Subhas Chandra Bose
 Subhas Chandra Bose |
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Subhas
Chandra Bose
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Unknown
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India
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Known for
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Prominent Figure of Indian independence movement
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Title
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Head of Azad Hind
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Subhas Chandra Bose (
listen (help·info); 23 January 1897 – unknown) also known as Netaji (Respected Leader), was one of
the most prominent Indian nationalist leaders who attempted to gain India's
independence from British rule by force during the waning years of World War II with the help of the Axis
powers.
Bose, who had been ousted from the Indian
National Congress in 1939 following differences with
the more conservative high command, and subsequently placed under house arrest by the British,
escaped from India in early 1941. He turned to the Axis
powers for help in gaining India's
independence by force. With Japanese support, he organised the Indian National
Army (INA), composed largely of Indian
soldiers of the British Indian army who had been captured in the Battle of Singapore by the Japanese. As the war turned against them, the
Japanese came to support a number of countries to form provisional governments
in the captured regions, including those in Burma, the Philippines and Vietnam, and in addition, the Provisional Government of Azad Hind,
presided by Bose. Bose's effort, however, was short lived; in 1944 the British
army first halted and then reversed the Japanese U Go offensive, beginning the successful part of the Burma Campaign. The INA was driven down the Malay Peninsula, and
surrendered with the recapture of Singapore
in 1945. It was reported that Bose died soon thereafter from third degree burns
received after attempting to escape in an overloaded Japanese plane which
crashed in Taiwan, which
is disputed. The trials of the INA soldiers at Red Fort,
Delhi, in late 1945 caused huge public response in India.
Clement Attlee, the British Prime
Minister during whose rule India became
independent, mentioned that INA activities of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose (which
weakened the Indian Army – the very foundation of the British Empire in India)
and the Royal
Indian Navy mutiny in 1946 were major reasons that made the British realise that they
were no longer in a position to rule India.
Early
life
Subhas Chandra Bose was born on 23
January 1897 in Cuttack (presently in the Odisha state) then a part of Bengal Presidency, to Janakinath Bose, an advocate and Prabhavati Devi. His parents' ancestral house was at Kodalia
village (near Baruipur; now known as Shubhashgram, South 24 Parganas, West Bengal). He was the ninth child of a total of fourteen siblings. He
studied at the Stewart School,
Cuttack, an Anglo school, until the seventh
standard and then shifted to the Ravenshaw
Collegiate School. After securing the second position
in the matriculation examination of Calcutta province in 1911, he got admitted
to the Presidency
College where he studied briefly. His nationalistic temperament came to light when he was
expelled for assaulting Professor Oaten for the latter's anti-India comments.
He later joined the Scottish Church College
at the University of
Calcutta and passed his B.A. in 1918 in
philosophy. Subhas Chandra Bose left India in 1919 for Great Britain
with a promise to his father that he would appear in the Indian Civil Services
Examination (ICS). He went to study in Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, and matriculated on 19 November 1919. He came fourth in
the ICS examination and was selected but he did not want to work under an alien
government which would mean serving the British. He resigned from the civil
service job and returned to India. He started the newspaper Swaraj and took charge of
publicity for the Bengal Provincial Congress Committee. His mentor was Chittaranjan Das who was a spokesman for aggressive nationalism in Bengal. In the
year 1923, Bose was elected the President of All India Youth Congress and also
the Secretary of Bengal State Congress. He was also editor of the newspaper
"Forward", founded by Chittaranjan Das. Bose worked as the CEO of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation for Das when the latter was elected mayor of Calcutta in
1924. In a roundup of nationalists in 1925, Bose was arrested and
sent to prison in Mandalay, where he contracted tuberculosis.
