Know Forty Facts Short Biography of Subhas Chandra Bose

Know Forty Facts Short Biography of Subhas Chandra Bose

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Name - Subhas Chandra Bose

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Born     23 January 1897
Cuttack, Orissa Division, Bengal Province, British India

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Died     18 August 1945
Taipei (Taihoku), Japanese Taiwan

About death - Indian government is not ready to give the details.

Bose lived in Berlin from 1941 until 1943. During his earlier visit to Germany in 1934, he had met Emilie Schenkl, the daughter of an Austrian veterinarian whom he married in 1937.
Their daughter is Anita Bose Pfaff.

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Education –
University of Calcutta
University of Cambridge
He was admitted to the Protestant European School like his other brothers and sisters in January 1902.
He continued his studies at this school which was run by the Baptist Mission up to the year 1909 and then shifted to the Ravenshaw Collegiate School.
After securing the second position in the matriculation examination in 1913, he got admitted to the Presidency College where he studied briefly.
He was expelled for assaulting Professor Oaten
He later joined the Scottish Church College at the University of Calcutta and passed his B.A. in 1918 in philosophy.
Bose left India in 1919 for England with a promise to his father that he would appear in the Indian Civil Services (ICS) Examination.
He went to study in Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, and matriculated on 19 November 1919.
He came fourth in the ICS examination

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Service –
He resigned from his civil service job on 23 April 1921 and returned to India.

He resigned from the Civil Service on account of his nationalistic zeal. He writes, "It is not
possible to serve one's country in the best and fullest manner if one is chained to the civil
service. In short, national and spiritual aspirations are not compatible with obedience
to Civil Service conditions." In his letter from Cambridge, addressed to Deshabandhu C.R.
Das, he had firmly expressed his decision to resign from the Civil Service and join the
freedom movement. On his return from Cambridge he plunged headlong into the
national movement.

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Subhas Chandra Bose was influenced by following people His own parents,
Beni Madhab Das, Headmaster, Revenshaw Collegiate School,
Teachings of Ramakrishna, Vivekananda and Aurobindo Ghosh, C.R. Das, Lenin, Mustapha Kemal Pasha, De Valera, Joseph Mezzini,  Count Cavour, Garibaldi, and the impact of freedom
Movements in other countries such as American War of Independence, Italian struggle for liberation
And unification, liberation struggle in Czechoslovakia And Irish struggle for freedom.

Subhas Chandra Bose's father was a government pleader and Public Prosecutor and
became a member of the Bengal Legislative Council and earned the title of Rai Bahadur,
but he resigned from the said post and renounced the title of Rai Bahadur as a protest
against the repressive policies of  the British Government. Moreover, he was a regular
visitor to the annual sessions of the Indian National Congress and a staunch supporter of
Swadeshi. Thus Subhas inherited the spirit of nationalism from his father.


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At the time of the proclamation of the Provisional Government of Azad Hind, he took
The oath, "In the name of God, I take this sacred oath that to liberate India and the thirty-eight
crores of my countrymen. I, Subhas Chandra Bose, will continue the sacred war of freedom
till the last breath of my life."  Again, on the day of taking over direct command of the I.N.A.
on 26 August 1943, he said "I pray that God may give me the necessary strength to fulfil my
duty to Indians, under all circumstances, however difficult or trying they may be." Again
in his address to Indian National Army at Singapore, he said, "May God now bless our
Army and grant us victory in the coming fight."

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Subhas Chandra Bose accepted Upanishadic concept of 'Tyaga' and imbibed the ideal of renunciation for self-realisation and became determined to work ceaselessly for the benefit of the country and its toiling masses

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Subhas Chandra Bose, being a Secularist, had an attitude of impartiality towards all religions. According to him, the Government of Free India must have an absolutely neutral and impartial attitude towards all religions and leave it to the choice of every individual to profess or follow a particular religion of his faith; Religion is a private affair, it cannot be made an affair of
the State.

