Alliances of convenience not ideological preferences!

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Subas Chandra Bose in 1936:

The recent speech of Herr Hitler in Munich gives the essence of Nazi philosophy…The new racial philosophy which has very weak foundation stands for the glorification of the white races in general and the German race in particular. Herr Hitler has talked of the destiny of the white races to rule over the rest of the world…Apart from this new racial philosophy and selfish nationalism, there is another factor which affects us even more. Germany, in her desire to curry favor with Great Britain, finds it convenient to attack India and the Indian people.

A few years later, tables have turned. Bose met Herr Hitler and asked for his support in liberating India from the British. The paradigm shift has wondered everyone. But Sanjeev Sanyal in his latest book ‘Revolutionaries: The other story of how India won its freedom’, gives an logical and striking explanation for Subas’s paradigm shift. He says:

Many of Subas Bose’s critics to this day question his willingness to ally with the Axis powers. This is unfair, as he was merely looking for ways to end the brutal colonial occupation of his motherland. No one accuses President Roosevelt of being a communist sympathizer for allying with a murderous despot such a Stalin or being a colonial sympathizer for helping an imperialist such as Churchill. It is assumed that these were alliances of convenience and not ideological preferences. Why, then, should Subas Bose not be judged by the same standard? Indeed, he would go out of his way to make the distinction in his radio broadcasts, where he explicitly stated that his mission to free India required difficult choices: ‘In this fateful hour in Indian history, it would be a grevious mistake to be carried away by ideological considerations alone. The internal politics of Germany or Italy or Japan do not concern us—they are the concern of the people of those countries.’