History Archive

I was nearing my fifth birthday (January, 1902) when I was told I would be sent to school. I do not know how other children have felt in similar circumstances, but I was delighted. To see your elder brothers and sisters dress and go to school day after day and be left behind at home simply because you are not big enough—not old enough—is a galling experience. At least, so I had felt, and that is why I was overjoyed.

When some JNU students raised violent and seditious anti-Indian slogans in the university campus on February 9, 2016, it came as a shock to many across the country. Some of the slogans were openly calling for India’s destruction, celebrating the absolute annihilation of India, like: “Bharat tere tukde honge, inshallah, inshallah”. The Islamist tone was unmistakable and unapologetic. The collusion with Pakistan and its fifth column was obvious. The identification with Islamic terrorism, India’s greatest enemy in 21^st century, was overt.

How Neta JI(Subhash Chandra bosh) died? Who is the main face behind the scene of an emergency(1975)? Aarushi murder case, Rajeev Gandhi assassination, etc, etc. What do you think, what is the biggest secret of Independent India which is still just a piece of information on the internet but government never accepted it as it would destroy the pillars of democracy. I am talking about The Mitrokhin Archive, written by Vasili Mitrokhin.

A massive controversy has broken out after Prime Minister Modi raked up Rajiv Gandhi infamous holiday in Lakshwadeep, at a remote, uninhabited island called Bangaram. The charge is that Rajiv Gandhi, along with his wife Sonia Gandhi, kids and others used INS Viraat for his personal use as a ‘taxi’ for his vacation.

In 2015, one and a half years after Narendra Modi led NDA came to rule the Centre with a thumping majority, a horde of so-called artists, authors and intellectuals started returning their awards in the protest of ‘increasing intolerance’ in India. Their allegation was that the Modi-led NDA government at the centre was a right wing government, which did not tolerate any dissent and allowed intellectuals to pursue only its own ideological persuasion. In this process, it was killing the space for ‘freedom of expression’.

My father was born on the 28th May, 1860 and my mother in 1869. After passing the Matriculation (then called Entrance) Examination from the Albert School, Calcutta, he studied for some time at the St. Xavier’s College and the General Assembly’s Institution (now called Scottish Church College). He then went to Cuttack and graduated from the Ravenshaw College.

My father, Janakinath Bose, had migrated to Orissa in the eighties of the last century and had settled down at Cuttack as a lawyer. There I was born on Saturday, the 23rd January, 1897. My father was descended from the Boses of Mahinagar, while my mother, Prabhabati (or rather Prabhavati) belonged to the family of the Dutts of Hat- khola. I was the sixth son and the ninth child of my parents.

It all started in 1937 when the country had a tryst with the General Elections. The elections in Assam saw the Congress gaining the majority. However they still had some task cut out for that final sip between the cup and the lips. For consequent to the partition of Bengal in 1905, administratively Assam was merged with Sylhet, which was earlier with Bengal. But then Sylhet (Surma Valley) wing of the Congress still owed their allegiance to the Bengal Congress. Thus both the divisions of Congress in Assam ie the Assam Congress and the Sylhet Congress didn’t see eye to eye on several matters. They were actually playing straight into the British hands.

2021 is the birth centenary year of the noted Gandhian thinker Dharampal⁽¹⁾. Dharampal is well known for having conducted extensive archival research in Britain and India, and for having published several books later on. His extensive efforts led to a revisiting of conventional views of society, polity, science & technology, and culture, especially at the heyday of British colonial rule in India.

Hundred years ago, on 7^th November, 1917, ^[1] a revolution took place in Europe which changed the fate of entire mankind. It was the Russian Revolution. It gave birth to the first Communist State in history, the Soviet Union.