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Shah Nawaz Khan said that, for Subhas there were no religious or provincial differences. Hindu, Muslim and Sikh soldiers in the Indian National Army were made to realise that they were sons of the same motherland. That most of ardent supporters and admirers of Netaji were found to be Muslims.
Another close associate of Netaji, S.A. Ayar said that, communal harmony of a high order prevailed among the ranks.


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In his unfinished autobiography, 'An Indian Pilgrim', we find,  Subhas to quote "I was lucky, however, that the environment in which I grew up was on the whole conducive to the broadening of my mind. "The atmosphere was on the whole liberalising. His paternal house in Oriya bazar, Cuttack was in a predominantly Muslim locality and their neighbours were mostly Muslims amongst
whom his father Janakinath Bose was like a Patriarch. Janaki Babu had Muslim servants
and cooks. The Bose family took part in Muslim festivals like Moharrum, Bose writes in his
autobiography, "In fact I cannot remember even to have looked upon Muslims as different from
ourselves in any way except that they go to pray in Mosque.

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In his public speech Subhas advocated emphatically the abolition of caste system in
India and introduced observance of Anti-touchability Week from April 6th to 13th. He supported intercaste marriage in India.

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All Indians living in South East Asia were united in the Indian National Army irrespective of caste, race, sex and creed under the stirring leadership of Subhas Chandra Bose in a spirit of Unity, Faith and Sacrifice with the sole objective of emancipation of  India.

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Bose wanted that women should be given a very elevated position in the family and society, and believed in female emancipation in the true sense of the term and in liberating women from all shackles and artificial disabilities - social, economic and political. According to him, in the Free India, there must not be any discrimination on ground of caste, race, sex, creed or wealth.

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Subhas Chandra Bose rightly diagnosed that illiteracy and economic dependence were the root cause of serfdom of women. Bose spoke firmly in favour of removing all obstacles in the way of women's emancipation.

He spoke in favour of all-round education for women for which he formulated a recipe
which included literacy, physical and vocational education or training on light Cottage Industries.

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He was a supporter of widow remarriage and abolition of  Purdah System

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Netaji's firm belief was that no country could really be free if her
women did not enter the arena in the fight for freedom in various capacities like serving in hospitals as nurses, looking after wounded soldiers and such other auxilliary roles and they
can also take up arms against enemies.

So he created the Rani Jhansi Regiment and that too as it did not satisfy his faith in complete equality of women with men; he, in the Provisional Government of Azad Hind appointed one woman Cabinet Minister, giving her a position after him in the order of preference

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Bose realised that education is a great force in bringing about a sense of national unity
and solidarity and for that he was in favour of a common educational policy with a common
script which should be 'Roman Script', the common lingua franca being Hindusthani

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In regard to the system of primary education, Bose was deeply influenced by the
kindergarten  system in Germany and Scandinavia, the Nursery School of England
and the Ecoles Meternelles of France. He was in favour of visual or sensory method of
education.

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In his presidential address at the 51st Sessions of the Indian National Congress held
at Haripura in February 1938, Subhas Chandra Bose spelt out his ideas about economic
planning and industrialisation of Free India, "The very first thing which our future National
Government will have to do, would be to set up a Commission for drawing up a
comprehensive plan of reconstruction." Bose wanted that on the advise of the National
Planning Commission, State would adopt a comprehensive scheme for gradually
socializing our entire agricultural and industrial system in the spheres of both production and
distribution. He also spoke about abolition of landlordism and liquidation of  agricultural
indebtedness. Subhas Chandra Bose constituted a Planning Committee under the
Chairmanship of Jawaharlal Nehru for rapid industrialisation of India on modern lines in
consideration of the latter's close relationship with Mahatma Gandhi, who was not in favour
of Industrialisation Programme

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Subhas Chandra Bose said, "The moment India is free, the most important
problem will be the organising of our national defence in order to safeguard our freedom in
the future. For that we shall have to build up modern war industries; so that, we may produce
the arms that we shall need for self-defence. This will mean a very big programme of
industrialisation." He felt the necessity of modernising the backward agriculture which
in turn would aggravate the problem of disguised unemployment and to remedy this
development of industry would be indispensable to absorb the surplus labour from
agriculture. He was much impressed by the examplary success attained by the U.S.S.R. in
effecting economic development through rapid industrialisation within a very short period of
time, and became a staunch protagonist for similar forced march like Soviet Union and not
a gradual one as in Great Britain.

