The U.N. unveiled a multimillion dollar strategy a dozen years ago to save children worldwide, but a new study has found the program had surprisingly little effect in Bangladesh, one of the world's poorest countries.
Since 1997, more than 100 countries have adopted the Integrated Management of Childhood Illness Program, designed by the World Health Organization and UNICEF. It was supposed to reduce deaths in children under age 5 due to diarrhea, pneumonia, measles and malnutrition, which make up about 70 percent of all child deaths.
Bangladesh is the only country where researchers compared results between areas that implemented the U.N. strategy with those that did not. In research published in the medical journal Lancet on Friday, experts found the program had no major impact on saving children.
U.N. officials could not say how much the program in Bangladesh cost, but said millions have been spent on its implementation around the world.
"It's remarkable the program has achieved so little," said Philip Stevens, a director at the International Policy Network, a London think-tank. "And it's baffling that it has been rolled out globally without any evidence that it works."
The U.N. strategy has three main components: training health workers; improving health systems, which includes ensuring drugs are available; and encouraging communities and parents to do things like maintain good hygiene and have their children immunized.
In Bangladesh, international researchers found the strategy improved the skills of health workers and convinced more people to seek treatment when they got sick. In the areas where the U.N. strategy was used, more children were breast-fed and the prevalence of stunted growth dropped by 20 percent.
But in areas where the program wasn't implemented, slightly more children were vaccinated against measles, and there was no big difference in death rates.
Researchers weren't sure why the program had failed, but said the community part of the U.N. strategy was "less effective than expected."
The study was paid for by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, WHO, and the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Some officials insisted the U.N. needed even more money for the program.
In an accompanying commentary in the Lancet, Trevor Duke of the University of Papua New Guinea called for an extra US$5-8 billion for the program to be expanded in 40 of the world's poorest countries.
Stevens said the U.N. should first prove its strategies work.
"If a private company produced results like this, it would rapidly go out of business," he said. "Yet in U.N. land, failure is used as a justification to ask for more money to do more of the same."
Source: By MARIA CHENG (AP)
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Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Is Bangladesh drowning? Part-1
Part one of a shocking documentary following the aftermath of cyclones in Bangladesh produced by CNN on August 25, 2008.
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The Story of Subhas Chandra Bose
A Great Indian Patriot:The Story of Subhas Chandra Bose
M. Azizul Jalil
“My assets to my countrymen, my debts to my brother Sarat” - thus wrote Subhas Chandra Bose, a great patriot, when asked to give his last wish just before an abdominal surgery in Europe in 1935. Subhas (popularly known as Netaji) was a nationalist hero of our generation. In 1943, he formed the Indian National Army (INA), known in Hindi as the Azad Hind Fauz, in the Japanese occupied areas in the far-east and was its supreme commander until his death in 1945. It was a controversial decision on his part.
The German and Japanese powers (known as the axis powers) were regarded by many as fascist, expansionist and authoritarian. The atrocities committed, particularly by the Japanese army defied the rules of war and the Geneva Convention. I believe Subhas Bose, was frustrated by the weak-kneed policies of the Congress with regard to India’s independence. Perhaps, in an act of desperation, he might have concluded that “my enemy’s enemy is my friend”. He possibly believed that the Japanese would be helpful in gaining India’s freedom!
In September 1945, Japan lost the war and formally surrendered. The INA members were then arrested by the victorious British. The vast majority of them were released. However, to demonstrate that defection and mutiny would not go unpunished a few senior officers were tried by the British at the Red Fort in Delhi. In Calcutta when I was a school student in class eight, we joined the strikes and protests against first of these trials. Captain Rashid Ali was tried first after whom the day was called “Rashid Ali Dibash”. After many years, wearing a barrister’s gown, Jinnah and Nehru defended Captain Rashid Ali, Major Shahnawaj and Captain Dhillon.
