Talk:Subhas Chandra Bose's 125th birth anniversary Wikimedia celebration

Inauguration

Hello, today on 23 January 2021, we are inaugurating this journey. Please share your thoughts and good wishes. Note, this section is for brief comments only. If you want a detailed discussion, please share your thoughts in new sections below. This section will be closed in 48 hours -- টিটো দত্ত (কথা) 15:27, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

Seriously? Hero celebration on NPOV wikipedia - for a fascist?

Hi friends over there in Bengal community. I find this project a bit difficult to believe. Bose is known in my German heritage as a collaborator of the Nazis and SS, who managed to get some POWS out from prisoner camps and into SS units where they had to die for a completely senseless war trying to stop the allied attack in Europe 1944 / 45. And he was more successful doing what from my part of the world looks as "useful idiot" for the Japanese racist project. Definitively all of that is worthy topics for wikipedia content. But to put all of that under the headline of "125th birth anniversary Wikimedia celebration" sounds to me like a a bit opposite to NPOV. Surely an encyclopedia has to collect material about people of all kind and political persuasuion, be it humanists, fascists, atheist, religious people. I did not think we have any business "celebrating" them. Kipala (talk) 09:21, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

The plan is to improve free-content on different Wikimedia project, following Wikimedia guidelines. Already at least two large-scale commissions have been set up by the central government and a state government — on different platforms. I am pretty sure there will be more such initiatives. On Wikimedia, the interested Wikimedians are working to improve free knowledge in a year-long Wiki-celebration. I regret your unsourced commentary on the subject. Regards. -- টিটো দত্ত (কথা) 01:05, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

The only aim of Subhas Chandra Bose throughout his life was to liberate India from British imperialists. In World War II, he found the opportunity to grab independence from the gradually weakening British forces. He tried first to engage the Indian National Congress and Mahatma Gandhi to start nation-wide demand for independence, but when they both turned him down as they did not want to attack British in their bad days, he had to move outside India and use the opportunity of the great war for India's independence. Ideologically, his first preference was the Soviets, who turned him down too. Only then, he contacted the Germans and Italians. Germany was the natural ally as they were fighting against the British and weakening them. Later, when Germany attacked the Soviets, it was strategically impossible for him to march his army through Central Asia. So, he approached Imperial Japan, where already Indian National Army was formed from the POWs and it was easy to march his army to India through South East Asia. That does not make him a fascist or a puppet for Japan. He was not a sympathizer of fascism and he or his army under his command did not commit any crime against humanity.

History is not always simple. There are always two opposite kinds of perspectives. For example, Winston Churchill might be considered as a national hero in England, but he will be always remembered as a cruel oppressor in India who caused Bengal famine of 1943. Truman has not been tried ever for crime against humanity for his decision to nuke the entire cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Aung San is considered as the father of the nation in Mayanmar even though he collaborated with the Japanese forces to fight against British colonialists. Similarly, Bose is considered as a national hero in India as he tried to free India from the powerful British empire and his birth anniversary is celebrated throughout the country. This project is not saying something new in the word "celebration" as Indian national and state governments officially celebrate this day every year. Please be assured that, the intention of this project is to document the facts related to Bose, not to disrupt NPOV in any Wikimedia sites. -- Bodhisattwa (talk) 13:07, 28 January 2021 (UTC)