Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose – A rock-solid personality who is responsible for the nightmares of many British authorities, a hero who is responsible for giving many patriots a golden opportunity to contribute their blood & sweat to the nation and a staunch son of the motherland who had dedicated his precious life to the nation. Although Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru have received most of the credit for the triumphant end of the Indian freedom fight, Subash Chandra Bose and Savarkar’s participation is no less significant. His proper place in Indian history has been denied to him.
To topple the British Empire from India, he established the Indian National Army (Azad Hind Fauj), which earned him legendary status among the Indian people. Some say he was martyred in a horrible plane crash in 1945 (Shahnawaz Committee & the Khosla Committee reports), some say he was arrested and taken to Siberia and then eventually tortured to death and some say that he was still alive even after independence and lived a life of a sanyasi with an alias of Gumnami Baba!
Whatever the reality may be, the fact that he was the pioneer of the aggressive independence struggle and a lion whose roar made even the mightiest of the British tremble at its core. Early in 1942, German and Indian officials in the Special Bureau for India in Berlin and Indian soldiers of the Indische Legion addressed Bose as “Netaji” for the first time. Today, India proudly makes use of it, to display their love & respect towards them.
EARLY BEGINNINGS, EDUCATION & THE MAKING OF A LEGEND…
On January 23, 1897, Subhas Chandra Bose was born in Cuttack, Orissa. His mother Prabhavati Devi was a devout and religious woman, and his father Janaki Nath Bose was a well-known lawyer. A successful lawyer and government pleader Jankinath was devoted to the British Indian government and meticulous in linguistic and legal matters.
As a self-made guy from the outlying countryside of Calcutta, he had kept in touch with his roots by visiting his village every year during the puja holidays. Subhash enrolled in the Protestant European School of the Baptist Mission in Cuttack in January 1902, eager to join his five elder brothers who were already in school. The bulk of the pupils were European or Anglo-Indians of mixed British and Indian ancestry, and English was the only language of instruction used in the school.
The curriculum covered Latin, the Bible, excellent manners, British geography, and British history in addition to English that was properly written and spoken. No Indian languages were, of course, taught. Janakinath made the school choice because he wanted his sons to have perfect intonation and immaculate English since he thought that would help them communicate with the British in India.
Surprisingly, the school was in stark contrast to Subhash’s home, where Bengali was the sole language spoken. His mother practised intense devotion to Maa Durga & Kali, recited tales from the Ramayana & Mahabharata and performed Bengali spiritual music. She imparted a maternal spirit to the young Subhash, who curiously preferred gardening around the house to participating in team sports with other boys and actively sought opportunities to assist others in need.
His father read a lot of English literature despite being reticent and preoccupied with his career. Given that he loved writers like Matthew Arnold, William Cowper, John Milton, and Shakespeare’s Hamlet, it’s no surprise that several of his kids later developed similar passions for English literature. Subhash, at 12 years old, entered Cuttack’s Ravenshaw Collegiate School in 1909.
Also taught here were concepts from Hindu scriptures like the Vedas and Upanishads that were not typically learned at home, as well as Bengali and Sanskrit. He continued to receive a Western education, but he started dressing in Indian garb and talking about religion. He was a jubilant, confident, and spectacular intellectual, who was also renowned for his patriotic fervour when he was a student. The great Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Swami Vivekananda, and the then-famous Hindu novel Ananda Math by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee were all mentioned in the lengthy letters that he addressed to his mother.
He received a First Class in Philosophy from the Scottish Churches College in Calcutta after winning the matriculation exam for the province of Calcutta. Swami Vivekananda’s teachings had a big impact on him, and he was well known for his patriotic fervour both as a student and as a member of society. He travelled to England in 1919 to apply for the Indian Civil Services to satisfy his parents’ desires. In 1920, he took the Indian Civil Service competitive examination in England and finished fourth on the merit list.
But, Subhas Chandra Bose was so horrified by the Jallianwalla Bagh slaughter that he interrupted his apprenticeship with the Civil Services to go back to India in 1921. As far as the civil services were concerned, the ICS had six open positions. In August 1920, Subhash sat the open competitive exam for them and finished in fourth place. This was a crucial opening move. A final test including additional Indian subjects, such as the Indian Evidence Act, the Indian Criminal Code, Indian history, and an Indian language, was still required in 1921. Also, successful candidates had to pass a riding test.
Subhash thought passing the ICS would be simple because he was smart and had no fear of these topics. Nonetheless, he started to have second thoughts about sitting for the final exam between August 1920 and January 1921.
With his father and brother Sharad Chandra Bose in Calcutta, a lot of letters were written. Subhash once said to Sharad in a letter, “But taking the path of least resistance is not the ideal course of action for a man with my temperament who has been consuming notions that could be considered odd… Whoever does not have worldly desires at heart does not find the uncertainties of life terrifying. Furthermore, if one is bound to the civil service, it is impossible to serve the country most finely and effectively”.
