Bose Zindabad' [Long live Netaji Bose], 'Bharat mata ki jai' [Victory to mother India] and 'Netaji phiri eshechen' [Netaji has returned] were heard. But as Bose began to speak, an incredible hush fell over the vast crowd.
"My brothers and sisters, Hindus and Muslims, Christians and Parsees, Sikhs and Jains, but Indians first and Indians last! Here I stand before you to seek your help and support. The battle for Independence is not over. The British are leaving but before they leave, some misguided people want to break our country....

Bose spoke in simple Hindustani, without referring to any notes. His personality was overpowering. He sensed he had captivated the crowd. Every now and then he repeated an important phrase in Bengali. This attracted loud cheers of appreciation.

"It was exactly 90 years ago on this day the revolutionaries unfurled the flag of Indian independence in Delhi! The 1857 attempt failed and we have had to endure 90 years of slavery. Today we are on the threshold of freedom and our motherland is threatened again. There are misguided people who want to divide Mother India! Can you divide Ganga? The Himalaya? The Taj Mahal? Can you divide the Soul of India?

"It is the Indian soul that lives in all of us, whether the body is that of a Muslim or Sikh is immaterial. Every person born in this land of our forefathers is born an Indian. It is only later that he becomes a Hindu or a Muslim. He is part of this soil, a soil in which 50 generations of Muslims have been buried. They all are today a part of us.

"What is this Pakistan that we hear of? A land of the pure that [Mohammad Ali] Jinnah wants in Punjab and Sind? I ask my Muslim brothers, is the rest of India where your forefathers are buried impure? When Jinnah talk of Pakistan they insult their ancestors. They are insulting Akbar, Siraj-ud-Daulla, Tipu Sultan and millions of other Muslims.

"In its 5,000 years of history India has never divided itself on the basis of religion. Jinnah's demand for Pakistan is an insult to the legacy of Islam, an insult to the Sufi saints. My Indian brothers and sisters, join me to fight this evil. Join me to fight this mad demand to chop off the limbs of Mother India and call it the land of the pure.

"Another bogey that is often raised is that since the Hindus are in larger numbers, independent India will be a Hindu Raj. I will tell such cynics to please go and read our history again. Was Mughal rule a Muslim Raj? Never! Never! Never! The Mughal army was half Rajput, officials were Hindus and majority of people remained Hindu. Yes, there were misguided rulers like Aurangzeb but they soon wasted away. Mr Jinnah is a modern Aurangzeb. But remember, it was the bigotry of Aurangzeb that destroyed the great Mughal Empire.

"I do not deny there will be internal conflicts even after we earn our freedom. That is but natural. There is conflict within all free countries. In India there will be social conflict between Hindus and Muslims, economic conflict between landlords and the landless, labour tensions between employers and workers. This is a part of the process of growing up into a mature nation. But such conflict does not mean we have to create a separate nation for landlords and another separate one for the landless. Such separatist concepts are ridiculous.

http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/jan/23spec.htm