Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose

Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose

"Patriot of Patriots", is what Gandhiji described of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose. Subhash Chandra Bose was one of the most influential and charismatic leader of preIndependence India . His life was full of mystery and adventure and indeed his death has been a major issue and creates controversy from time to time. Here we will try to look at some of the events of his life and salute this great man, whose contribution to the Indian freedom movement is immense.

Childhood & Early life of Netaji

Netaji Subhash Chandra was born on January 23rd 1897 in Cuttack (in present day Orissa) as the ninth child among fourteen, of Janakinath Bose and Prabhavati devi. Rai Bahadur Jankinath Bose was a public lawyer by profession. He was a public prosecutor in Cuttak and later became a member of the Bengal Legislative Council. The family of Subhash Chandra Bose was a large one consisting of eight brothers and six sisters. At school, he was always serious, reserved and did not take much interest in sports. The sadhus and pilgrims visiting Puri, the famous shrine near his place, fascinated him. He was an intelligent kid and stood second in the School examination and took admission in Presidency college, Calcutta. An interesting episode came in this college in 1916. Here he beat an English professor because of his racist attitude towards Indians. As a result he was expelled from the college. But his father refused to admit him to another college. Over the course of time he got readmitted in the same University in philosophy. He passed with flying colours and achieved first class Honours in philosophy. Recognising his son's intellect, his father was determined that Bose should become a high ranking Indian Civil Servicet (ICS). So he sent him to England for further studies. In 1920, Bose passed the Civil Service open examination and stood fourth overall with the highest marks in English. But by this time the Jalianwala Baug massacre had taken place which had disturbed him greatly. Even though he passed the ICS, he was not interested in serving the Britishers. At this time Gandhiji had established himself as a leader of the masses. Like many others Bose was also influenced by Gandhiji. So he went to Gandhiji and offered himself to work for the Indian National Congress. Gandhiji was not able to turn down this humble request and sent him to Calcutta to work under Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das.

During the period 1921-25 he was mainly involved in the activities around Calcutta and was arrested on numerous occasions. In Dec 1921, Bose organised a boycott of the celebrations to mark the Prince of Wales's visit to India. This led to his being imprisoned. Later he was again imprisoned along with Deshbandhu and the two lived together in jail, where Bose served his leader humbly, even cooking his food. From this time Bose considered Deshbandhu as his Guru.

Childhood & Early life of Netaji When Deshbandhu became the Mayor of Calcutta, Bose became its Chief Executive. While holding this office Bose freely mixed with revolutionaries, which made the Government arrest him and deport him to jail. He was first sent to Alipore jail and then shifted to the Mandalay Jail in Burma. During this period Bose had ample time to think for his future coarse of action and he decided on the path of open revolution. In June 1925, Bose was deeply struck by the sudden loss of his leader Deshbandhu. In end-1926, he was nominated as a candidate for the Bengal Legislative Assembly. On May 16, 1927 he was released from jail due to ill-health. The two years in Mandalay gave him lot of confidence and strength. By December 1927, Bose with Jawaharlal Nehru became the General Secretary of the Congress. In 1928 he formed the Volunteer organization in the Calcutta summit of Indian Congress and was elected as the General Officer in Command. In 1928 during the Congress meeting the main agenda that was presented was to get a Dominion status for India. This was prepared by Motilal Nehru. But this was rejected by the youth leaders. Bose and Jawaharlal Nehru wanted complete freedom for India at the earliest, whereas the Congress Committee wanted it in phases, through a Dominion status. To avoid any problems, Gandhiji suggested to give the British government a time period of one year to give a dominion status to India, failing which he himself would present a bill of complete freedom. This was accepted by everybody. Gandhiji tried very hard to get the dominion status for India but failed miserably. So at the next meeting the Bill of complete freedom (Purna Swaraj) was passed.

