Subhas Chandra Bose

"Netaji" redirects here. For other uses, see Netaji (disambiguation).

Netaji
Subhas Chandra Bose
Bose, c. 1930s
2nd Leader of Indian National Army[d]
In office
4 July 1943 – 18 August 1945
Preceded byMohan Singh
Succeeded byOffice abolished
President of the All India Forward Bloc
In office
22 June 1939 – 16 January 1941
Preceded byOffice created
Succeeded bySardul Singh Kavishar
President of the Indian National Congress
In office
18 January 1938 – 29 April 1939
Preceded byJawaharlal Nehru
Succeeded byRajendra Prasad
5th Mayor of Calcutta
In office
22 August 1930 – 15 April 1931
Preceded byJatindra Mohan Sengupta
Succeeded byBidhan Chandra Roy
Personal details
Born
Subhas Chandra Bose

(1897-01-23)23 January 1897
Cuttack, Bengal Presidency, British India
Died18 August 1945(1945-08-18) (aged 48)[4][5]
Taihoku, Japanese Taiwan
Cause of deathThird-degree burns from aircrash[5]
Resting placeRenkō-ji, Tokyo, Japan
Political partyIndian National Congress
All India Forward Bloc
Spouse(s)
​
(m. 1937)​

(secretly married without ceremony or witnesses, unacknowledged publicly by Bose)[6]
ChildrenAnita Bose Pfaff
Parents
Education
Alma mater
Known forIndian independence movement
SignatureSignature of Subhas Chandra Bose in English and Bengali

Subhas Chandra Bose (/ʃʊbˈhɑːs ˈtʃʌndrə ˈboʊs/ ⓘ shuub-HAHSS CHUN-drə BOHSS;[12] 23 January 1897 – 18 August 1945) was an Indian nationalist who was known for his defiance of British authority in India and for leading the Indian National Army against Western forces during World War Two.[citation needed] The honorific 'Netaji' (Hindustani: "Respected Leader") was first applied to Bose in Germany in early 1942—by the Indian soldiers of the Indische Legion and by the German and Indian officials in the Special Bureau for India in Berlin. It is now used throughout India.[h]

Bose was born into wealth and privilege in a large Bengali family in Orissa during the British Raj. The early recipient of an Anglo-centric education, he was sent after college to England to take the Indian Civil Service examination. He succeeded with distinction in the first exam but demurred at taking the routine final exam, citing nationalism to be the higher calling. Returning to India in 1921, Bose joined the nationalist movement led by Mahatma Gandhi and the Indian National Congress. He followed Jawaharlal Nehru to leadership in a group within the Congress which was less keen on constitutional reform and more open to socialism.[i] Bose became Congress president in 1938. After reelection in 1939, differences arose between him and the Congress leaders, including Gandhi, over the future federation of British India and princely states, but also because discomfort had grown among the Congress leadership over Bose's negotiable attitude to non-violence, and his plans for greater powers for himself.[15] After the large majority of the Congress Working Committee members resigned in protest,[16] Bose resigned as president and was eventually ousted from the party.[17][18]

In April 1941 Bose arrived in Nazi Germany, where the leadership offered unexpected but equivocal sympathy for India's independence.[19][20] German funds were employed to open a Free India Centre in Berlin. A 3,000-strong Free India Legion was recruited from among Indian POWs captured by Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps to serve under Bose.[21][j] Although peripheral to their main goals, the Germans inconclusively considered a land invasion of India throughout 1941. By the spring of 1942, the German army was mired in Russia and Bose became keen to move to southeast Asia, where Japan had just won quick victories.[23] Adolf Hitler during his only meeting with Bose in late May 1942 agreed to arrange a submarine.[24] During this time, Bose became a father; his wife,[6][k] or companion,[25][l] Emilie Schenkl, gave birth to a baby girl.[6][m][19] Identifying strongly with the Axis powers, Bose boarded a German submarine in February 1943.[26][27] Off Madagascar, he was transferred to a Japanese submarine from which he disembarked in Japanese-held Sumatra in May 1943.[26]

With Japanese support, Bose revamped the Indian National Army (INA), which comprised Indian prisoners of war of the British Indian army who had been captured by the Japanese in the Battle of Singapore.[28][29][30] A Provisional Government of Free India was declared on the Japanese-occupied Andaman and Nicobar Islands and was nominally presided by Bose.[31][2][n] Although Bose was unusually driven and charismatic, the Japanese considered him to be militarily unskilled,[o] and his soldierly effort was short-lived. In late 1944 and early 1945, the British Indian Army reversed the Japanese attack on India. Almost half of the Japanese forces and fully half of the participating INA contingent were killed.[p][q] The remaining INA was driven down the Malay Peninsula and surrendered with the recapture of Singapore. Bose chose to escape to Manchuria to seek a future in the Soviet Union which he believed to have turned anti-British.

