Sunday Reading: Snoopgate Aside, Ever Wondered What Might Have Happened If Netaji Had Not Died In A Plane Crash?

Disclaimer: A favourite grand-uncle of mine was one of Netaji's closest associates. He, Abid Hasan Safrani, was the man who had accompanied Netaji on his historic submarine journey from Germany to Japan, and he was supposed to have been on that final, fateful flight to Tokyo. Thus he was one of the last people to see Netaji alive. Thanks to him, I grew up on legends of Netaji, and later went on to study the man, his strengths and his contradictions.

Times Of India

What is surprising is that with all the recent media chatter about Netaji, nobody has asked one very basic question: So what would have happened if Netaji had indeed come back to India? How might it have altered the course of Indian history?

Let us start this counter-factual history at the very beginning, in 1946 ¡ª because being a man of honour Netaji would have surely returned to India when his INA officers were being put on trial. Surely he would not have allowed them to be punished, without offering himself to the British as their Supreme Commander, and therefore the one ultimately responsible for their actions. For the British, it would have been a devilish political problem. On the one hand, they'd have wanted to hang Netaji as a war criminal (as they did, vindictively, with various Japanese leaders ¡ª many of them decent, honorable men). But, given the prospect of a violent national backlash, they'd have had to resort to some face-saving device (as indeed they finally did in the case of the INA officers), and gotten on with the job of wrapping up the Raj as quickly as possible Thus Netaji would have been in India when the fractious discussions were going on between the Congress and the Muslim League in the run up to Independence, and he would have surely played a role in the negotiations. Many people believe that, given his views on communalism, his force of personality and his relationship with Jinnah, Netaji might have been able to persuade the Muslim League leader not to insist on Partition. And thus the great tragedy of 1947 might have been avoided.
But the larger question is, what role would Netaji have played in post-Independence Indian politics? That would have depended on a variety of factors, but mainly on his relationship with the Congress Party, and with Nehru himself. That relationship, once highly synergistic, had become complicated, despite Netaji's efforts to heal the fissures. Ultimately, however, Netaji and Nehru had differing views on key issues, and their two personalities were simply too strong for either to give in to the other. Sooner or later a parting of ways was inevitable. When we look at what might have happened, there are three possible alternative scenarios (with perhaps some measure of overlap between them)...

Scenario #1

Navbharat Times

Netaji, with his radical socialist views ¡ª much farther to the Left than Nehru's ¡ª splits the Congress, and launches a rival party, occupying a space to the left of the Congress, thereby squeezing the CPI. Thus in the 1950s India would have had two strong rival political parties, both with left-of-centre positions, competing for the popular vote. So who would win? It seems likely that, over time, Netaji's party would edge out Nehru's Congress ¡ª especially since Netaji himself was a vigorous 10 years younger than Nehru. And, by the way, Netaji would not have shared Nehru's squeamishly idealistic vision of a non-aligned foreign policy: Netaji's India would have clearly been a member of the Soviet Bloc.

Scenario#2

Navbharat Times

This hinges around the feeling at the time of Independence that India was not yet ready for democracy: there was a school of thought that believed that the country needed at least 10 years of what was called "Ataturkism" ¡ª after Kemal Ataturk, the legendary autocrat ¡ª to enable a process of accelerated national development, which would prepare the country for full democracy. Nehru, too, briefly considered this option, but was too much of a liberal (not to mention idealist) to go down that path. Netaji, on the other hand, had a strong streak of authoritarianism, so he'd have probably used all his considerable energies towards pushing India towards such a pragmatic, quasi-fascist model. And there's no doubt that Netaji would have been outstanding in the role of an Indian Kemal Ataturk ¡ª an architect of the nation in every detail, shaping it according to his own benevolent dictatorial vision. He would, as Ataturk did in Turkey, tower over the nation like a colossus.

Scenario#3

Netaji meets Adolf-Hitler in Germany 1942. Image: Autojunction

This one is related to Scenario#2, except that here, instead of being a tough, paternalistic autocrat like Ataturk, Netaji tips over the edge to become India's Mao Tse-Tung, or even India's Kim Il Sung. (OK, these characterizations sound hurtful, so let's just say he becomes India's Fidel Castro, a well-loved leader taking his country down the battered leftist socialist road to ruination.)

By the 1980s, Netaji would be in his 80s, and would still continue to be at the helm (authoritarian leaders never know when to step aside). Years of radical left wing socialist policies would have reduced the country to an economic shambles. And as things continued downhill, it is likely that Netaji himself would have finally died, leaving his Forward Bloc party rudderless and ineffectual. Meanwhile, at some point along the way ¡ª perhaps the early 1960s ¡ª a disillusioned Nehru would have probably have conceded the game, and retired to Cambridge to teach (and perhaps to write a masterly series on the history of civilization). Indira Gandhi would fulfill the dream she once told her friend Dorothy Norman about, of buying a little cottage in Kensington, London, and keeping a paying guest to help pay the bills. And Rajiv Gandhi would be a successful pilot with Alitalia.
But in the1980s India would face an existential national crisis. Thanks to a sustained Saudi-funded Wahabi missionary program since 1973, the western wing of united India would be swept by waves of religious fundamentalism and strife, and the old demand for a separate Pakistan would be raised once again ¡ª coinciding, unfortunately, with the political vacuum at the Centre. And so, the western wing would break away to form a new fundamentalist Islamic state (although the Muslim-majority eastern wing in Bengal would remain a part of India because of old loyalties to Netaji).
Thus by the time the old Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, India would, thanks mainly to years of Netaji's ruinous socialist policies, be on the brink of bankruptcy. Netaji himself would be long dead, and his Forward Bloc party would be in disarray. But in the wings hope was stirring. There was a renascent Congress Party, led by a canny politician named Narasimha Rao. And there was a resurgent Jan Sangh, long suppressed by Netaji, led by another shrewd politician named Atal Behari Vajpayee. The two parties were girding themselves for the elections of 1991, both speaking of bold economic reforms. History, as it often does, had reverted to the mean.

(Originally published in Times Of India)