I remember going on strike and then in procession from our school to the Wellington Square in Calcutta to join a large meeting –presided over by Dr. A.M. Malik, then vice-president of the All India Trade Union Congress. It was addressed amongst others by Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy, then a famous physician, and later the Chief Minister of West Bengal. There I also saw another famous and often controversial personality V. K. Krishna Menon, then president of the India League in UK who spoke with a rolled umbrella in hand. He later became the High Commissioner of India in the UK. From the meeting area, we heard sounds of gun shots and soon learnt that police had fired on a group trying to come to the meeting through the Dharamtola Street killing two people including a woman. The names of Calcutta Police Commissioner Hardwick and his deputy Doha (later the Inspector-General of Police in East Pakistan) come to my mind in this connection. Protests against the trials spread all over India. The trials finally resulted in the dismissal of the INA officers from the British Indian Army. Since they had voluntarily left that army years ago to join the liberation forces (INA), it was not a big loss for them.
Subhas Bose was born in 1897 in Cuttack, Orissa where his father Janakinath Bose had a thriving legal practice. He was a brilliant student in school. He stood second in the University in the matriculation examination. He studied at the Presidency and Scottish Church Colleges in Calcutta and took his B.A. degree with first class honours in philosophy. Subhas then went to Cambridge, where he did his undergraduate degree. At his father’s insistence he also took the Indian Civil Service (ICS) examination from the UK in 1920, standing fourth in order of merit. He, however, withdrew his name from the list of ICS probationers in April 1921 by writing to the Secretary of State for India, E.S. Montague. He returned to India and joined the Congress Party. He took the appointment as the Chief Executive Officer of the Calcutta City Corporation at the request of Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das, then the mayor of Calcutta. Later, he was himself elected as the mayor of Calcutta. Though a very eligible young man, he chose to remain a bachelor for a long time and devote himself wholeheartedly to politics and India’s independence. In 1936 while recuperating in Europe, he married an Austrian lady, Emilie, a fact not publicly known until many years later. Subhas had a daughter, Anita Bose. She visits Calcutta from time to time, latest was in January 2005 just before we visited her father’s house.
Subhas was twice elected as the President of the Indian National Congress in 1937 and 1939. As narrated by Nirad C. Chaudhury (then secretary to Sarat Bose, a senior Congress leader and elder brother of Subhas) in his book ”Thy Hand, Great Anarch!”, Gandhi was unhappy about the defeat of his nominee, Pattavi Sitaramaiya in 1939 for the post of congress president in a close contest with Bose who was elected for the second time. He also disliked Bose’s appearance on that occasion in full khaki uniform on a horseback to inspect the uniformed congress volunteer guards. Subhas Bose had to resign before completing the second term due to serious differences of opinion with and the machinations of the right wing of the Congress, including Gandhi. He formed a new progressive party called the Forward Block. In view of his persistent and fiery opposition to British rule, he was then arrested in late 1940 (for the eleventh time in his political life) by the British. When Bose went on a hunger-strike, the British had to free him and place him under house arrest in his house on the Elgin Road in Bhowanipur in 1941. He vanished from there one night on January 17, and surfaced after some time in Berlin.
While a student in the MA class in the Dhaka University in 1954 in East Pakistan, a few friends and I had visited Calcutta during the brief euphoric days of the Jukto-front government in East Pakistan. We made it a point to visit Subhas Bose’s house. We had seen in a first floor bed room his clothes and personal articles kept in the exact way he left on the day of his departure. After half a century, in January 2005 I went again, this time with my wife to revisit the Netaji Bhawan.
Compared to the last time, the house, now a museum, was in a better state of maintenance. There is a small bookshop near the entrance. A few things relating to his illustrious elder brother, Sarat Chandra Bose, like a memorable speech on the diversity and unity of India on a plaque in the wall, were also on display. As we entered through a large gate, to the left of the driveway within a huge glass enclosure was the Wanderer, a German vehicle with the registration number BLA 7169. This is the car in which in the dark of the night on January 17, 1941 Subhas Chandra’s nephew Sisir Kumar Bose drove him away. We also found on the wall the original letter in Netaji’s own hand to Sarat Bose giving the reasons for what he called an “eccentric” decision not to accept the I.C.S. In the letter, he stated that it was time for him to come forward with a little offering of sacrifice and that “on the eve of this hazardous undertaking, my only prayer is- may it be for the good of our dear country.” From then on, Subhas Chandra opted for the path of idealism and moral action.