National
politics
Indian
National Congress
In 1927, after being released from
prison, Bose became general secretary of the Congress party and worked with Jawaharlal Nehru for independence. Again Bose was arrested and jailed for
civil disobedience; this time he emerged to become Mayor of Calcutta
in 1930. During the mid-1930s Bose travelled in Europe, visiting
Indian students and European politicians, including Benito Mussolini. He observed party organisation and saw communism and
fascism in action.[citation
needed] By 1938 Bose had become a leader of national
stature and agreed to accept nomination as Congress president.
He stood for unqualified Swaraj
(self-governance), including the use of force against the British. This meant a
confrontation with Mohandas Gandhi, who in fact opposed Bose's presidency, splitting the Indian
National Congress party. Bose attempted to maintain
unity, but Gandhi advised Bose to form his own cabinet. The rift also divided
Bose and Nehru. Bose appeared at the 1939 Congress meeting on a stretcher. He
was elected president again over Gandhi's preferred candidate Pattabhi
Sitaramayya. U.
Muthuramalingam Thevar strongly
supported Bose in the intra-Congress dispute. Thevar mobilised all south India
votes for Bose. However, due to the manoeuvrings of the Gandhi-led clique
in the Congress Working Committee, Bose found himself forced to resign from the
Congress presidency.
All
India Forward Bloc
Main article: All India Forward
Bloc
On 22 June 1939 Bose organised the
Forward Bloc, aimed at consolidating the political left, but its main
strength was in his home state, Bengal. U Muthuramalingam Thevar, who was a
staunch supporter of Bose from the beginning, joined the Forward Bloc. When
Bose visited Madurai on 6 September, Thevar organised a massive rally as his
reception.
His correspondence reveals that
despite his clear dislike for British subjugation, he was deeply impressed by
their methodical and systematic approach and their steadfastly disciplinarian
outlook towards life. In England, he exchanged ideas on the future of India
with British Labour Party leaders and political thinkers like Lord Halifax, George Lansbury, Clement Attlee, Arthur Greenwood, Harold Laski, J.B.S. Haldane, Ivor Jennings, G.D.H. Cole, Gilbert Murray and Sir Stafford Cripps . He came to believe that a free India needed socialist authoritarianism, on the lines of Turkey's Kemal Atatürk, for at least two decades. Bose was refused permission by
the British authorities to meet Atatürk at Ankara for
political reasons. During his sojourn in England, only the Labour Party and Liberal politicians agreed to meet with Bose when he tried to
schedule appointments. Conservative Party officials refused to meet Bose or show him courtesy because
he was a politician coming from a colony. In the 1930s leading figures in the
Conservative Party had opposed even Dominion status for India. It was during
the Labour Party government of 1945–1951, with Attlee as the Prime Minister,
that India gained independence. On the outbreak of war, Bose advocated a
campaign of mass civil disobedience to protest against Viceroy Lord
Linlithgow's decision to declare war on India's behalf without consulting the
Congress leadership. Having failed to persuade Gandhi of the necessity of this,
Bose organised mass protests in Calcutta
calling for the 'Holwell Monument' commemorating the Black Hole of Calcutta,
which then stood at the corner of Dalhousie Square, to be removed. He was thrown in jail by the British, but was released
following a seven-day hunger strike. Bose's house in Calcutta was kept under
surveillance by the CID.
Escape
from British India to Germany and Japan
Bose's arrest and subsequent release
set the scene for his escape to Germany, via Afghanistan and the Soviet Union. A few days before his escape, he
sought solitude and on this pretext avoided meeting British guards and grew a
beard on the night of his escape, he dressed as a Pathan to avoid being
identified. Bose escaped from under British surveillance at his house in
Calcutta. On 19 January 1941, accompanied by his nephew Sisir K. Bose in a car
that is now on display at his Calcutta home.