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In order to supplement the freedom movement from outside India he even
approached Nazi and Fascist powers to enlist their support. The  Axis  power and Japan in
particular became eager to see India free. Thus, he organised the Azad Hind Fauz comprising
30,000 soldiers and officers and mobilised them on the north-eastern front to give a valiant
fight to the British army.

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In his Free India, Subhas Chandra Bose had the aim of creating an egalitarian society
in which all members would enjoy almost equal economic benefits and social status, and there
would not be any distinction between man and man on account of accident of birth, parentage,
caste and creed. In his presidential address at the Maharashtra Provincial Conference held
at Poone on May 3, 1928, he said, "If you want to make India really great we must build up a
political democracy on the pedestal of a democratic society. Privileges based on birth,
caste or creed should go, and equal opportunities should be thrown to all
irrespective of caste, creed or religion."

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In his Presidential Address at the  Students Conference held at Lahore in October,
1929, he expounded his concept of freedom which he wanted for India. "This freedom
implies not only emancipation from political bondage but also equal distribution of wealth,
abolition of caste barriers and social inequalities and destruction of communalism
and religious intolerance." He wanted that the previleges of landlords, capitalists and higher
classes in society shall be reduced or minimised. He said, "Free India will not be a
land of capitalists, landlords and castes. Free India will be a social and political democracy
.... a reign of  perfect equality, social, economic and political" shall prevail in Free India.

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In the early Twenties, he became the founder President of the  All Bengal  Youth
League of which the programme announced, "Complete Independence of India, community
of interests with labours and peasants, amelioration of economic condition of the
masses, reduction of working hours, a minimum scale of wages, medical leave with
full pay, old age pension, compensation for infirmity or serious accidents etc."

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It was under his leadership that the labour strike in the Tata Iron and Steel Works
at Jamshedpur ended in an honourable settlement in 1928. He became the President
of the All India Trade Union Congress in 1931. Espousing the cause of labour, he said, "Labour
to-day wants the right to work. It is the duty of the State to provide employment to the citizens
and where the State fails to perform this duty, it should accept the responsibility of
maintaining them. In other words the worker citizens cannot be at the mercy of the employer,
to be thrown out on the street at his sweet will and made to starve."

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That Subhas valued freedom of thought and action also in larger social context is
evident from his letter dated 18.7.1915 written to his friend Hemanta Kumar Sarkar, "No body
has really the right to interfere in anybody elses individual philosophy of life or speak against
it but .... the basis of that philosophy has got to be sincere and true as Spencer's Theory is -'He is free to think and act so long as he does not infringe on the equal freedom of any other
individual."

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Subhas, believing in Vivekananda's view that the Brahmana, the Ksatriya and the Vaisya had their day and now, it was the turn of the Sudras, the poor and down-trodden classes to come up and be an agent of evolution and progress. He said, "The Sudras or the Untouchable Castes of India constitute
the labour force, so long these people have only suffered. Their strength and their sacrifice will
bring about India's proggress."