Bose died from third-degree burns after his plane crashed in Japanese Taiwan on 18 August 1945.[r] Some Indians did not believe that the crash had occurred,[s] expecting Bose to return to secure India's independence.[t][u][v] The Indian National Congress, the main instrument of Indian nationalism, praised Bose's patriotism but distanced itself from his tactics and ideology.[w][41] The British Raj, never seriously threatened by the INA, charged 300 INA officers with treason in the Indian National Army trials, but eventually backtracked in the face of opposition by the Congress,[x] and a new mood in Britain for rapid decolonisation in India.[y][41][44]

Bose's legacy is mixed. Among many in India, he is seen as a hero, his saga serving as a would-be counterpoise to the many actions of regeneration, negotiation, and reconciliation over a quarter-century through which the independence of India was achieved.[z][aa][ab] His collaborations with Japanese fascism and Nazism pose serious ethical dilemmas,[ac] especially his reluctance to publicly criticize the worst excesses of German anti-Semitism from 1938 onwards or to offer refuge in India to its victims.[ad][ae][af]

  1. ^ Gordon 1990, p. 502.
  2. ^ a b c Wolpert 2000, p. 339.
  3. ^ Gordon 1990, pp. 502–503.
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference dod-combined was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference gordon-bose-death was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ a b c d e Hayes 2011, p. 15.
  7. ^ Gordon 1990, p. 32.
  8. ^ Gordon 1990, p. 33.
  9. ^ a b Gordon 1990, p. 48.
  10. ^ Gordon 1990, p. 52.
  11. ^ a b The_Open_University.
  12. ^ Bose, Subhas Chandra (26 June 1943). "Speech of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, Tokyo, 1943". Prasar Bharati Archives. Archived from the original on 30 January 2021. Retrieved 26 January 2021.
  13. ^ Gordon 1990, pp. 459–460.
  14. ^ Stein 2010, pp. 305, 325.
  15. ^ Matthews, Roderick (2021), Peace, Poverty, and Betrayal: A New History of British India, Oxford University Press, By this point the Congress leadership was in turmoil after the election of Subhas Chandra Bose as president in 1938. His victory was taken, principally by Bose himself, as proof that Gandhi's star was in decline, and that the Congress could now switch to his personal programme of revolutionary change. He set no store by non-violence and his ideals were pitched a good deal to the left of Gandhi's. His plans also included a large amount of leadership from himself. This autocratic temperament alienated virtually the whole Congress high command, and when he forced himself into the presidency again the next year, the Working Committee revolted. Bose, bitter and broken in health, complained that the 'Rightists' had conspired to bring him down. This was true, but Bose, who seems to have had a talent for misreading situations, seriously overestimated the strength of his support—a significant miscalculation, for it led him to resign in order to create his own faction, the Forward Bloc, modelled on the kind of revolutionary national socialism fashionable across much of Europe at the time.
  16. ^ Haithcox, John Patrick (1971), Communism and Nationalism in India: M. N. Roy and Comintern Policy, 1920–1939, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. 282–283, ISBN 0-691-08722-9, LCCN 79120755, One of the principal points of dispute between Bose and the Congress high command was the attitude the party should take toward the proposed Indian federation. The 1935 Constitution provided for a union of the princely states with the provinces of British India on a federal basis. This was to take place after a certain number of states had indicated their willingness to join. This part of the constitution never came into effect for it failed to secure the assent of the required number of princes, but nevertheless the question of its acceptance in principle was hotly debated for some time within the party. In opposing federation, Bose spoke for many within the Congress party. He argued that under the terms of the constitution the princes would have one-third of the seats in the lower house although they represented only one-fourth of India's population. Moreover, they would nominate their own representatives, whereas legislators from British India, the nominees of various political parties, would not be equally united. Consequently, he reasoned, the princes would have a reactionary influence on Indian politics. Following his election for a second term, Bose charged that some members of the Working Committee were willing to compromise on this issue. Incensed at this allegation, all but three of the fifteen members of the Working Committee resigned. The exception was Nehru, Bose himself, and his brother Sarat. There was no longer any hope for reconciliation between the dissidents and the old guard.
  17. ^ Low 2002, pp. 297, 313.
  18. ^ Gordon 1990, pp. 420–428.
  19. ^ a b Hayes 2011, pp. 65–67.
  20. ^ Hayes 2011, p. 152.
  21. ^ Hayes 2011, p. 76.