He journeyed to Peshawar
with the help of the Abwehr, where he was met by Akbar Shah, Mohammed Shah and Bhagat Ram Talwar. Bose was taken to the home of Abad Khan, a trusted friend
of Akbar Shah's. On 26 January 1941, Bose began his journey to reach Russia
through British India's North West frontier
with Afghanistan. For this reason, he enlisted the help of Mian Akbar Shah,
then a Forward Bloc leader in the North-West Frontier Province. Shah had been
out of India en route to the Soviet Union, and suggested a novel disguise for
Bose to assume. Since Bose could not speak one word of Pashto,
it would make him an easy target of Pashto speakers working for the British.
For this reason, Shah suggested that Bose act deaf and dumb, and let his beard
grow to mimic those of the tribesmen. Bose's guide Bhagat Ram Talwar, unknown
to him, was a Soviet agent.
Supporters of the Aga Khan III helped him across the border into Afghanistan where he was
met by an Abwehr unit posing as a party of road construction engineers from the
Organization Todt who then aided his passage across Afghanistan via Kabul to the
border with Soviet Russia. After assuming the guise of a Pashtun
insurance agent ("Ziaudddin") to reach Afghanistan, Bose changed his
guise and travelled to Moscow on the Italian passport of an Italian nobleman
"Count Orlando Mazzotta". From Moscow, he reached Rome, and from
there he travelled to Germany. Once in Russia the NKVD
transported Bose to Moscow where he hoped that Russia's traditional enmity to
British rule in India would result in support for his plans for a popular
rising in India. However, Bose found the Soviets' response disappointing and
was rapidly passed over to the German Ambassador in Moscow, Count von der Schulenburg.
He had Bose flown on to Berlin in a special courier aircraft at the beginning
of April where he was to receive a more favorable hearing from Joachim von
Ribbentrop and the Foreign Ministry officials
at the Wilhelmstrasse.
In Germany, he instituted the
Special Bureau for India under Adam von Trott zu
Solz, broadcasting on the
German-sponsored Azad Hind Radio. He founded the Free India Center in Berlin, and created
the Indian Legion (consisting of some 4500 soldiers) out of Indian prisoners
of war who had previously fought for the British in North Africa prior to their capture by Axis forces. The Indian Legion
was attached to the Wehrmacht, and later transferred to the Waffen SS. Its
members swore the following allegiance to Hitler and Bose: "I swear by God
this holy oath that I will obey the leader of the German race and state, Adolf Hitler, as the commander of the German armed forces in the fight
for India, whose leader is Subhas Chandra Bose". This oath clearly
abrogates control of the Indian legion to the German armed forces whilst
stating Bose's overall leadership of India. He was also, however, prepared to
envisage an invasion of India via the USSR by Nazi troops, spearheaded by the Azad Hind Legion; many have questioned his judgment here, as it seems
unlikely that the Germans could have been easily persuaded to leave after such
an invasion, which might also have resulted in an Axis victory in the War.
In all, 3,000 Indian prisoners of
war signed up for the Free India Legion. But instead of being delighted, Bose
was worried. A left-wing admirer of Russia, he was devastated when Hitler's
tanks rolled across the Soviet border. Matters were worsened by the fact that
the now-retreating German army would be in no position to offer him help in
driving the British from India. When he met Hitler in May 1942, his suspicions
were confirmed, and he came to believe that the Nazi leader was more interested
in using his men to win propaganda victories than military ones. So, in
February 1943, Bose turned his back on his legionnaires and slipped secretly
away aboard a submarine bound for Japan. This left the men he had recruited
leaderless and demoralised in Germany.
Bose lived in Berlin from 1941 until
1943. During his earlier visit to Germany in 1934, he had met Emilie Schenkl, the daughter of an Austrian veterinarian whom he married
in 1937. Their daughter is Anita Bose Pfaff. Bose's party, the Forward Bloc, has contested this fact.
In 1943, After being disillusioned
that Germany could be of any help in liberating India, he left for Japan. He
travelled with the German submarine U-180 around
the Cape of Good Hope to the southeast of Madagascar, where he was transferred to
the I-29 for the rest of the journey to Imperial Japan. This was the only civilian transfer between two submarines
of two different navies in World War II.