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He started the newspaper Swaraj and took charge of publicity for the Bengal Provincial Congress Committee.
His mentor was Chittaranjan Das who was a spokesman for aggressive nationalism in Bengal.
In the year 1923, Bose was elected the President of All India Youth Congress and also the Secretary of Bengal State Congress.
He was also editor of the newspaper "Forward", founded by Chittaranjan Das
Bose worked as the CEO of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation for Das when the latter was elected mayor of Calcutta in 1924.
In a roundup of nationalists in 1925, Bose was arrested and sent to prison in Mandalay

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In 1927, after being released from prison, Bose became 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) Congress Volunteer Corps.
Author Nirad Chaudhuri wrote about the meeting:

    ... Bose organized a volunteer corps in uniform, its officers being even provided with steel-cut epaulettes ... his uniform was made by a firm of British tailors in Calcutta, Harman's. A telegram addressed to him as GOC was delivered to the British General in Fort William and was the subject of a good deal of malicious gossip in the (British Indian) press. Mahatma Gandhi being a sincere pacifist vowed to non-violence, did not like the strutting, clicking of boots, and saluting, and he afterwards described the Calcutta session of the Congress as a Bertram Mills circus, which caused a great deal of indignation among the Bengalis.

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Bose travelled in Europe, visiting Indian students and European politicians, including Benito Mussolini.
He observed party organisation and saw communism and fascism in action.
In this period, he also researched and wrote the first part of his book The Indian Struggle, which covered the country's independence movement in the years 1920–1934.
Although it was published in London in 1935, the British government banned the book in the colony out of fears that it would encourage unrest.
By 1938 Bose had become a leader of national stature and agreed to accept nomination as Congress President

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He stood for unqualified Swaraj (self-governance), including the use of force against the British.
This meant a confrontation with Mohandas Gandhi, who in fact opposed Bose's presidency,splitting the Indian National Congress party.
Bose attempted to maintain unity, but Gandhi advised Bose to form his own cabinet.
The rift also divided Bose and Nehru.
Bose appeared at the 1939 Congress meeting on a stretcher.
He was elected president again over Gandhi's preferred candidate Pattabhi Sitaramayya.
U. Muthuramalingam Thevar strongly supported Bose in the intra-Congress dispute.
Thevar mobilised all south India votes for Bose.
However, due to the manoeuvrings of the Gandhi-led clique in the Congress Working Committee, Bose found himself forced to resign from the Congress presidency.

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On 22 June 1939 Bose organised the All India Forward Bloc a faction within the Indian National Congress, aimed at consolidating the political left, but its main strength was in his home state, Bengal. U Muthuramalingam Thevar, who was a staunch supporter of Bose from the beginning, joined the Forward Bloc.

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INA and Bose –
One of the most important but least examined aspects of the Bose-INA episode in Indian politics derives from the relationship of the INA to the Indian Army and the attitudes of both British and Indian soldiers toward the INA movement.
The altitude of most nationalist Indians was relatively sympathetic toward the INA and Bose, whereas that of most British Indian officials was resolutely hostile (especially those in the Indian Army officer corps), but in between were a group of men who were committed in varying degrees to both the nationalist movement and the British-led Indian Army- the Indian officers. The INA was organized and led by men in the latter group who had been in the Indian Army. Below we examine their motives for enlisting in the INA and the reaction to the INA by their British ex-commanders. Unfortunately very little information is available on the attitudes of the one group of individuals who retained power in free India toward the INA, those Indians that did not join the INA and inherited the leading command positions from the retiring British

It should be noted that the "INA" mentioned above was one of three forces bearing that name.

One INA (originally the Indian Legion) was made up of Indians recruited in European prison camps and was led by Bose during the period he was in Germany. A force of approximately 3,500 men was actually organized, although they never saw any serious action, and ended in an ignoble capture while attempting to enter Switzerland at the end of the war.

Thirty specially trained men were sent to Asia, reaching Singapore at about the same time Bose arrived.1 While Bose was organizing captured Indians in Europe,

the Japanese succeeded in forming another INA made up of Indian Army troops surrendered (by a British commanding officer) at Singapore. This INA movement was apparently active immediately after the fall of Singapore but did not attract a large or enthusiastic membership; its initial leader was Captain Mohan Singh, an officer of very short service.
Mohan Singh and the Japanese quarreled and he was arrested in December 1942.

There then followed a reorganization of the INA with Major-General Shah Nawaz Khan playing a prominent role.

Bose's arrival in Asia radically transformed the INA's position, and late June 1943 marks the origin of the third INA with him at its head.