(It should be noted that in 1934, the former Colonial Secretary and future Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, told a Joint Select Committee of Parliament: "No member of the Cabinet meant, contemplated, or wished to suggest the establishment of a Dominion Constitution for India for any period which human beings ought to take into account") After this Netaji was again arrested a number of times. On Jan 23, 1930 he was arrested for leading an independent procession. Later on he was elected as mayor of Calcutta and finally on Sept. 1930 he was released from prison. On 23rd March 1931, Shaheed Bhagat Singh was hanged. Bhagat Singh's martyrdom and the inability of the Congress leaders to save his life made Bose very angry and in a sense this made him realise that aggression is the best form of defense. Bose was arrested in 1931 for visiting the disturbed parts of Bengal. He was rearrested on Jan 2, 1932 and subsequently expelled from India. In 1932 he went to Vienna and there he was deeply influenced by Vithaldas Patel, another Indian freedom fighter. They recognised the need for collaboration between Indian nationalists and countries opposed to Britain and in their joint manifesto they proclaimed, "Non-co-operation cannot be given up but the form of non-co-operation will have to be changed into a more militant one and the fight for freedom waged on all fronts." In October 1933, Vithaldas Patel died. After the death of Vithaldas Patel, Subhash Chandra Bose's aim was to spread India's message abroad. He wrote of India's rights and asking people to help him fight against the injustices. He organised Students' Association. In November 1934, Bose published a book of Indian nationalism called "The Indian Struggle". Between 1932-36 he met reputed personalities like Mussolini in Italy, Felder in Germany, D. Valera in Ireland and Roma Rolland in France. (Some reports suggest that he met Hitler also.) He was impressed by the Irish nationalist leader De Valera in Dublin. Bose later modeled his own activities on the Irish Sinn Fein Organization. In March 1936, Bose announced that he was returning back and on April 8, 1936, when he reached Bombay, he was arrested and was later released on March 17, 1937.

Childhood & Early life of Netaji By that time Subhash had became very famous and Gandhiji proposed him to become the President of the Congress. In 1938 he became President of the Indian National Congress and presided over the Haripur session.

During this period he was honoured at Shantiniketan by Gurudev Rabindra Nath Tagore as "Desh-Nayak" By 1939 Gandhiji came to know about his meetings with Mussolini and that the Viceroy didn't like him. Since Gandhiji thought that freedom can only be achieved by talking he opposed Netaji when he again stood for the election of the Presidentship of the INC. Gandhiji asked Dr. Rajendra Prasad and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru to stand for elections, but both of them refused. So Gandhiji made Sitaramaiyya stand for the elections. But Bose defeated him by 1580-1371 votes. Gandhiji became angry that his nominee was defeated and publicly declared that this was his personal loss. After that Gandhiji went to Rajkot and went on a fast. This made the situation very tensed. In the end during the Calcutta session Bose was banned from the Congress for three years. This was in spite of the fact that both Gurudev Rabindra Nath Tagore and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru advocated Bose. After that Bose formed the Forward Block, but which unfortunately was not very successful. At this time WWII started, and just as predicted by Bose, India was declared as a warring state by the then British viceroy Lord Linlithgow without consulting anybody in India. In protest all the Congress Governments resigned. On June 21, 1940, Subhash Chandra Bose met Swatantryaveer Savarkar at Savarkar Sadan, Bombay (now Mumbai). Savarkar advised him not to waste time in agitating for the removal of British statues like Holwell Monument in Calcutta - only to end up in a British prison during the invaluable war-time. Savarkar was in touch with Rash Behari Bose who was in Japan. He advocated that Subhash should smuggle himself out of the country and try to reach Germany or Japan (like Indian revolutionaries during World War I) to raise an Indian Army of liberation out of PoWs (It is not confirmed whether Savarkar gave the idea of an army to Netaji).

Subhash Chandra Bose now started a mass movement against utilising Indian resources and men for the war. To him, it made no sense to further bleed poor Indians for the sake of colonial and imperial nations. There was a tremendous response to his call and he was imprisoned. He took to hunger-strike, and after his health deteriorated on the 11th day of fasting, he was placed under house arrest. The British were afraid of mass reactions if something happened to Bose in prison especially during the period of war. On January 17, 1941, a car drew up near Bose's home in Calcutta and while everyone was asleep, Bose slipped out of his house. Disguised as a Muslim religious teacher, Bose moved away unnoticed, along with his nephew Sisir Kumar Bose. Bose's disappearance became known in Calcutta only on January 26, 1941, the day of his trial. After escaping from Calcutta he surfaced in Kabul , and then disappeared once again. On March 18, he got his false passport done in the name of Orlando Mazzota. He then set out for Russia. and finally on March 28, 1941 Bose reached Berlin. But his compatriots in India stuck to their ideology propagating non-violence which could only help the British, since such a movement could be easily controlled. Only Subhash Chandra Bose had the courage to take an active part in the war, risking not only his life but also his reputation only for the sake of freeing his motherland. (Another thing to be noted is that on 3rd September 1941, Winston Churchill said to the House of Commons, Great Britain, that the Atlantic Charter, which promised freedom to the occupied countries,, will not be applied to countries like India, so even that hope of the Indian ideologists was thrashed.) (Yet another important thing : The British sought Indian support to fight the Japanese. Gandhiji asked for what he thought was reasonable - a commitment in principle to India's freedom after the war, and in return the Indian people would fight the Japanese. But Churchill was unwilling, saying "I did not become the Prime Minister of England in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire." )