This reflects his fierce inner zeal to give it all for his motherland. Now, Subhash Chandra Bose firmly decided not to sit for the ICS final test in April 1921. He wrote to Sharad to inform him of this choice and apologised for the harm he would be causing to his mother, father, and other family members. “I request to have my name removed from the list of probationers in the Indian Civil Service” – he wrote in a letter to Secretary of State for India Edwin Montagu on April 22, 1921.
The next day, he wrote to Sharad once more, saying, “I received a letter from mother stating that, contrary to what father and others believe, she likes the ideas for which Mahatma Gandhi stands. I can’t even begin to express how delighted I was to have such a letter. For me, it will be priceless because it has helped me relieve some sort of mental weight!”
It’s interesting to note that Subhash Bose had earlier communicated with C. R. Das (Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das!) as well, a lawyer by profession and a freedom fighter by choice, who had reached the top of Bengali politics. Also, Subhash was strongly encouraged to go back to Calcutta by Das. Subhas Bose took his Cambridge B.A. final exams half-heartedly after putting the ICS decision behind him. He passed but was given a Third Class placement.
In June 1921, he got ready to leave for India and chose to have another Indian student pick up his diploma. Then began a journey that made Subhash Bose the Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose and paved the way for him to beat the British black & blue!
SUBHASH BABU, THE CONGRESS & THE FOUNDATION OF THE FORWARD BLOC…
On the morning of July 16, 1921, Subhash Chandra Bose, then 24 years old, landed in Bombay, India, and immediately got to work setting up a meeting with Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi, who was 51 years old, was the head of the non-cooperation movement, which had swept over India the year before and would later develop to gain its independence.
Gandhi agreed to meet with Bose that afternoon because he was in Bombay at the time. In his description of the encounter that was written many years afterwards, Bose repeatedly criticised Gandhi. Bose first believed Gandhi’s responses to be ambiguous, his objectives unclear, and his strategy for accomplishing them poorly thought out. In their initial meeting, Gandhi and Bose had different views on how to achieve independence; for Gandhi, nonviolent methods for any purpose were non-negotiable, whilst Bose believed that all tactics should be acceptable if they serve anti-colonial goals.
They disagreed on the issue of goals because Gandhi antagonised authoritarian forms of government, whilst Bose was drawn to them. According to historian Leonard Gordon, “Gandhi, however, set Bose on to the leader of the Congress and Indian nationalism in Bengal, C. R. Das, and in him, Bose found the leader whom he sought”. In comparison to Gandhi, Das was more adaptable and sympathetic towards the fanaticism that had drawn idealistic young men like Bose to Bengal. Das launched Bose into nationalist politics.
Bose was chosen to serve as both the Secretary of the Bengal State Congress and the President of the Indian Youth Congress in 1923. Also, he served as editor of “Forward”, a publication started by Chittaranjan Das. After Das was elected mayor of Calcutta in 1924, Bose served as Das’ chief executive officer of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation. He was arrested and imprisoned that same year while leading a protest march in Calcutta alongside Maghfoor Ahmad Ajazi and other leaders.
Bose was detained and transferred to Mandalay prison in 1925 as part of a planned “crackdown” on nationalists, where he regrettably got tuberculosis. After being released from prison in 1927, Bose joined Jawaharlal Nehru in the fight for independence as general secretary of the Congress party. Bose planned the Indian National Congress’ Annual Conference in Calcutta towards the end of December 1928. His position as General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the Congress Volunteer Corps stands out in memory.
Nirad Chaudhuri, an Oxford University-Awarded author, gave a lovely account of the meeting: “Bose established a uniformed volunteer corps, whose officers received steel-cut epaulettes, and had his outfit manufactured by Harman’s, a British tailor shop in Calcutta. The British General in Fort William received a telegram addressed to him as GOC, which was the subject of many vicious rumours in the (British Indian) press. As a real pacifist who had sworn to never use violence, Mahatma Gandhi disliked the strutting, clicking of boots, and saluting. He later referred to the Congress meeting in Calcutta as a Bertram Mills circus, which greatly incensed the Bengalis”.
Bose was once more detained and imprisoned for civil disobedience a short while later, but this time he was released and in 1930, at the age of 33, was elected Mayor of Calcutta.
In 1928, Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhash Chandra Bose opposed the Domination Status proposal made by the Motilal Nehru Committee, which the Congress had appointed, and both stated that they would be content with nothing less than complete independence for India.
Bose also announced the creation of the Independence League. Subhash Chandra Bose was incarcerated during the Civil Disobedience movement in 1930. Following the signing of the Gandhi-Irwin accord, he was freed in 1931.
