Subhash Chandra Bose (23 January 1897 – 18 August 1945) was an Indian nationalist whose defiance of British rule in India made him a hero to many, but his wartime alliances with Nazi Germany and fascist Japan led to his dictatorship, anti-Semitism, and military failures. The term 'Netaji' (Hindustani: "respected leader") was first applied to Bose in Germany in early 1942.
Bose was born into a large Bengali family in Orissa during the British Raj. He was sent to England to take the Indian Civil Services Examination after college. He passed the first examination with distinction but refused to take the regular final examination, stating that nationalism was a high-ranking profession. After returning to India in 1921, Bose joined the nationalist movement led by Mahatma Gandhi and the Indian National Congress. He led a faction in the Congress that followed Jawaharlal Nehru that was less keen on constitutional reforms and more open to socialism. Bose became the President of the Congress in 1938. After his re-election in 1939, he and Congress leaders, including Gandhi, had differences over the future federation of British India and the princely states, but the Congress leadership was increasingly uneasy about Bose's negotiating approach to non-violence and his plans for greater power for himself. After a majority of the Congress executive resigned in protest, Bose resigned as president and was eventually expelled from the party.
In April 1941, Bose arrived in Nazi Germany, where the leadership showed unexpected but dubious sympathy for Indian independence. German funds were used to open the Free India Centre in Berlin. Under Bose's leadership, a 3,000-strong Free India Legion was recruited from Indian prisoners of war captured by Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps. The German army did not decide to invade India by land, despite their main objectives. By the spring of 1942, German forces were trapped in Russia, and Bose was eager to move to Southeast Asia, where Japan had recently achieved rapid victories. In a single meeting with Bose in late May 1942, Adolf Hitler agreed to arrange for a submarine. During this time, Bose became a father; his wife or companion, Emilie Schenkel, gave birth to a baby girl. Having become closely acquainted with the Axis powers, Bose boarded a German submarine in February 1943. Off Madagascar, he was transferred to a Japanese submarine from which he landed in Japanese-occupied Sumatra in May 1943.
With Japanese support, Bose reorganized the Indian National Army (INA), which consisted of Indian prisoners of war from the British Indian Army captured by the Japanese in the Battle of Singapore. A provisional government of independent India (Azad Hind) was declared in the Japanese-occupied Andaman and Nicobar Islands, with Bose assuming the nominal presidency. Although Bose was unusually energetic and charismatic, the Japanese considered him militarily inept, and his military efforts were short-lived. In late 1944 and early 1945, the British Indian Army repelled the Japanese invasion of India. Almost half of the Japanese army and half of the participating INA troops were killed. The remaining INA was driven from the Malay Peninsula and surrendered, recapturing Singapore. Bose decided to flee to Manchuria to seek a future in the Soviet Union, which he considered anti-British.
On 18 August 1945, Bose died of third-degree burns after his plane crashed in Japanese Taiwan. Some Indians did not believe the accident had happened, expecting that Bose would return to secure India's independence. The Indian National Congress, the main vehicle of Indian nationalism, praised Bose's patriotism but distanced itself from his strategy and ideology. The British government was never seriously threatened by the INA, but it did charge 300 INA officers with treason in the Indian National Army trials, but eventually backed down due to opposition from the Congress and the new climate of rapid British colonization of India. Bose's legacy is mixed. Among many in India, he is seen as a hero, his saga serving as a possible model for the many acts of rebirth, negotiation, and reconciliation that have led to India's independence over the past quarter century. Many on the right and far-right, spreading conspiracy theories, regard him as a supporter of Indian nationalism as well as Hindu identity. His collaboration with Japanese fascism and Nazism poses serious moral dilemmas, particularly his reluctance to publicly criticize the worst extremes of German anti-Semitism from 1938 or to provide refuge to their victims in India.
1921–1932: Indian National Congress
Subhash Chandra Bose, 24, arrived in Mumbai on the morning of July 16, 1921, and immediately decided to interview Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi, 51, was the leader of the Non-Cooperation Movement that had taken India by storm the previous year and that would develop into independence over the next quarter of a century. Gandhi happened to be in Mumbai and agreed to meet Bose that afternoon. In an account of the meeting that Bose wrote many years later, he quizzed Gandhi. Bose felt that Gandhi’s answers were vague, his goals vague, his plan for achieving them unconsidered. Gandhi and Bose had differences of opinion on the question of means at their first meeting. For Gandhi, non-violent means were non-negotiable for any purpose; in Bose’s mind, all means were acceptable in the service of anti-colonial goals. They had differences of opinion on the question of objectives. Bose was attracted to the authoritarian model of government, which Gandhi found reprehensible. According to historian Gordon, "However, Gandhi connected Bose with the leader of the Congress and Indian nationalism in Bengal, C. R. Das, and in him Bose found the leader he was looking for." Das was more flexible than Gandhi, more sympathetic to the extremism that attracted idealistic young people like Bose in Bengal. Das introduced Bose to nationalist politics. Bose continued to work in its orbit for almost 20 years, even as Bose tried to change the course of Indian National Congress politics.
