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<div class="itg-mosimage"><amp-img src="https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.dev?url=https%3A%2F%2Fakm-img-a-in.tosshub.com%2Fsites%2Fmedia2%2Findiatoday%2Fimages%2Fstories%2F2012aug%2Fmjakbar_081712025054.jpg" alt="" height="425" width="650" class="" layout="responsive"></amp-img>India Today Editorial Director M J Akbar.<p>We mere nationals have long learnt that the safest way to deal with multinationals is to bow in homage and get out of the way. Ever since I learnt, while doing a bit of research on one of the great architects of India's freedom, Subhas Chandra Bose, that the Ford Motor Company offered the freebie of its new V-8 cars for the use of Congress ministers at the 1938 Haripura session, reverence has deepened into total awe.<br><br>Henry Ford, the eponymous pioneer of the American automobile industry, is famous for his assembly line; but this was a stroke of genius as an investment in goodwill. He got cushions in place early and firmly under the broad posterior of the future of India.<br><br>This nugget came from Mihir Bose's biography of Subhas Bose. Searching for confirmation of Ford's imaginative seduction in Leonard Gordon's magisterial work on the Boses,<i>Brothers Against the Raj</i>, I learnt that Bose was actually driven to the Congress camp city in a chariot donated by a local worthy, harnessed to "51 lusty bulls". The trademark Congress vehicle in those days was the peasant's bullock cart; it would also serve as the Congress election symbol after 1952. But such symbolism, lusty bulls included, was reserved for the last mile. Bose arrived at Haripura, a small and till then largely inaccessible village on the banks of the river Tapti in Gujarat, at the session hosted by Sardar Patel, by car. Gordon does not state whether this car was a Ford V-8 or not.</p><p>Old Henry Ford, or his executives, knew in 1938 what the mighty British Raj could not fathom; that power was shifting from one fulcrum to another, and the age of empire was on the verge of surrender to egalitarian nationalism. Ford was investing in a relationship with Congress ministers through the irresistible combination of comfort justified by convenience.<br><br></p><div class="itg-mosimage"><amp-img src="https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.dev?url=https%3A%2F%2Fakm-img-a-in.tosshub.com%2Fsites%2Fmedia2%2Findiatoday%2Fimages%2Fstories%2F2012aug%2Fford_081712025054.jpg" alt="" height="425" width="650" class="" layout="responsive"></amp-img></div></p><p>By 1938, Congress had already tasted power, although it was no more than a desultory sip. Congress had been elected in more than half a dozen British provinces after the 1937 polls, but it was still a long way from jumped-up municipal authority in Lucknow to an independent government in Delhi. Anyone who believed at Haripura in February 1938 that India would be free in nine years was thinking with his heart, not his mind.<br><br>It took a devastating world war for British resolve to crumble beyond restoration; and this war against Hitler was still 18 months away. If Hitler had not turned out to be a completely homicidal maniac, Britain's powerful appeasement lobby might have kept Britain out of conflict. Hitler had no quarrel with British rule in India; he supported it with almost as much eagerness as he dreamt of German rule over Britain. In the long term, no force could have prevented Indian independence, but it would have been a more violent, lengthy process had Hitler not exhausted Britain. In one of the great ironies of history, Germany recovered from defeat in 1945 but the British Empire never recovered from victory.<br><br>There is some irony then in the fact that Bose, radical and pugnacious as ever, chose in his Haripura presidential address to castigate capitalism: "There is an inseparable connection between the capitalist ruling classes in Great Britain and the colonies abroad." Surely Bose did not think American capitalists were exempt. In another fascinating aside, Bose told whoever was ready to listen that he would not permit Japanese multinationals in free India, even when he was marching alongside Japanese forces to liberate his motherland. The Japanese, more focused on the immediate, said nothing.<br><br>The conflict between the ideal and the practical is at least as old as the germination of ideas of what modern India should become. Six decades later, we both revere Subhas Bose and drive around in nifty Japanese cars, thinly disguised by an Indian pseudonym, Maruti. It is a very Indian compromise. We are very good at putting idealism in a framed photograph on the wall and getting on with life and chasing its pragmatic opportunities.<br><br>Multinationals are cool, remorseless and concentrated on the profit margin. Politicians fulminate; commentators sermonise. Everyone with a voice had something to say about the ghastly eruption of violence at the Maruti factory in Haryana; its Japanese owners kept verbal intervention to a minimum, and spoke through an Indian when they had to. They read chapter and verse from the factory rule book, demanded accountability for death, and got on with life. Impressive.<br><br>This column is not a plea for Ikea furniture in every Indian village in place of the charpoy. This is wistful envy on Independence Day, tinged with the hope that one day Indian businessmen, strengthened by a cold smile, bereft of self-pity, denied their divine right to waffle, will do unto others what some others have done unto us.<br></p><div id="tab-link-wrapper-plugin"><div class="authors__container"><div class="authors__by"><div class="authlable">Published By: </div><div class="authdetaisl">AtMigration </div></div><div class="published__on"><div class="authlable">Published On: </div><div class="authdetaisl">Aug 17, 2012</div></div></div><div class="sendros">--- ENDS ---</div></div></div>