There were pictures with the commander of the German craft, Captain Musenberg and of Subhas having a shave on its deck. The most dramatic pictures related to his transfer in the turbulent Indian Ocean from the German to the Japanese submarine in 1943. VDOs constantly played scenes of the INA parades and gatherings in Singapore and Rangoon and Subhas Chandra’s patriotic and emotional speeches in his own voice. Documents and correspondence of Bose, and his clothes, including INA uniforms and boots, are on display. At one end of the exhibits’ hall, were Netaji’s, and his father Janakinath Bose’s bedrooms with the furniture used by them. It was from these rooms that Subhas escaped.
Here are some of the interesting details of Netaji’s great escape, as narrated by Sisir Bose in his book published in 1986 titled “Netaji Subhas Chandar Bose.” Subhas was released from imprisonment by the British on grounds of health in November 1940. Soon after, he had his last correspondence with Gandhi. He had written to Gandhi pledging full cooperation even by non-violent means to expedite freedom of India. However, Gandhi rebuffed Subhas by saying that there were fundamental differences between them and that he and Subhas would have to sail in different boats. That is what Netaji did. He had to do it his way and as a first step started to plan an escape from India.
Subhas Bose traveled under the name of Mohammad Ziauddin, in the guise of an upcountry Muslim. He posed as a traveling insurance inspector. A few days before departure, Bose declared that he would go into seclusion and would not see or talk to anyone even on the telephone. He had his room curtained off into compartments and his food was passed under the curtain. This was because there were suspicions that the police had recruited an agent amongst the servants in the house. On the fateful day, he had dinner with his mother (Prabhabati Devi) and when everyone retired, he left in the car driven by Sisir at 1 30 a.m. on January 17, 1941. He was wearing a sherwani, loose pajamas, laced European shoes, and a black fur cap.
They first went to Barari, where Asoke, Sarat Bose’s eldest son lived with his family. Next morning, he left on foot and a little later Asoke picked him up in a car and took him to Gomoh for the train to Delhi, from where he took the Frontier Mail to Pashawar. When he reached Peshawar on January 19, Akbar Shah, a Forward Block leader met him at the station and put him up at the house of Abad Khan. The latter had long experience of secret journeys through the tribal territories. Abad briefed Subhas Chandra for a few days about Pathan manners, customs and habits.
On January 26, 1941 Subhas, accompanied by three guides, left for the border of Afridi tribal territory in a car. Near the actual tribal border, they started their trek, scaling mountains, parts of which were covered with snow. On January 30, they set out for Kabul in a tonga and then changed to a truck on the way, reaching Kabul on January 31. He stayed in a Serai near the Lahori Gate, in most inhospitable surroundings. His destination was Central Europe but efforts to go via Moscow took nearly two months to arrange between the Soviet, German and the Italian governments through their officials in Kabul. It was a very frustrating time for Subhas Chandra. At the initial stage of these contacts, he had to confide to the Italians and Germans his plan to set up a Free India Government in Europe and form an Indian Liberation Army with the Indian prisoners-of- war captured by the Germans and the Italians.
On March 17, Subhas left in a car for the Soviet frontier accompanied by three Germans. They crossed the Afghan frontier and drove along until they reached Samarkand. From there they traveled by rail to Moscow, and then went by plane to Berlin reaching there on April 2, 1941.
Subhas Bose first sought German assistance to secure India’s Independence. After waiting uncertainly for a number of days, he secured an interview with Hitler through the German Foreign Minister Ribbentrop. I have read in one of Bose’s biographies that Hitler was not sympathetic- in fact he told Bose that the British rule of India had a beneficial and modernizing influence on the country and its inward looking society. Hitler had particularly mentioned that the caste system was India’s handicap. Hitler praised the construction by the British of the infrastructure in India, particularly the railways which unified the country and increased trade and commerce.
