I did not go there to see the beach. I had gone to give a talk on the Netaji mystery, courtesy @IndicAcademy. Ramnath Iyer attended the talk and later showed me around Los Angeles.
This day in 1942 "Jana Gana Mana" became national anthem of India thanks to Subhas Chandra Bose. Original recording of the performance by Radio Symphony Orchestra of Hamburg, Germany. Dr Eigel Kruettge was the conductor. 1/ @chandrachurg
NG Ganpulay, a member of the Free India Centre, recorded the performance on tape. After his death, this tape was handed over to All India Radio, which broadcast a programme in 1980 called "National Anthem born in Exile".
@AkashvaniAIR 2/
@AkashvaniAIR In 1947 we had no National Anthem. In January 1950, a delegation from India attended UN General Assembly in NYC. A member of the delegation carried a record of Jana Gana Mana, which was produced in Singapore by Azad Hind Govt. He handed over this record to the UN Orchestra. 3/
We were taught in school that Mahatma Gandhi returned his Kaiser-i-Hind medal awarded by the British to protest against the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of April 1919. The reality is somewhat different. 1/
In his letter of August 1920 to Viceroy Chelmford (in whose hollowed memory we have the famous Chelmsford Club in the heart of New Delhi), Gandhiji wrote that he returned this and other medals "in connection with the Khilafat movement" of August 1920.
2/
Gandhiji wrote: "Valuable as these honours have been to me, I cannot wear them with an easy conscience, so long as my Mussalman countrymen have to labour under a wrong done to their religious sentiment."
Jallianwala Bagh was "an additional cause for grave dissatisfaction".
3/
Veer Savarkar a CIA agent? This revolting insinuation has been made by historian @Ashok_Kashmir
in his book.
1/
The historian has cited a declassified Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) record in his book in favour of his insinuation. What i do not understand is that why has Ashok ji cited this record when in clearly does not relate to Vinayak Damodar Savarkar?
2/
The record is about some other Savarkar, not Vinayak Damodar Savarkar. Not every Pandey is Ashok Pandey.
⚫️Prafulla Chaki and #KhudiramBose carried out the ill-fated Muzaffarpur bomb attack in April 1908.
⚫️ On the run, Chaki was spotted in a train by sub inspector Nandalal Banerjee. In the chase that followed, Chaki shot himself.
1/
⚫️Nandalal Banerjee severed Chaki's head, which was sent to Kolkata to be identified by Khudiram.
⚫️ Revolutionary Sreeshchandra Pal killed Nandalal after some time later that year. Meanwhile, the head of Chaki was buried in the garden of the IB office at Lord Sinha Road.
2/
⚫️ IB later exhumed the head/skull and sent it to Lalbazar police station, where it was kept in the record room (just as the Russians had kept the skull of Hitler).
⚫️ Historian Amlendu De saw the skull with a bullet hole. His request for a DNA test was declined.
3/
From private papers of Sardar Patel at National Archives. Not clear who wrote this as pages are missing. But seems like a blueprint of sort by a Gandhi bhakt. As we all know, Gandhians are devoted first and foremost to non-violence. 1/
The subhead is: "Progressive realisation of Non-violence by the Government in Police and Military". At the very start, it says "our ultimate ideal is to replace the military by non-violent defence".
This is in line with what Bapu said. 2/
"Glorification of solider, therefore, immediately cease," it goes on to read. It further reads that "Immediate disbandment of military may not be found practical by the Government". @chandrachurg and I have detailed in our book that idea of disbandment was there even in 1950s 3/
The make-believe pic seen here created by my friend Sauvagya Bhanja.
1/
CFSL, Kolkata turned down RTI request of Sayak to share copy of electropherogram on the basis of which it was concluded that Gumnami Baba was not Netaji. Three reasons have been given. National security, trade secrets and third party information. The latter two are nonsense.
2/
In brief, Justice MK Mukherjee Commission (1999-2005) was not able to prove that Gumnami Baba was Netaji primarily because of negative handwriting and DNA reports from sarkari labs. In private talks with us and others, late Justice Mukherjee felt these tests were fudged.
3/