  22. ^ Hayes 2011, p. 162.
  23. ^ Hayes 2011, pp. 87–88.
  24. ^ Hayes 2011, pp. 114–116.
  25. ^ a b Gordon 1990, pp. 344–345.
  26. ^ a b Hayes 2011, pp. 141–143.
  27. ^ Bose 2005, p. 255.
  28. ^ Lebra 2008a, pp. vii–ix, xvi–xvii, 210–212 From the Abstract (pp vii–ix): It (the book) covers the beginnings of the Indian National Army, as part of a Japanese military intelligence operation under Major Iwaichi Fujiwara, ... From the Introduction (pp xvi–xvii): Major Fujiwara brought India to the attention of IGHQ (Imperial General Headquarters, Tokyo) and helped organize the INA. Fujiwara established the initial sincerity and credibility of Japanese aid for the Indian independence struggle. Captain Mohan Singh, a young Sikh POW from the British-Indian cooperated with Fujiwara in the inception of the INA. From pages 210–212: Two events forced India on the attention of IGHQ once hostilities broke out in the Pacific: Japanese military successes in Malaya and Thailand, particularly the capture of Singapore and with it thousands of Indian POWs, and reports by Major Fujiwara of the creation of a revolutionary Indian army eager to fight the British out of India. Fujiwara presided at the birth of the Indian National Army, together with a young Sikh, Captain Mohan Singh. Two generals sent by IGHQ to review Fujiwara's project reported favourably on his proposals to step up intelligence activities through the civilian and military arms of the independence movement.
  29. ^ Lebra 2008b, p. 100  Hot-headed young Bengali radicals broke into the convention hall where Fujiwara, the founder of the INA, was to address the assemblage and shouted abuse at him.
  30. ^ Gordon, Leonard (2008), "Indian National Army" (PDF), in William A. Darity Jr. (ed.), International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 2nd Edition, Volume 3, pp. 610–611, archived (PDF) from the original on 1 November 2021, retrieved 1 November 2021, The Indian National Army (INA) was formed in 1942 by Indian prisoners of war captured by the Japanese in Singapore. It was created with the aid of Japanese forces. Captain Mohan Singh became the INA's first leader, and Major Iwaichi Fujiwara was the Japanese intelligence officer who brokered the arrangement to create the army, which was to be trained to fight British and other Allied forces in Southeast Asia.
  31. ^ Low 1993, pp. 31–32 But there were others who took a different course, perhaps out of expediency, perhaps in an effort to hold on to their existing gains, perhaps because they could see no end to the Japanese occupation. Thus as early as 1940, the erstwhile Chinese revolutionary and one-time leftist leader, Wang Ching-wei, became premier of a Japanese puppet government in Nanking. A few months later Subhas Bose, who had long been Nehru's rival for the plaudits of the younger Indian nationalists, joined the Axis powers, and in due course formed the Indian National Army to support the Japanese. In the Philippines, Vargas, President Quezon's former secretary, very soon headed up a Philippines Executive Commission to cooperate with the Japanese; in Indonesia both Hatta and Sukarno, now at last released, readily agreed to collaborate with them; while shortly afterwards Ba Maw, prime minister of Burma under the British, agreed to serve as his country's head of state under the Japanese as well. ... As the war turned against them so the Japanese attempted to exploit this situation further. In August 1943 they made Ba Maw prime minister of an allegedly more independent Burma. In October 1943 they established a new Republic of the Philippines under the presidency of yet another Filipino oligarch, José Laurel. In that same month Subhas Bose established under their auspices a Provisional Government of Azad Hind (Free India)
  32. ^ Gordon 1990, p. 517.
  33. ^ McLynn 2011, pp. 295–296.
  34. ^ Marston 2014, p. 124.
  35. ^ Wolpert 2009, p. 69.
  36. ^ Bandyopādhyāẏa 2004, p. 427.
  37. ^ Bayly & Harper 2007, p. 22.
  38. ^ Wolpert 2000, pp. 339–340.
  39. ^ Chatterji 2007, p. 278.
  40. ^ Bayly 2012, p. 283.
  41. ^ a b Bayly & Harper 2007, p. 21.
  42. ^ Marston 2014, p. 129.
  43. ^ Allen 2012, p. 179.
  44. ^ Metcalf & Metcalf 2012, p. 210.
  45. ^ Stein 2010, p. 297.
  46. ^ Fay 1995, p. 522.
  47. ^ Corbett, Jim; Elwin, Verrier; Ali, Salim (2004), Lives in the Wilderness: Three Classic Indian Autobiographies, Oxford University Press
  48. ^ Hayes 2011, p. 165.
  49. ^ Casolari 2020, pp. 89–90.
  50. ^ Roy, Baijayanti (2019), "The Past is Indeed a Different Country: Perception of Holocaust in India", in Ballis, Anja; Gloe, Markus (eds.), Holocaust Education Revisited, Wiesbaden, Germany: Springer VS, p. 108, ISBN 978-3-658-24204-6
  51. ^ Aafreedi, Navras J. (2021), "Holocaust education in India and its challenges", in Aafreedi, Navras J.; Singh, Priya (eds.), Conceptualizing Mass Violence: Representations, Recollections, and reinterpretatons, Abington and New York: Routledge, p. 154, ISBN 978-1-00-314613-1


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