Leadership
of Azad Hind Fauj and later events
The Indian National
Army (INA) was originally founded by
Captain General Mohan Singh in Singapore on 1 September 1942 with Japan's Indian POWs in the Far East. This was along
the concept of—and with support of—what was then known as the Indian
Independence League, headed by expatriate nationalist
leader Rash Behari Bose. The first INA was however disbanded in December after
disagreements between the Hikari Kikan and Mohan Singh, who came to believe that the Japanese High
Command was using the INA as a mere pawn and propaganda tool. Mohan Singh was
taken into custody and the troops returned to the prisoner-of-war camp.
However, the idea of a liberation army was revived with the arrival of Subhas
Chandra Bose in the Far East in 1943. In July, at a meeting in Singapore, Rash
Behari Bose handed over control of the organisation to Subhas Chandra Bose.
Bose was able to reorganise the fledgling army and organise massive support
among the expatriate Indian population in south-east Asia, who lent their
support by both enlisting in the Indian National Army, as well as financially
in response to Bose's calls for sacrifice for the national cause. INA had a
separate women's unit, the Rani of Jhansi
Regiment (named after Rani Lakshmi Bai) headed by Capt. Lakshmi Swaminathan, which is seen as a first of its kind in Asia.
Even when faced with military
reverses, Bose was able to maintain support for the Azad Hind
movement. Spoken as a part of a motivational speech for the Indian National
Army at a rally of Indians in Burma on 4 July
1944, Bose's most famous quote was "Give me blood, and I shall give you
freedom!" In this, he urged the people of India to join him in his fight
against the British Raj. Spoken in Hindi, Bose's words are highly evocative.
The troops of the INA were under the aegis of a provisional government, the
Azad Hind Government, which came to produce its own currency, postage stamps, court
and civil code, and was recognised by nine Axis states—Germany, Japan, Italy, the Independent
State of Croatia, Wang Jingwei regime in Nanjing, China, a provisional government of Burma, Manchukuo
and Japanese-controlled Philippines. Recent researches have shown that the USSR too had
diplomatic contact with the "Provisional Government of Free India". Of those countries, five were authorities
established under Axis occupation. This government participated in the
so-called Greater
East Asia Conference as an observer in November 1943.
The INA's first commitment was in
the Japanese thrust towards Eastern Indian frontiers of Manipur.
INA's special forces, the Bahadur Group, were extensively involved in
operations behind enemy lines both during the diversionary attacks in Arakan,
as well as the Japanese thrust towards Imphal and Kohima, along
with the Burmese National
Army led by Ba Maw
and Aung San.
Japanese also took possession of Andaman and Nicobar Islands in 1942 and a year later, the Provisional Government and
the INA were established in the Andaman
and Nicobar Islands with Lt Col. A.D. Loganathan appointed its Governor General. The islands were renamed Shaheed
(Martyr) and Swaraj (Independence). However, the Japanese Navy remained
in essential control of the island's administration. During Bose's only visit
to the islands in early 1944, when he was carefully screened, by the Japanese
authorities, from the local population who at that time were torturing the
leader of the Indian Independence League on the Islands, Dr. Diwan Singh, who later died of his injuries, in the Cellular Jail. The
islanders made several attempts to alert Bose to their plight, but apparently
without success. Enraged with the lack of administrative control, Lt. Col
Loganathan later relinquished his authority and returned to the Government's
headquarters in Rangoon.
On the Indian mainland, an Indian
Tricolour, modelled after that of the Indian
National Congress, was raised for the first time in
the town in Moirang, in Manipur, in north-eastern India. The towns of Kohima and Imphal
were placed under siege by divisions of the Japanese, Burmese and the Gandhi
and Nehru Brigades of INA during the attempted invasion of India, also known as
Operation U-GO. However, Commonwealth forces held both positions and then
counter-attacked, in the process inflicting serious losses on the besieging
forces, which were then forced to retreat back into Burma.