Frustrated, Subhas went to Japan in 1943 with German assistance. He was transferred from a German to a Japanese submarine in high (and rough) seas near Madagascar (now Zanzibar) in the Indian Ocean under the most dangerous conditions. He reached Tokyo and received Japanese support to form the INA. In 1943, we were temporarily in Jalpaiguri at my Grandfather’s house due to Japanese air attacks on Calcutta and the resultant panic. We used to secretly listen to Subhas Bose’s patriotic and emotional speeches in Hindi starting with “Bhaiyon aor Baheno-Jai Hind”. His was a call to arms to drive out the British from India. The program, beamed over the Azad Hind Radio from Japan and later Burma, would always end with the INA’s marching song “aghey kadam barahe ja, khushi ka geet gaye ja- chalo chalo, Delhi chalo.” This was very inspiring to me as a ten year old student and to most Indians.
Many years later, I was fortunate to meet two senior members of the INA- Brigadier Raja Habibur Rehman who was the chief of staff of Subhas Bose and Colonel M.Z.Kayani, whom Bose had reportedly selected as INA chief in case of his death. They were colleagues of mine while I was serving as a Deputy Secretary in the President’s Secretariat (1967-69) in Rawalpindi. Their past association with the INA and reverence for Bose had not gone very well with the vast majority of the Pakistani elite and army officers. My interest in the INA and their role in it allowed them to open up with their personal stories and frustrations. We became friends. Rehman was then the Political Agent in Gilgit. He had several times invited me to visit him in the remote Gilgit region and see the spectacular sights there. He was a good person but according to General Ayub Khan who was his minister for a little while, Rehman “was his own boss and unable to work under anybody.” Kayani was a joint secretary in the Cabinet Division sitting in the same building as I. SubhasBose had recruited these officers along with many other officers and soldiers from the British Indian personnel captured by the Japanese during the battle with the British in Singapore, Malaysia and Burma.
Colonel M.Z. Kayani used to be called ‘Tiger Kayani’ in the INA (he had given me a book by the same title narrating his bravery and military successes.) It was the first INA Division commanded by Kayani that took part in the assault on Imphal in March1944. On the 18 th March 1944, the Azad Hind Fouz, fighting along the Japanese forces crossed into India. But the march on Delhi was halted by a pre-mature monsoon and Anglo-American bombardment. In July 1944, Subhas made a radio appeal to Gandhi saying “India’s last war of independence has begun. Troops of the Azad Hind Fauz are now fighting bravely on the soil of India---Father of our nation, in this holy war for India’s independence we ask for your blessings and good wishes.” Gandhi chose to ignore it. It was Bose’s belief till the very end that if somehow the INA with Japanese assistance could penetrate into India, common people and the students in India with whom he was immensely popular would rise up all over India in massive rebellion against the British. However, I personally believe that Subhas Bose’s expectation that the Japanese at that late stage would or could provide increased assistance to him was not realistic. Also, there were a lot of people, particularly the British educated congress leaders, the Indian elite and intellectuals who favoured democracy and open society of the allied powers (led by the British and Americans) and not the authoritarian and fascist model of the Japanese and Germans.
Kayani had high praise for Bose. According to Kayani’s personal experience during the difficult period of war, shortages and privations, Subhas Bose treated Hindus and Muslims the same way. The INA members, officers and troops, of all castes and religions ate from the same kitchen. It was Kayani’s belief that if Bose returned to India after the war, he would have peacefully and fairly settled the Hindu-Muslim issue and there would not have been any need for the partition of India.
On August 18, 1945, Habibur Rehman was accompanying Netaji Subhas Bose on his last journey in a Japanese military aircraft from Taipeh in Formosa (now Taiwan) to Tokyo.
I was thus able to obtain a first hand account of the tragic end of Subhas Bose from Habibur Rehman who was by his side during Netaji’s last few days. The small plane in which Bose was seated in the front and Rehman in the back seat crashed and caught fire on the runway while taking off. Rehman did not allege that the Japanese had sabotaged the plane though I have a suspicion that it was possible. Habibur Rehman and Subhas Bose were injured and severely burnt. They were treated in the Japanese Army Field Hospital in Taipeh. Even though Bose had third degree burns on seventy percent of his body and in terrible pain, he fondly enquired from Habibur Rehman (who had lesser injuries) lying by his side about the latter’s condition by saying ‘Raja Sahab, apko ziada chot to nahi lagi’? (Hope, you were not hurt too badly?). Brig. Rehman had many nice things to say about Bose’s charming manners, leadership qualities, deep patriotism and non-communal approach in which he was uncompromising. Bose died of his injuries in the hospital, and cremated in Taipeh. It was Brig. Rehman who, after his recovery, carried Bose’s ashes to Tokyo where it was kept for many years in a Buddhist temple. The ashes were brought back after many years to India under intense Indian public pressure.