When Bhagat Singh and his allies were hanged, he protested the Gandhi-Irwin pact and opposed the suspension of the civil disobedience movement. Subhash Chandra Bose was promptly detained once more by the infamous Bengal Regulation (circa. 1932-33). He was exiled from India to Europe after a year based on medical needs. Throughout the mid-1930s, he made attempts to create institutes in different European capitals to strengthen politico-cultural relations between India and Europe.
Subhash Chandra Bose returned to India after being denied entry, disobeying the ban, he was once more detained and sentenced to a year in jail. Following the 1937 general elections, Congress took control of seven states, and Subhash Chandra Bose was set free. Soon after, in 1938, he was elected as the President of the Congress in the Haripura Session.
Bose attempted to retain unity, but Gandhi recommended Bose form his cabinet. The rift also divided Bose and Nehru and he appeared at the 1939 Congress meeting on a stretcher. Pattabhi Sitaramayya, Gandhi’s favoured candidate, lost to him in the presidential election.
Bose was strongly backed by another great freedom fighter from Tamil Nadu, named U. Muthuramalingam Thevar during the internal Congress conflict. Thevar mobilised all South Indian votes for Bose. But, Bose was forced to resign from the Congress presidency as a result of the manoeuvres of the Gandhi-led clique in the Congress Working Committee.
On the auspicious day of 22nd June 1939, Bose formed The All India Forward Bloc, and it sought to unite the political left but found its greatest strength in Bengal, his native state. Bose’s steadfast backer from the start, U Muthuramalingam Thevar, joined the Forward Bloc. Clouds of World War II were on the horizon and he brought a resolution to give the British six months to hand India over to the Indians, failing which there would be a revolt.
Now, Bose called for widespread civil disobedience to protest Viceroy Lord Linlithgow’s decision to declare war on behalf of India without consulting the Congress leadership when World War II broke out. Having failed to persuade Gandhi of the importance of this, Bose orchestrated large rallies in Calcutta calling for the destruction of the “Holwell Monument”, which then stood at the corner of Dalhousie Square in memoriam of those who died in the Black Hole of Calcutta. He was thrown in jail by the British but was released following a seven-day hunger strike. The Crime Investigation Department now had kept watch over Bose’s residence in Calcutta.
THE FAMOUS ESCAPE, THE JOURNEY AHEAD AND A MYSTERIOUS CONCLUSION…
Subhash Chandra Bose vanished from his Calcutta home in January 1941 and travelled to Germany via Afghanistan. He sought the support of Germany and Japan against the British Empire, operating under the adage “an enemy’s enemy is a friend”. He started making regular broadcasts from Radio Berlin in January 1942, and India responded with great enthusiasm.
Bose arrived in Singapore from Germany in July 1943. In Singapore, he took over the reins of the Indian Independence Movement in East Asia from Rash Behari Bose and organised the Azad Hind Fauj (Indian National Army) comprising mainly Indian prisoners of war. Both the Army and the Indian community in East Asia referred to him as Netaji.
Azad Hind Fauj proceeded towards India to liberate it from British rule. En route, it liberated Andaman and the Nicobar Islands. The I.N.A. headquarters were transferred to Rangoon in January 1944. On March 18, 1944, Azad Hind Fauj crossed the Burma border and was standing on Indian soil. Even when faced with military losses later, Bose was able to maintain support for the Azad Hind campaign.
Bose’s most famous remark, “Give me blood, and I shall give you independence, (Tum Mujhe Khoon do, Mai Tumhe Azaadi Dunga!)” was spoken on July 4, 1944, during a rally of Indians in Burma as part of a motivational address for the Indian National Army. He exhorted the Indian populace to support him in his fight against the British Raj in this. The Azad Hind Government, which came to issue its own money, postage stamps, court, and civil code, oversaw the INA troops.
This government was recognised by nine Axis nations, including Germany, Japan, the Italian Social Republic, the Independent State of Croatia, the Wang Jingwei regime in Nanjing, China, a provisional government of Burma, Manchukuo, and the Japanese-controlled Philippines. Of seven countries, five were authorities founded under Axis occupation. In November 1943, this government took part in the so-called Greater East Asia Conference as an observer.
Netaji was rumoured to have perished in a plane crash in 1945 while en route to Taiwan, although this has been hotly debated and never proven. Many contend that Netaji did not perish in the plane disaster. He successfully made his way to Russia, where he spent several years before going back to India. There are numerous assertions that “Subhash Chandra Bose” was the hermit known as “Gumnami Baba” who lived in disguise in Uttar Pradesh.
The history of Indian independence is replete with the valiant deeds of innumerable freedom warriors who risked all in their fight for the motherland’s independence from colonial tyranny. Among all the independence fighters, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose played a crucial part, and his significant contribution helped our nation achieve freedom. It doesn’t matter how his soul left his body, it definitely must have received the warmest welcome ever at the gates of heaven.