When Japanese funding for the army
diminished, Bose was forced to raise taxes on the Indian populations of Malaysia and Singapore . When the Japanese were defeated at the
battles of Kohima and Imphal, the Provisional Government's aim of establishing
a base in mainland India was lost forever. The INA was forced to pull back,
along with the retreating Japanese army, and fought in key battles against the
British Indian Army in its Burma campaign, notable in Meiktilla, Mandalay,
Pegu,
Nyangyu and Mount Popa. However, with the fall of Rangoon,
Bose's government ceased to be an effective political entity. A large
proportion of the INA troops surrendered under Lt Col Loganathan . The
remaining troops retreated with Bose towards Malaya
or made for Thailand. Japan's surrender at the end of the war also led to the
eventual surrender of the Indian National Army, when the troops of the British
Indian Army were repatriated to India and some tried for treason.
On 6 July 1944, in a speech
broadcast by the Azad Hind Radio from Singapore, Bose addressed Mahatma Gandhi as the
"Father of the Nation" and asked for his blessings and good wishes
for the war he was fighting. This was the first time that Gandhi was referred
to by this appellation.
His most famous quote/slogan was Give
me blood and I will give you freedom. Another famous quote was Dilli
Chalo ("On to Delhi)!" This was the call he used to give the INA
armies to motivate them. Jai Hind, or, "Glory to India!" was
another slogan used by him and later adopted by the Government of India and the
Indian Armed Forces. Another slogan coined by him was "Ittefaq, Etemad,
Qurbani" (Urdu for "Unity, Agreement, Sacrifice"). INA also used
the slogan Inquilab Zindabad, which was coined by Maulana Hasrat Mohani.
Disappearance
and alleged death
Main article: Disappearance of Subhas Chandra Bose
Bose is alleged to have died in a
plane crash at Taipei, Taiwan, on 18 August 1945 while en route to Tokyo and possibly
then the Soviet Union. The Imperial Japanese Army Air Force Mitsubishi Ki-21 bomber he was travelling on had engine trouble and when it crashed
Bose was badly burned, dying in a local hospital four hours later. His body was
then cremated, and a Buddhist memorial service was held at Nishi Honganji
Temple in Taihoku. His ashes were taken to Japan and interred at the Renkōji Temple in Tokyo. This version of events is supported by the testimonies of a
Captain Yoshida Taneyoshi, and a British spy known as "Agent 1189."
His alleged disappearance on August
18, 3 days after the Japanese surrendered to the British may have been to ward
off his British pursuers, or may be at their instance. The latter is more
probable, as had it been otherwise we'd have seen his political resurgence in
some form or the other.
The absence of his body has led to
many theories being put forward concerning his possible survival. One such
claim is that Bose actually died later in Siberia,
while in Soviet captivity. Several committees have been set up by the
government of India to probe into this matter.
In May 1956, a four-man Indian team
known as the Shah Nawaz
Committee visited Japan to probe the
circumstances of Bose's alleged death. However, the Indian government did not
then request assistance from the government of Taiwan in the matter, citing
their lack of diplomatic relations with Taiwan.
However, the Inquiry Commission
under Justice Mukherjee, which investigated the Bose disappearance mystery in the
period 1999–2005, did approach the Taiwanese government, and obtained
information from the Taiwan government that no plane carrying Bose had ever
crashed in Taipei,
and there was, in fact, no plane crash in Taiwan on 18 August 1945 as alleged. The Mukherjee
Commission also received a report originating
from the U.S.
Department of State supporting the claim of the Taiwan
Government that no such air crash took place during that time frame.
The Justice Mukherjee Commission of
Inquiry submitted its report to the Indian government on 8 November 2005. The
report was tabled in Parliament on 17 May 2006. The probe said in its report
that Bose did not die in the plane crash, and that the ashes at the Renkoji Temple (said to be of Bose's) are not his. However, the Indian
Government rejected the findings of the Commission, though no reasons were
cited.