Let me add a footnote to this story on Subhas Bose. Soon after the independence of India and Pakistan in 1947, Rehman and Kayani were mobilised by the Pakistani authorities to lead tribal militias and other irregular forces from Pakistan to go into Kashmir at the time of the Maharaja Hari Singh’s unilateral accession to India. The Pakistani forces suffered military setbacks and India occupied most of Kashmir. Rehman and Kayani were then given senior civilian positions in the Government under contract. Interestingly, their INA colleague Major Shahnawaj Khan had joined the Indian Army and fought on the Indian side in Kashmir, later rising to the rank of a Brigadier. That was the beginning of the Kashmir conflict, which unfortunately continues till today and threatens war between India and Pakistan from time to time.
Writer and Columinst Mr. Azizul Jalil writes from Maryland.
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M. Azizul Jalil
“My assets to my countrymen, my debts to my brother Sarat” - thus wrote Subhas Chandra Bose, a great patriot, when asked to give his last wish just before an abdominal surgery in Europe in 1935. Subhas (popularly known as Netaji) was a nationalist hero of our generation. In 1943, he formed the Indian National Army (INA), known in Hindi as the Azad Hind Fauz, in the Japanese occupied areas in the far-east and was its supreme commander until his death in 1945. It was a controversial decision on his part.
The German and Japanese powers (known as the axis powers) were regarded by many as fascist, expansionist and authoritarian. The atrocities committed, particularly by the Japanese army defied the rules of war and the Geneva Convention. I believe Subhas Bose, was frustrated by the weak-kneed policies of the Congress with regard to India’s independence. Perhaps, in an act of desperation, he might have concluded that “my enemy’s enemy is my friend”. He possibly believed that the Japanese would be helpful in gaining India’s freedom!
In September 1945, Japan lost the war and formally surrendered. The INA members were then arrested by the victorious British. The vast majority of them were released. However, to demonstrate that defection and mutiny would not go unpunished a few senior officers were tried by the British at the Red Fort in Delhi. In Calcutta when I was a school student in class eight, we joined the strikes and protests against first of these trials. Captain Rashid Ali was tried first after whom the day was called “Rashid Ali Dibash”. After many years, wearing a barrister’s gown, Jinnah and Nehru defended Captain Rashid Ali, Major Shahnawaj and Captain Dhillon.
I remember going on strike and then in procession from our school to the Wellington Square in Calcutta to join a large meeting –presided over by Dr. A.M. Malik, then vice-president of the All India Trade Union Congress. It was addressed amongst others by Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy, then a famous physician, and later the Chief Minister of West Bengal. There I also saw another famous and often controversial personality V. K. Krishna Menon, then president of the India League in UK who spoke with a rolled umbrella in hand. He later became the High Commissioner of India in the UK. From the meeting area, we heard sounds of gun shots and soon learnt that police had fired on a group trying to come to the meeting through the Dharamtola Street killing two people including a woman. The names of Calcutta Police Commissioner Hardwick and his deputy Doha (later the Inspector-General of Police in East Pakistan) come to my mind in this connection. Protests against the trials spread all over India. The trials finally resulted in the dismissal of the INA officers from the British Indian Army. Since they had voluntarily left that army years ago to join the liberation forces (INA), it was not a big loss for them.