byword

Byword

<div class="itg-mosimage"><div class="itgimage"><img  title="MJ Akbar"  class="" alt="MJ Akbar" src="https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.dev?url=https%3A%2F%2Fakm-img-a-in.tosshub.com%2Fsites%2Fmedia2%2Findiatoday%2Fimages%2Fstories%2F2012aug%2Fmjakbar_081712025054.jpg" loading="lazy" /></div>India Today Editorial Director M J Akbar.<p>We mere nationals have long learnt that the safest way to deal with multinationals is to bow in homage and get out of the way. Ever since I learnt, while doing a bit of research on one of the great architects of India's freedom, Subhas Chandra Bose, that the Ford Motor Company offered the freebie of its new V-8 cars for the use of Congress ministers at the 1938 Haripura session, reverence has deepened into total awe.<br><br>Henry Ford, the eponymous pioneer of the American automobile industry, is famous for his assembly line; but this was a stroke of genius as an investment in goodwill. He got cushions in place early and firmly under the broad posterior of the future of India.<br><br>This nugget came from Mihir Bose's biography of Subhas Bose. Searching for confirmation of Ford's imaginative seduction in Leonard Gordon's magisterial work on the Boses,<i>Brothers Against the Raj</i>, I learnt that Bose was actually driven to the Congress camp city in a chariot donated by a local worthy, harnessed to "51 lusty bulls". The trademark Congress vehicle in those days was the peasant's bullock cart; it would also serve as the Congress election symbol after 1952. But such symbolism, lusty bulls included, was reserved for the last mile. Bose arrived at Haripura, a small and till then largely inaccessible village on the banks of the river Tapti in Gujarat, at the session hosted by Sardar Patel, by car. Gordon does not state whether this car was a Ford V-8 or not.</p><p>Old Henry Ford, or his executives, knew in 1938 what the mighty British Raj could not fathom; that power was shifting from one fulcrum to another, and the age of empire was on the verge of surrender to egalitarian nationalism. Ford was investing in a relationship with Congress ministers through the irresistible combination of comfort justified by convenience.<br><br></p><div class="itg-mosimage"><div class="itgimage"><img  title=""  class="" alt="" src="https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.dev?url=https%3A%2F%2Fakm-img-a-in.tosshub.com%2Fsites%2Fmedia2%2Findiatoday%2Fimages%2Fstories%2F2012aug%2Fford_081712025054.jpg" loading="lazy" /></div></div></p><p>By 1938, Congress had already tasted power, although it was no more than a desultory sip. Congress had been elected in more than half a dozen British provinces after the 1937 polls, but it was still a long way from jumped-up municipal authority in Lucknow to an independent government in Delhi. Anyone who believed at Haripura in February 1938 that India would be free in nine years was thinking with his heart, not his mind.<br><br>It took a devastating world war for British resolve to crumble beyond restoration; and this war against Hitler was still 18 months away. If Hitler had not turned out to be a completely homicidal maniac, Britain's powerful appeasement lobby might have kept Britain out of conflict. Hitler had no quarrel with British rule in India; he supported it with almost as much eagerness as he dreamt of German rule over Britain. In the long term, no force could have prevented Indian independence, but it would have been a more violent, lengthy process had Hitler not exhausted Britain. In one of the great ironies of history, Germany recovered from defeat in 1945 but the British Empire never recovered from victory.<br><br>There is some irony then in the fact that Bose, radical and pugnacious as ever, chose in his Haripura presidential address to castigate capitalism: "There is an inseparable connection between the capitalist ruling classes in Great Britain and the colonies abroad." Surely Bose did not think American capitalists were exempt. In another fascinating aside, Bose told whoever was ready to listen that he would not permit Japanese multinationals in free India, even when he was marching alongside Japanese forces to liberate his motherland. The Japanese, more focused on the immediate, said nothing.<br><br>The conflict between the ideal and the practical is at least as old as the germination of ideas of what modern India should become. Six decades later, we both revere Subhas Bose and drive around in nifty Japanese cars, thinly disguised by an Indian pseudonym, Maruti. It is a very Indian compromise. We are very good at putting idealism in a framed photograph on the wall and getting on with life and chasing its pragmatic opportunities.<br><br>Multinationals are cool, remorseless and concentrated on the profit margin. Politicians fulminate; commentators sermonise. Everyone with a voice had something to say about the ghastly eruption of violence at the Maruti factory in Haryana; its Japanese owners kept verbal intervention to a minimum, and spoke through an Indian when they had to. They read chapter and verse from the factory rule book, demanded accountability for death, and got on with life. Impressive.<br><br>This column is not a plea for Ikea furniture in every Indian village in place of the charpoy. This is wistful envy on Independence Day, tinged with the hope that one day Indian businessmen, strengthened by a cold smile, bereft of self-pity, denied their divine right to waffle, will do unto others what some others have done unto us.<br></p><div id="tab-link-wrapper-plugin"><div class="authors__container"><div class="authors__by"><div class="authlable">Published By: </div><div class="authdetaisl">AtMigration </div></div><div class="published__on"><div class="authlable">Published On: </div><div class="authdetaisl">Aug 17, 2012</div></div></div><div class="sendros">--- ENDS ---</div></div></div>