In 1922, Bose founded the newspaper Swaraj and took charge of the publicity of the Bengal Provincial Congress Committee. His mentor was Chittaranjan Das, who was the voice of aggressive nationalism in Bengal. In 1923, Bose was elected President of the Indian Youth Congress and Secretary of the Bengal State Congress. He became the editor of the newspaper "Forward", founded by Chittaranjan Das. When Das was elected Mayor of Calcutta in 1924, Bose served as CEO of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation for him. In the same year, while Bose was leading a protest march in Calcutta, he, Maghfur Ahmed Ajazi and other leaders were arrested and imprisoned. After a nationalist uprising in 1925, Bose was sent to a prison in Mandalay, British Burma, where he contracted tuberculosis.
In 1927, after his release from prison, Bose became the General Secretary of the Congress Party and worked with Jawaharlal Nehru for independence. In late December 1928, Bose organized the annual meeting of the Indian National Congress in Calcutta. His most memorable role was as General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the Congress Volunteer Corps. Author Nirad Chaudhary has written about this meeting:
Bose organized the Volunteer Corps in uniform, its officers were also provided with steel-cut epaulettes, their uniforms were made by a firm of British tailors in Calcutta, Harman. A telegram addressed to the British general in Fort William as GOC (British Indian) became the subject of much hateful gossip in the press. As a sincere pacifist who had taken a vow of non-violence, Mahatma Gandhi disliked being taunted, booted and saluted, and he later described the Calcutta session of the Congress as a Bertram Mills Circus, which caused great resentment among the Bengalis.
Shortly afterwards, Bose was again arrested and imprisoned for civil disobedience; this time he became the Mayor of Calcutta in 1930.
1937–1940: Indian National Congress
In 1938, Bose expressed his view that the Congress "should be organised in a broad anti-imperialist front with the twin aims of winning political independence and establishing socialist rule." By 1938, Bose had become a leader of national stature and agreed to accept the nomination for the Congress Presidentship. He took a stand for unqualified Swarajya (self-rule), which involved the use of force against the British. This meant a clash with Mohandas Gandhi, who opposed Bose's presidency, which led to a split in the Indian National Congress party.
Bose tried to maintain unity, but Gandhi advised Bose to form his own cabinet. This disagreement also led to a split between Bose and Nehru; he appeared on a stretcher at the 1939 Congress session. He was re-elected as president instead of Gandhi's preferred candidate, Pattabhi Seetaramaiah. In the internal disputes within the Congress, U. Muthuramalingam Thevar strongly supported Bose. Thevar rallied all the votes in South India in Bose's favour. However, due to the machinations of the Gandhi-led faction in the Congress Executive, Bose was forced to resign as Congress President.
On 22 June 1939, Bose founded the All India Forward Bloc, a faction within the Indian National Congress that aimed to unite the political left, but its main strength was in his home state of Bengal. U., a staunch supporter of Bose from the beginning, Muthuramalingam Thevar joined the Forward Bloc. When Bose visited Madurai on 6 September, Thevar organised a grand rally to welcome him.
When Subhas Chandra Bose went to Madurai At his invitation, Muthuramalinga Thevar travelled from Madras to seek support for the Forward Bloc. His correspondence shows that despite his clear dislike of British subjugation, he was deeply impressed by their methodical and systematic approach and their strong disciplined approach to life. In England, he exchanged views on the future of India with leaders of the British Labour Party and political thinkers such as Lord Halifax, George Lansbury, Clement Attlee, Arthur Greenwood, Harold Lasky, J.B.S. Haldane, Ivor Jennings, G.D.H. Cole, Gilbert Murray and Sir Stafford Cripps.
He felt that an independent India needed a socialist dictatorship on the lines of Turkey's Kemal Ataturk, for at least two decades. For political reasons, Bose was denied permission by the British authorities to meet Ataturk in Ankara. During his stay in England, Bose attempted to meet many politicians, but only Labour and Liberal politicians agreed to meet him. Conservative Party officials refused to meet him or show him any courtesy because he was a politician from a colony. Leading figures in the Conservative Party had also opposed Dominion status for India in the 1930s. During the 1945–1951 Labour Party government, when Attlee was Prime Minister, India gained independence.
When the war broke out, Bose led a large-scale campaign of civil disobedience against Viceroy Lord Linlithgow's decision to declare war on India without consulting the Congress leadership. After failing to convince Gandhi of the need for this, Bose organised large-scale demonstrations in Calcutta and demanded the removal of the "Hallwell Memorial", which later stood at the corner of Dalhousie Square in memory of those who died in the Black Hole of Calcutta. The British imprisoned him, but he was released after a seven-day hunger strike. Bose's house in Calcutta was under the surveillance of the CID.