Subhas Bose was born in 1897 in Cuttack, Orissa where his father Janakinath Bose had a thriving legal practice. He was a brilliant student in school. He stood second in the University in the matriculation examination. He studied at the Presidency and Scottish Church Colleges in Calcutta and took his B.A. degree with first class honours in philosophy. Subhas then went to Cambridge, where he did his undergraduate degree. At his father’s insistence he also took the Indian Civil Service (ICS) examination from the UK in 1920, standing fourth in order of merit. He, however, withdrew his name from the list of ICS probationers in April 1921 by writing to the Secretary of State for India, E.S. Montague. He returned to India and joined the Congress Party. He took the appointment as the Chief Executive Officer of the Calcutta City Corporation at the request of Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das, then the mayor of Calcutta. Later, he was himself elected as the mayor of Calcutta. Though a very eligible young man, he chose to remain a bachelor for a long time and devote himself wholeheartedly to politics and India’s independence. In 1936 while recuperating in Europe, he married an Austrian lady, Emilie, a fact not publicly known until many years later. Subhas had a daughter, Anita Bose. She visits Calcutta from time to time, latest was in January 2005 just before we visited her father’s house.
Subhas was twice elected as the President of the Indian National Congress in 1937 and 1939. As narrated by Nirad C. Chaudhury (then secretary to Sarat Bose, a senior Congress leader and elder brother of Subhas) in his book ”Thy Hand, Great Anarch!”, Gandhi was unhappy about the defeat of his nominee, Pattavi Sitaramaiya in 1939 for the post of congress president in a close contest with Bose who was elected for the second time. He also disliked Bose’s appearance on that occasion in full khaki uniform on a horseback to inspect the uniformed congress volunteer guards. Subhas Bose had to resign before completing the second term due to serious differences of opinion with and the machinations of the right wing of the Congress, including Gandhi. He formed a new progressive party called the Forward Block. In view of his persistent and fiery opposition to British rule, he was then arrested in late 1940 (for the eleventh time in his political life) by the British. When Bose went on a hunger-strike, the British had to free him and place him under house arrest in his house on the Elgin Road in Bhowanipur in 1941. He vanished from there one night on January 17, and surfaced after some time in Berlin.
While a student in the MA class in the Dhaka University in 1954 in East Pakistan, a few friends and I had visited Calcutta during the brief euphoric days of the Jukto-front government in East Pakistan. We made it a point to visit Subhas Bose’s house. We had seen in a first floor bed room his clothes and personal articles kept in the exact way he left on the day of his departure. After half a century, in January 2005 I went again, this time with my wife to revisit the Netaji Bhawan.
Compared to the last time, the house, now a museum, was in a better state of maintenance. There is a small bookshop near the entrance. A few things relating to his illustrious elder brother, Sarat Chandra Bose, like a memorable speech on the diversity and unity of India on a plaque in the wall, were also on display. As we entered through a large gate, to the left of the driveway within a huge glass enclosure was the Wanderer, a German vehicle with the registration number BLA 7169. This is the car in which in the dark of the night on January 17, 1941 Subhas Chandra’s nephew Sisir Kumar Bose drove him away. We also found on the wall the original letter in Netaji’s own hand to Sarat Bose giving the reasons for what he called an “eccentric” decision not to accept the I.C.S. In the letter, he stated that it was time for him to come forward with a little offering of sacrifice and that “on the eve of this hazardous undertaking, my only prayer is- may it be for the good of our dear country.” From then on, Subhas Chandra opted for the path of idealism and moral action.
There were pictures with the commander of the German craft, Captain Musenberg and of Subhas having a shave on its deck. The most dramatic pictures related to his transfer in the turbulent Indian Ocean from the German to the Japanese submarine in 1943. VDOs constantly played scenes of the INA parades and gatherings in Singapore and Rangoon and Subhas Chandra’s patriotic and emotional speeches in his own voice. Documents and correspondence of Bose, and his clothes, including INA uniforms and boots, are on display. At one end of the exhibits’ hall, were Netaji’s, and his father Janakinath Bose’s bedrooms with the furniture used by them. It was from these rooms that Subhas escaped.
Here are some of the interesting details of Netaji’s great escape, as narrated by Sisir Bose in his book published in 1986 titled “Netaji Subhas Chandar Bose.” Subhas was released from imprisonment by the British on grounds of health in November 1940. Soon after, he had his last correspondence with Gandhi. He had written to Gandhi pledging full cooperation even by non-violent means to expedite freedom of India. However, Gandhi rebuffed Subhas by saying that there were fundamental differences between them and that he and Subhas would have to sail in different boats. That is what Netaji did. He had to do it his way and as a first step started to plan an escape from India.