Recently Netaji's grand nephew Sugata Bose in his book His Majesty's Opponent
claimed that the founder of the Indian
Independence League in Tokyo, Rama Murti, had hidden a
portion of alleged cremated remains of Bose as "extra precaution" in
his house and secondly, this portion has been brought to India in 2006 and the
Prime Minister was informed about the development. But the Prime Minister's
Office refused this claim in a statement issued in response to an RTI
application, as "As per records, no such information exists."
On the other hand in February 2012
Dr Purabi Roy, an expert on Russia and research scholar who also held a Chair
in St Petersburg University, claimed that Bose was in USSR during Second World
War. Roy claims to have found "a unique photograph of Subhas Chandra Bose
taken during Second World War" that might have been taken in Siberia.
Mystery over Netaji’s disappearance
was first revealed by Satyendra Narain Sinha, who went to Japan, Taipei and
China to follow the missing links. His article were published in a national daily
in 1960s. But, Dr. Roy is the first who is claiming that Bose was in Russia.
Reportedly Khrushchev had told an interpreter during his New Delhi visit that
Bose can be produced within 45 days if Nehru wishes. But, that never happened.
the Third Enquiry Commission on Netaji Disappearance, led by Justice Mukherjee,
categorically announced Bose did not die at the Taihoku plane crash in 1945 as
there was no plane crash during that period in an around the air strip, now in
Taipei. Thus the Commission had quashed the so-called urn of Netaji at Renkoji
Temple in Tokyo, Japan.
In 1992, Bose was posthumously awarded the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian award, but it was later withdrawn
in response to a Supreme Court directive following a Public Interest Litigation filed in
the Court against the "posthumous" nature of the award. The Award
Committee could not give conclusive evidence on Bose's death and thus the
"posthumous" award was invalidated. No headway was made on this issue
however. Bose's portrait hangs in the Indian Parliament, and a statue of him has been erected in front of the West
Bengal Legislative Assembly.
Bose
mystery in contemporary India
Main article: Mission Netaji
Mission Netaji is a Delhi-based Indian non-profit trust that conducts
research on Bose's disappearance. Indian ministries, including the Indian Prime Minister's Office,
have refused to make public the documents under the Right
to Information Act campaign launched by Mission
Netaji, on the ground that their disclosure will affect India's relations with
foreign countries.[citation needed]
On 31 January 2013 the Allahabad
High Court has asked the Uttar Pradesh Government to investigate the identity
of Gumnami Baba, a man who some people claimed was Bose; he died and was
cremated in 18 September 1985.
Books
on the mystery
Main article: India's
Biggest Cover-up
Many books have been published in
independent India, dealing with the subject of Bose death mystery. This
includes books such as Netaji: Dead or Alive? by Samar Guha and Back from Dead: Inside the Subhas Bose Mystery
by Anuj Dhar.
Dhar's India's
Biggest Cover-up contains many allegations and uses
many "top secret" documents and photographs to argue that Bose was
alive at least until 1985. The book accuses Pranab Mukherjee and the Indian
Intelligence Bureau of foul play to prevent the truth
from being revealed.
Ideology
and philosophy
Bose advocated complete
unconditional independence for India, whereas the All-India
Congress Committee wanted it in phases, through Dominion
status. Finally at the historic Lahore Congress
convention, the Congress adopted Purna Swaraj (complete independence) as its motto. Gandhi was given
rousing receptions wherever he went after Gandhi-Irwin pact. Subhas Chandra
Bose, travelling with Gandhi in these travels, later wrote that the great
enthusiasm he saw among the people enthused him tremendously and that he
doubted if any other leader anywhere in the world received such a reception as
Gandhi did during these travels across the country. He was imprisoned and
expelled from India. Defying the ban, he came back to India and was imprisoned
again.
