A Short Biography of Subhas chandra bose

Subhas chandra bose, 23 January 1897 – 18 August 1945 (presumed)) known by name Netaji (Hindi: "Respected Leader") was an Indian revolutionary who led an Indian national political and military force against Britain and the Western powers during World War II. Bose was one of the most prominent leaders in the Indian independence movement and is a legendary figure in India today.He was a charismatic influencer of the youth and earned the epithet ‘Netaji’ by establishing and leading the Indian National Army (INA) during India’s struggle for independence.

Childhood & Early Life

Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose was born on 23 January, 1897 in Cuttack (Orissa) to Janakinath Bose and Prabhavati Devi. Subhash was the ninth child among eight brothers and six sisters. His father, Janakinath Bose, was an affluent and successful lawyer in Cuttack and received the title of "Rai Bahadur". He later became a member of the Bengal Legislative Council.

Subhash Chandra Bose was a brilliant student. He passed his B.A. in Philosophy from the Presidency College in Calcutta. He was deeply influenced by Swami Vivekananda's teachings and was known for his patriotic zeal as a student. In an incident where Bose beat up his professor (E.F. Otten) for his racist remarks, brought him notoriety as a rebel-Indian in eyes of the government. His father wanted Netaji to become a civil servant and therefore, sent him to England to appear for the Indian Civil Service Examination. Bose was placed fourth with highest marks in English. But his urge for participating in the freedom movement was intense and in April 1921, he resigned from the coveted Indian Civil Service and came back to India. In December 1921, Bose was arrested and imprisoned for organizing a boycott of the celebrations to mark the Prince of Wales' visit to India.

During his stay in Berlin, he met and fell in love with Emily Schenkl, who was of Austrian origin. Bose and Emily were married in 1937 in a secret Hindu ceremony and Emily gave birth to a daughter Anita in 1942. Shortly after the birth of their daughter, Bose left Germany in 1943 to come back to India.

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. Bhagat Singh's martyrdom and the inability of the Congress leaders to save his life infuriated Bose and he started a movement opposing the Gandhi-Irwin Pact. 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 nonviolence 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 reorganised 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. 

Political Career

Association with Indian National Congress

Initially, Subhash Chandra Bose worked under the leadership of Chittaranjan Das, an active member of the Congress in Calcutta. It was Chittaranjan Das, who along with Motilal Nehru, left Congress and founded the Swaraj Party in 1922. Bose regarded Chittaranjan Das as his political guru. He himself started the newspaper ‘Swaraj’, edited Das’ newspaper ‘Forward’ and worked as the CEO of Calcutta Municipal Corporation under Das’ stint as Mayor. Subhash Chandra Bose played an important role in enlightening the students, youths and labourers of Calcutta. In his fervent wait to see India as an independent, federal and republic nation, he emerged as a charismatic and firebrand youth icon. He was admired within the congress for his great ability in organization development. He served several stints in prison for his nationalist activities during this time.

Formation of the INA

Bose vehemently opposed the Congress decision to support the British during the Second World War. With the aim to initiate a mass movement, Bose called out to Indians for their whole-hearted participation. There was tremendous response to his call “Give me blood and I will give you freedom” and the British promptly imprisoned him. In jail, he declared a hunger-srtike. When his health deteriorated, the authorities, fearing violent reactions, released him but put him under house-arrest. 

In January, 1941, Subhash made a planned escape and reached Berlin, Germany via a detour through Peshawar. Germans assured him their full support in his endeavours and he gained allegiance of Japan as well. He took a perilous journey back east and reached Japan where he assumed command over 40,000 soldiers recruited from Singapore and other south East Asian regions. He called his army the ‘Indian National Army’ (INA) and led the same to capture the Andaman and Nicobar islands from the British and rechristened it as Shaheed and Swaraj Islands. A provisional “Azad Hind Government” started functioning in the captured territories. The INA or the Azad Hind Fauj stared for India and crossed Burma Border, and stood on Indian soil on March 18, 1944. Unfortunately, the tide of the World War turned and the Japanese and German forces surrendered which forced him to call off further advancement. 

Escape from British India to Germany & Japan 

This set the scene for Bose's 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 and 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 January 19, 1941, accompanied by his nephew Sisir K. Bose in a car that is now at 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 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 traveled to Moscow on the Italian passport of an Italian nobleman "Count Orlando Mazzotta". From Moscow, he reached Rome, and from there he traveled 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.

At 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 Subhash 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 demoralized in Germany.

Bose spent almost three years in Berlin, Germany from 1941 until 1943, during which he married Emilie Schenkl and a daughter Anita Bose Pfaff was born to them in 1942. 

 The crew of the Japanese submarine I-29 after the rendezvous with the German submarine U180 300 sm southeast from Madagascar. At bottom left is the Indian nationalist Subhash Chandra Bose. Date : 28 April 1943 

After being disillusioned that Germany could be of any help in liberating India, in 1943 he left for Japan. He traveled by the German submarine U-180 around the Cape of Good Hope to Imperial Japan (via Japanese submarine Japanese submarine I-29). This was the only civilian transfer between two submarines of two different Navies in World War II.

Death 

Netaji disappeared mysteriously soon after the retreat. It is said that he went back to Singapore and met Field Marshal Hisaichi Terauchi, head of all military operations in South East Asia who arranged for him a flight to Tokyo. He boarded a Mitsubishi Ki-21 heavy bomber from Saigon Airport on August 17, 1945. The following day the bomber crashed shortly after take-off after a night halt in Taiwan. Witnesses report that Bose sustained intense third degree burns in the process. He succumbed to his injuries on Aug 18, 1945. He was cremated on August 20 in Taihoku Crematorium and his ashes were laid to rest at the Renk?ji Temple of Nichiren Buddhism in Tokyo.

Bose’s comrades who were stranded in Saigon waiting to be transported never saw his body. Nor did they see any photographs of his injuries. They refused to believe that their hero was dead and hoped that he evaded detection by the British-American forces. They believed whole heartedly that it was just a matter of time that Netaji will gather up his army and conduct a march towards Delhi. Soon people began to report sighting of the hero and even Gandhi expressed his scepticism about death of Bose. Post-independence, people started to believe that Netaji had adopted an acetic life and became a Sadhu. The mysteries surrounding Bose’s death took upon mythic proportions and perhaps symbolized the hope of the nation.

The government of India set up a number of committees to investigate the case. First the Figgess Report in 1946 and then the Shah Nawaz Committee in 1956, concluded that Bose had indeed died in the crash in Taiwan.

Later, the Khosla Commission (1970) concurred with the earlier reports, the reports of Justice Mukherjee Commission (2006) said, "Bose did not die in the plane crash and the ashes at Renkoji temple are not his". However, the findings were rejected by the Government of India.

In 2016, following the declassification of a report handed over by the Japanese government to the Indian Embassy in Tokyo in 1956, titled "Investigation on the cause of death and other matters of the late Subhash Chandra Bose" confirmed the Indian National Hero’s death in Taiwan on August 18, 1945.

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