Subhas Bose traveled under the name of Mohammad Ziauddin, in the guise of an upcountry Muslim. He posed as a traveling insurance inspector. A few days before departure, Bose declared that he would go into seclusion and would not see or talk to anyone even on the telephone. He had his room curtained off into compartments and his food was passed under the curtain. This was because there were suspicions that the police had recruited an agent amongst the servants in the house. On the fateful day, he had dinner with his mother (Prabhabati Devi) and when everyone retired, he left in the car driven by Sisir at 1 30 a.m. on January 17, 1941. He was wearing a sherwani, loose pajamas, laced European shoes, and a black fur cap.
They first went to Barari, where Asoke, Sarat Bose’s eldest son lived with his family. Next morning, he left on foot and a little later Asoke picked him up in a car and took him to Gomoh for the train to Delhi, from where he took the Frontier Mail to Pashawar. When he reached Peshawar on January 19, Akbar Shah, a Forward Block leader met him at the station and put him up at the house of Abad Khan. The latter had long experience of secret journeys through the tribal territories. Abad briefed Subhas Chandra for a few days about Pathan manners, customs and habits.
On January 26, 1941 Subhas, accompanied by three guides, left for the border of Afridi tribal territory in a car. Near the actual tribal border, they started their trek, scaling mountains, parts of which were covered with snow. On January 30, they set out for Kabul in a tonga and then changed to a truck on the way, reaching Kabul on January 31. He stayed in a Serai near the Lahori Gate, in most inhospitable surroundings. His destination was Central Europe but efforts to go via Moscow took nearly two months to arrange between the Soviet, German and the Italian governments through their officials in Kabul. It was a very frustrating time for Subhas Chandra. At the initial stage of these contacts, he had to confide to the Italians and Germans his plan to set up a Free India Government in Europe and form an Indian Liberation Army with the Indian prisoners-of- war captured by the Germans and the Italians.
On March 17, Subhas left in a car for the Soviet frontier accompanied by three Germans. They crossed the Afghan frontier and drove along until they reached Samarkand. From there they traveled by rail to Moscow, and then went by plane to Berlin reaching there on April 2, 1941.
Subhas Bose first sought German assistance to secure India’s Independence. After waiting uncertainly for a number of days, he secured an interview with Hitler through the German Foreign Minister Ribbentrop. I have read in one of Bose’s biographies that Hitler was not sympathetic- in fact he told Bose that the British rule of India had a beneficial and modernizing influence on the country and its inward looking society. Hitler had particularly mentioned that the caste system was India’s handicap. Hitler praised the construction by the British of the infrastructure in India, particularly the railways which unified the country and increased trade and commerce.
Frustrated, Subhas went to Japan in 1943 with German assistance. He was transferred from a German to a Japanese submarine in high (and rough) seas near Madagascar (now Zanzibar) in the Indian Ocean under the most dangerous conditions. He reached Tokyo and received Japanese support to form the INA. In 1943, we were temporarily in Jalpaiguri at my Grandfather’s house due to Japanese air attacks on Calcutta and the resultant panic. We used to secretly listen to Subhas Bose’s patriotic and emotional speeches in Hindi starting with “Bhaiyon aor Baheno-Jai Hind”. His was a call to arms to drive out the British from India. The program, beamed over the Azad Hind Radio from Japan and later Burma, would always end with the INA’s marching song “aghey kadam barahe ja, khushi ka geet gaye ja- chalo chalo, Delhi chalo.” This was very inspiring to me as a ten year old student and to most Indians.
Many years later, I was fortunate to meet two senior members of the INA- Brigadier Raja Habibur Rehman who was the chief of staff of Subhas Bose and Colonel M.Z.Kayani, whom Bose had reportedly selected as INA chief in case of his death. They were colleagues of mine while I was serving as a Deputy Secretary in the President’s Secretariat (1967-69) in Rawalpindi. Their past association with the INA and reverence for Bose had not gone very well with the vast majority of the Pakistani elite and army officers. My interest in the INA and their role in it allowed them to open up with their personal stories and frustrations. We became friends. Rehman was then the Political Agent in Gilgit. He had several times invited me to visit him in the remote Gilgit region and see the spectacular sights there. He was a good person but according to General Ayub Khan who was his minister for a little while, Rehman “was his own boss and unable to work under anybody.” Kayani was a joint secretary in the Cabinet Division sitting in the same building as I. SubhasBose had recruited these officers along with many other officers and soldiers from the British Indian personnel captured by the Japanese during the battle with the British in Singapore, Malaysia and Burma.