Bose was elected president of the Indian
National Congress for two consecutive terms, but had
to resign from the post following ideological conflicts with Mohandas K. Gandhi and after openly attacking the Congress' foreign and internal
policies. Bose believed that Gandhi's tactics of non-violence would never be
sufficient to secure India's independence, and advocated violent resistance. He
established a separate political party, the All India Forward
Bloc and continued to call for the full
and immediate independence of India from British rule. He was imprisoned by the
British authorities eleven times. His famous motto was: "Give me blood and
I will give you freedom".
His stance did not change with the
outbreak of the Second World War, which he saw as an opportunity to take advantage of
British weakness. At the outset of the war, he left India, travelling to the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, seeking an alliance with each of them to attack the
British government in India. With Imperial Japanese assistance, he re-organised
and later led the Azad Hind Fauj or Indian National
Army (INA), formed with Indian prisoners-of-war and plantation workers from British Malaya, Singapore, and other parts of Southeast Asia, against British forces. With Japanese monetary, political,
diplomatic and military assistance, he formed the Azad Hind
Government in exile, and regrouped and led the
Indian National
Army in failed military campaigns
against the allies at Imphal
and in Burma.
His political views and the
alliances he made with Nazi and other militarist regimes at war with Britain
have been the cause of arguments among historians and politicians, with some
accusing him of fascist sympathies, while others in India have been more
sympathetic towards the realpolitik that guided his social and political choices. It is also
believed[by whom?]
among a section of people in India that if Subhas Ch. Bose could win the
freedom of India himself the face of today's Indian sub-continent would have
been different.
Political
philosophy
Subhas Chandra Bose believed that
the Bhagavad Gita was a great source of inspiration for the struggle against
the British. Swami Vivekananda's teachings on universalism, his nationalist thoughts and
his emphasis on social service and reform had all inspired Subhas Chandra Bose
from his very young days. The fresh interpretation of the India's ancient
scriptures had appealed immensely to him.[note 1] Many scholars believe that Hindu spirituality formed the
essential part of his political and social thought throughout his adult life,
although there was no sense of bigotry or orthodoxy in it. Subhas who called himself a socialist, believed that
socialism in India owed its origins to Swami Vivekananda. As historian Leonard Gordon explains "Inner religious
explorations continued to be a part of his adult life. This set him apart from
the slowly growing number of atheistic socialists and communists who dotted the
Indian landscape.".
But, writes Sailen Debnath, “Subhas Chandra Bose along with Indian philosophy
derived ideas heavily from Western philosophy; but the way he commingled the
thoughts of the East and of the West laid the path of a new philosophy in
itself worthy of discussion and criticism in the domain of original
philosophical thoughts. In his own field of thought Bose was inherently
influenced by the philosophical thoughts of Francis Bacon, Immanuel Kant,
Hegel, Henry Bergson and Karl Marx. There were others including Silvio Gessel
to have moulded his world of thought and understanding.”
Bose's correspondence (prior to
1939) reflects his deep disapproval of the racist practices of, and annulment
of democratic institutions in Nazi Germany. However, he expressed admiration for the authoritarian
methods (though not the racial ideologies) which he saw in Italy and Germany
during the 1930s, and thought they could be used in building an independent
India.