Old Henry Ford, or his executives, knew in 1938 what the mighty British 
Raj could not fathom; that power was shifting from one fulcrum to 
another, and the age of empire was on the verge of surrender to 
egalitarian nationalism.

India Today

Old Henry Ford, or his executives, knew in 1938 what the mighty British Raj could not fathom; that power was shifting from one fulcrum to another, and the age of empire was on the verge of surrender to egalitarian nationalism.

Freedom in capital letters - India Today

India Today Editorial Director M J Akbar on Congress reign in power since Independence

Freedom in capital letters

What has added a striking dimension to the case is the accused’s family background. Police officials said his father is posted as an Assistant Commandant in the ITBP in Assam, while his mother is serving as a Superintendent in the same force in Noida. Read more...

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The singer&#39;s post on Instagram has shocked fans. 

Arijit Singh

Voice that defined generation: Fans react as Arijit Singh calls off playback singing

An overloaded boat capsized in the river Brahmaputra in Assam's Barpeta district, resulting in seven people of a family going missing. Rescue and search operations are underway.

Assam boat capsize

7 of a family go missing after overloaded boat capsizes in Assam

A video featuring elderly men dancing to Linkin Park’s music at Mumbai’s Mahalaxmi Racecourse has left the internet cheering.

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The court directed Sambhawaami Studios LLP and other unidentified entities to immediately stop creating, publishing or sharing any AI-generated or deepfake content that uses Andhra Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister and actor Pawan Kalyan's son Akira Nandan’s name, image or likeness without consent.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s election rally in poll-bound Kerala on Thursday saw a warm and light-hearted moment when he paused his speech to acknowledge a young child in the crowd holding up his picture, drawing loud applause. Modi asked the boy to hand over the photograph, write his home address on the back, and promised to write to him personally, directing SPG personnel to handle the picture carefully as a token of the child’s affection. 

PM Modi's Kerala  rally.

You’ll get tired beta: PM’s warm moment with child holding his pic at Kerala rally

 Amidst inclement weather and heavy snowfall, a team of Udhampur police rescued 12 individuals, including women and children, who were stranded at Chochru Galla in the upper ridges of the Basantgarh area.

Udhampur Police Rescue 12 People Stranded In Heavy Snow

Udhampur police rescue 12 people stranded in heavy snowfall in J&K's Basantgarh

Ajith Kumar's fans took the celebrations too seriously as they burst crackers inside a theatre hall during Mankatha screening. The film re-released in South India on January 23.

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India Today Editorial Director M J Akbar on Congress reign in power since Independence

Old Henry Ford, or his executives, knew in 1938 what the mighty British Raj could not fathom; that power was shifting from one fulcrum to another, and the age of empire was on the verge of surrender to egalitarian nationalism.

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