Colonel M.Z. Kayani used to be called ‘Tiger Kayani’ in the INA (he had given me a book by the same title narrating his bravery and military successes.) It was the first INA Division commanded by Kayani that took part in the assault on Imphal in March1944. On the 18 th March 1944, the Azad Hind Fouz, fighting along the Japanese forces crossed into India. But the march on Delhi was halted by a pre-mature monsoon and Anglo-American bombardment. In July 1944, Subhas made a radio appeal to Gandhi saying “India’s last war of independence has begun. Troops of the Azad Hind Fauz are now fighting bravely on the soil of India---Father of our nation, in this holy war for India’s independence we ask for your blessings and good wishes.” Gandhi chose to ignore it. It was Bose’s belief till the very end that if somehow the INA with Japanese assistance could penetrate into India, common people and the students in India with whom he was immensely popular would rise up all over India in massive rebellion against the British. However, I personally believe that Subhas Bose’s expectation that the Japanese at that late stage would or could provide increased assistance to him was not realistic. Also, there were a lot of people, particularly the British educated congress leaders, the Indian elite and intellectuals who favoured democracy and open society of the allied powers (led by the British and Americans) and not the authoritarian and fascist model of the Japanese and Germans.
Kayani had high praise for Bose. According to Kayani’s personal experience during the difficult period of war, shortages and privations, Subhas Bose treated Hindus and Muslims the same way. The INA members, officers and troops, of all castes and religions ate from the same kitchen. It was Kayani’s belief that if Bose returned to India after the war, he would have peacefully and fairly settled the Hindu-Muslim issue and there would not have been any need for the partition of India.
On August 18, 1945, Habibur Rehman was accompanying Netaji Subhas Bose on his last journey in a Japanese military aircraft from Taipeh in Formosa (now Taiwan) to Tokyo.
I was thus able to obtain a first hand account of the tragic end of Subhas Bose from Habibur Rehman who was by his side during Netaji’s last few days. The small plane in which Bose was seated in the front and Rehman in the back seat crashed and caught fire on the runway while taking off. Rehman did not allege that the Japanese had sabotaged the plane though I have a suspicion that it was possible. Habibur Rehman and Subhas Bose were injured and severely burnt. They were treated in the Japanese Army Field Hospital in Taipeh. Even though Bose had third degree burns on seventy percent of his body and in terrible pain, he fondly enquired from Habibur Rehman (who had lesser injuries) lying by his side about the latter’s condition by saying ‘Raja Sahab, apko ziada chot to nahi lagi’? (Hope, you were not hurt too badly?). Brig. Rehman had many nice things to say about Bose’s charming manners, leadership qualities, deep patriotism and non-communal approach in which he was uncompromising. Bose died of his injuries in the hospital, and cremated in Taipeh. It was Brig. Rehman who, after his recovery, carried Bose’s ashes to Tokyo where it was kept for many years in a Buddhist temple. The ashes were brought back after many years to India under intense Indian public pressure.
Let me add a footnote to this story on Subhas Bose. Soon after the independence of India and Pakistan in 1947, Rehman and Kayani were mobilised by the Pakistani authorities to lead tribal militias and other irregular forces from Pakistan to go into Kashmir at the time of the Maharaja Hari Singh’s unilateral accession to India. The Pakistani forces suffered military setbacks and India occupied most of Kashmir. Rehman and Kayani were then given senior civilian positions in the Government under contract. Interestingly, their INA colleague Major Shahnawaj Khan had joined the Indian Army and fought on the Indian side in Kashmir, later rising to the rank of a Brigadier. That was the beginning of the Kashmir conflict, which unfortunately continues till today and threatens war between India and Pakistan from time to time.
Writer and Columinst Mr. Azizul Jalil writes from Maryland.
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