Bose had clearly expressed his
belief that democracy was the best option for India. The pro-Bose thinkers believe that his authoritarian
control of the Azad Hind was based on political pragmatism and a post-colonial
recovery doctrine rather than any anti-democratic belief.[citation needed] However,
during the war (and possibly as early as the 1930s), Bose seems to have decided
that no democratic system could be adequate to overcome India's poverty and
social inequalities, and he wrote that a socialist state similar to that of
Soviet Russia (which he had also seen and admired) would be needed for the
process of national re-building. Accordingly, some suggest that Bose's alliance with the
Axis during the war was based on more than just pragmatism, and that Bose was a
militant nationalist, though not a Nazi nor a Fascist, for he supported
empowerment of women, secularism and other liberal ideas; alternatively, others consider he might have been
using populist methods of mobilisation common to many post-colonial leaders. Bose never liked the Nazis, but when he failed to contact
the Russians for help in Afghanistan, he approached the Germans and Italians
for help. His comment was that if he had to shake hands with the devil for
India's independence he would do that.[citation
needed]
On 23 August 2007, Japanese Prime
Minister Shinzo Abe visited the Subhas Chandra Bose memorial hall in Kolkata. Abe said to Bose's family "The Japanese are deeply
moved by Bose's strong will to have led the Indian
independence movement from British rule. Netaji is a much respected name in Japan." However, in India, many believe that Netaji was not given
the due respect that he deserved. Infosys Technologies founder-chairman N. R. Narayana
Murthy, delivering the annual Netaji
oration, said, "We have not paid him due respect. It is time this is
corrected." Adding, "If only Netaji had participated in
post-independence nation building."
Desh
Prem Divas
The West Bengal government decided in 2011 to observe Bose's birth
anniversary (23 January) as Desh Prem Divas which means Day of
Patriotism. Though the Forward Bloc requested the Indian government to declare Bose's birth
anniversay as Desh Prem Divas at a national level, the government did not
approve of it, citing that "Many eminent personalities took part in the
freedom struggle of India and the immense contribution made by them cannot be
judged relatively. If at all a day is to be declared as Desh Prem Divas, it
does not appear to be appropriate to be so declared on the birth anniversary of
any particular personality. Even the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi has
not been declared as any special day relating to the freedom movement of
India."
Legacy
Michael Edwardes, a British
historian of the Raj, wrote of Bose that, "Only one outstanding
personality of India took a different and violent path, and in a sense India
owes more to him than to any other man even though he seemed to be a
failure."
After reviewing INA parade at
Singapore on 5 July 1943 Bose's concluding words were:
"I have said that today is the
proudest day of my life. For an enslaved people, there can be no greater pride,
no higher honour, than to be the first Soldier in the Army of Liberation. But
this honour carries with it a corresponding responsibility and I am deeply
conscious of it. I assure you that I shall be with you in darkness and in
sunshine, in sorrow and in joy, in suffering and in victory. For the present, I
can offer you nothing except hunger, thirst, privation, forced marches and
death. But if you follow me in life and in death, as I am confident you will, I
shall lead you to victory and freedom. It does not matter who among us will
live to see India free. It is enough that India shall be free and that we shall
give our all to make her free. May God now bless our Army and grant us victory
in the coming fight."
Mahatma Gandhi described Bose as the "Patriot of patriots".
Bose's
chair at Red Fort
The following words are inscribed on
a brass shield in front of the chair which is symbolic to the sovereignty of
the Republic of India, and also add to enthusiasm of the Armed Forces of India.
The chair rests in a glass case and is a symbol of pride as well as national
heritage.[citation needed]
"Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose in
order to free India from the shackles of British imperialism organized the Azad
Hind Government from outside the country on October 21, 1943. Netaji set up the
Provisional Government of Independent India (Azad Hind) and transferred its
head-quarter at Rangoon on January 7, 1944. On the 5th April, 1944, the
"Azad Hind Bank" was inaugurated at Rangoon. It was on this occasion
that Netaji used this chair for the first time. Later the chair was kept at the
residence of Netaji at 51, University Avenue, Rangoon, where the office of the
Azad Hind was also housed. Afterwards, at the time of leaving Burma, the
British handed over the chair to the family of Mr. A.T. Ahuja, a well-known
businessman of Rangoon. The chair was officially handed over to the Government
of India in January 1979. It was brought to Calcutta on the 17th July, 1980. It
has now been ceremonially installed at the Red Fort on July 7, 1981."
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