Kolkata, Jan 23 (IANS): Remembering freedom fighter Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose on his 122nd birth anniversary, former West Bengal Governor and Mahatma Gandhi's grandson Gopalkrishna Gandhi on Wednesday said today's "political leadership wears a crown of money" and people need to change it.
"Today money is like a great cloud of polluted miasma which floats over the heads of political parties. Crowns made of money sit on heads, that is a great failure of political leadership," Gandhi said at Netaji Bhawan -- Bose's ancestral house that houses the Netaji Research Bureau (NRB).
NRB chairperson Krishna Bose, niece-in-law of Netaji, and historian Sugata Bose, Netaji's grandnephew, marked the day with floral tributes and devotional songs.
"Presence of money and absence of trust are two major signs of today's political leadership. But we cannot just hold our leaders responsible and absolve ourselves from the responsibility," Gandhi said.
Gandhi mentioned that people like Bose and Mahatma Gandhi were gifts for the nation. They were both unafraid of two things - defeat and death. They both took the "risk of love" for the people, trusting and making sacrifices for them.
They too had differences but they kept them aside.
"Today's leaders have invested in hate and spite. They just want to hold and seek power. This is the antithesis of what Gandhi and Bose stood for. They were the face of commitment and sacrifice and always stood to rise above self, party and politics," Gandhi said.
He said that leading India, whether in times of Asoka, Akbar or in the present days, required commitment and sacrifice which was difficult to find and more difficult to sustain.
"It was not that there was no pettiness and narrowness during the freedom struggle. There was a higher level of cliquism in those days but there was no involvement of money," he said.
Gandhi spoke about Jai Prakash Narayan's movement in 1974 against corruption and hunger, calling it "the second freedom struggle".
"Indians cannot wait for the light of hope but try to be that light. The country needs social, ecological, technological and environmental philosophers as leaders for the survival of society," Gandhi said.
A photo feature book 'The Oracle' was released on the occasion. A DVD on Netaji was presented to Gandhi.