Bose, Subhas Chandra

Bose, Subhas Chandra (1897–1945),Bengali politician and nationalist whose policy of violent revolt against the British, to obtain India's independence, brought him increasing notoriety and several terms of imprisonment.

In September 1939 Bose, whose rallying cry was ‘give me blood and I promise you freedom’, was president of the Indian National Congress. By then he had broken with Gandhi, whose methods were diametrically opposed to his own, and he saw the war in Europe as the opportunity he had been seeking to throw off British rule. He was quickly arrested after war broke out but escaped and fled to Afghanistan, eventually reaching Germany in January 1941. There he found the Nazi ideology congenial and attractive, and he copied Hitler by adopting the title Netaji (leader). But his efforts to arouse German help for his cause only resulted in sporadic propaganda and the formation of the ineffectual Indian Legion.

Invited by the Japanese to lead the ‘Free India’ movement, Bose left Germany in February 1943, travelling first in a German, then a Japanese, submarine, not reaching Tokyo until June. He then became the President of the Indian Independence League and leader of a reconstituted 13,000-strong Indian National Army (INA), the Azad Hind Fauj. Then, on 23 October 1943, he announced the formation of the Provisional government of Free India (Arzi Hukumat-e-Azad-Hind) which was based in Singapore (Rangoon from January 1944 to April 1945). The next day the Provisional government declared war on the USA and the UK, and at the Greater East Asia Conference (see Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere), which Bose attended in November 1943, it was given the civil administration of the Andaman and Nicobar islands. Bose, convinced that rebellion against the British in India would follow any invasion by the INA, broadcast propaganda to the Indian Army and created the slogan Chalo Delhi (‘on to Delhi’). But the INA shared in the Japanese defeats during the Imphal offensive into India in March 1944, and in the British advance into Burma that followed. Bose wanted to remain in Rangoon and fight, but in April 1945 the Japanese persuaded him to move to Thailand. However, Bose insisted that INA units remain in the Burmese capital to maintain order until the British arrived. He continued his propaganda broadcasts from Bangkok before moving to Saigon. When he heard of the Japanese surrender in August 1945 he was determined to continue the struggle to free India, but on 18 August his aircraft, which was taking him to Dairen in Manchukuo, crashed on take off from an airfield in Formosa. ‘I believe India will soon be free,’ were almost his last words before he died. ‘Nobody can hold India captive now.’ Rumours that he had survived persisted for years and in 1956 the Indian government sent a mission to Japan to enquire into his death.

Fujiwara Awaichi, the Japanese officer who first organized the INA, wrote immediately after the war that Bose ‘had a zealous fighting spirit though in outward appearance he was very gentle. His earnest and precise mind, his vigorous actions, and his initiative, together with his love for the masses without any discrimination between classes, won for him respect which later became reverence…When contacting the Japanese his motto was “Freedom and Equality”.’ (Quoted in L. Allen, The End of the War in Asia, London, 1976, p. 155.)

Bibliography

Toye, H. , The Springing Tiger (London, 1959).