'NSA Doval joins distorians': Congress reacts to 'Bose & Partition' remarks

The Congress on Saturday criticised National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval for his comments that if Subhas Chandra Bose had been alive, India would not have been partitioned, saying he has joined the tribe of "distorians".

In a tweet, Congress General Secretary Jairam Ramesh said: "Ajit Doval, who doesn't speak much, has now joined the tribe of 'distorians'. Did Netaji challenge Gandhi? Of course he did. Was Netaji a leftist? Of course he was. Was Netaji secular? Of course, staunchly and stoutly so. Would the Partition not have happened if Netaji was alive then? Who can say, because by 1940 Netaji had formed the Forward Bloc. You can have opinions on this but it is a contrafactual question."

Targeting the NSA, Ramesh said: "One thing Doval did not say. The man who championed the Partition of Bengal was Syama Prasad Mukherjee in the face of strong opposition from Sarat Chandra Bose, Netaji's elder brother. I am sending Doval a copy of Rudrangshu Mukherjee's fine book of 2015, Parallel Lives. He should at least sniff some real history."

While delivering the first Assocham Subhas Chandra Bose memorial lecture, the NSA said that Netaji showed a lot of audacity at various stages of life, and he even had the audacity to challenge Mahatma Gandhi.

"But Gandhi was at the prime of his political career and when Bose resigned and came out of the Congress, he started his struggle afresh," Doval said.

"I am not saying good or bad, but there are very few parallels in Indian history and world history of people who had the audacity to sail against the current," Doval said, adding that "Netaji was a lonely person and had no country supporting him except Japan".

The idea that came to his mind was 'I will fight the British, I will not beg for freedom. It is my right and I will have to get it', the NSA added.

"India would not have been partitioned if Subhas Bose had been there. Jinnah had said I can accept only one leader and that is Subhas Bose," Doval said.

He also said that Subhas Chandra Bose wanted Indians to feel free like birds and never compromised for anything less than the Independence of the country.