The differential treatment in the Indian Army accorded its Indian and British officers was cited by Major General Shah Nawaz Khan as one specific reason why he joined the INA. In testimony at his trial he said that, in the Indian Army, "not a single [Indian] officer was given the command of a Division and only one Indian was given the command of a Brigade;" he concluded that, since there were highly competent Indians, "it appeared to me that lack of talent could not have been the reason for more Indians not getting higher commands."7 There is no doubt that general suspicion in the Indian Army of Indian officers - particularly a growing fear that they were being "captured" by the nationalist movement - caused the British to be extremely cautious in their Indianization program; many later saw justification for this caution in the creation of the INA, but it can be argued that devolving more authority to Indians would have made them more loyal, even when captured. The conflict between factors, their relative importance, can probably not be accurately evaluated today; independence and total Indianization has settled this particular problem forever, although a variant of it still exists with the problem of the class and communal representativeness of the Indian armed services.

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Bose Escape – Nazi Germany
Bose escaped from under British surveillance at his house in Calcutta. On 19 January 1941, accompanied by his nephew Sisir K. Bose in a car that is now on display at his Calcutta home.
he sought solitude and on this pretext avoided meeting British guards and grew a beard on the night of his escape, he dressed as a Pathan to avoid being identified.

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 British 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.


After assuming the guise of a Pashtun insurance agent ("Ziaudddin") to reach Afghanistan, Bose changed his guise and travelled to Moscow on the Italian passport of an Italian nobleman "Count Orlando Mazzotta".

From Moscow, he reached Rome, and from there he travelled 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.
Bose flown on to Berlin in a special courier aircraft at the beginning of April
In Germany, he was attached to the Special Bureau for India under Adam von Trott zu Solz which was responsible for 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 Subhas 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.

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In 1943, after being disillusioned that Germany could be of any help in gaining India's independence, he left for Japan. He travelled with the German submarine U-180 around the Cape of Good Hope to the southeast of Madagascar, where he was transferred to the I-29 for the rest of the journey to Imperial Japan.

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On 6 July 1944, in a speech broadcast by the Azad Hind Radio from Singapore, Bose addressed Mahatma Gandhi as the "Father of the Nation" and asked for his blessings and good wishes for the war he was fighting. This was the first time that Gandhi was
Addressed as the Father of the nation.

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Death –

Subhas Chandra Bose's death occurred from third-degree burns on 18 August 1945 after his overloaded Japanese plane crashed in Japanese-occupied Formosa (now Taiwan).
However, many among his supporters, especially in Bengal, refused at the time, and have refused since, to believe either the fact or the circumstances of his death.
Conspiracy theories appeared within hours of his death and have thereafter had a long shelf life,keeping alive various martial myths about Bose.

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Government of India and Bose Files

Congress government refused to public the Bose Files
Now BJP government has also refused to public the Bose files.

There are 41 files on Subhas Chandra Bose, created between 1953 and 2000.

Two — ‘INA Treasure’ and ‘Death of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose: Appointment of an enquiry commission to go into the circumstances of death’ — have been declassified, and can be accessed at the National Archives of India.

Of the remaining 39 files,
four are ‘Top Secret’,
20 ‘Secret’, five ‘Classified’ and 10 ‘Unclassifed’

Two of the four ‘Top Secret’ files are about the transfer of Netaji’s ashes to India and the official correspondence with, and about, his widow and daughter.

The other two are titled ‘Death/Disappearance of Netaji SC Bose Justice Mukherjee Commission of Inquiry’.

 While most of the 20 ‘Secret’ files pertain to Bose’s disappearance, one is titled  ‘Bharat Ratna Award: Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Subhas Chandra Bose, JRD Tata and Morarji Desai’, evidently a discussion on who should be conferred the highest civilian award. One of the ‘Classified’ files is on Bose’s mortal remains “kept in the Rankoji Temple in Japan on behalf of Govt. of India”.

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September 14, 2013
RTI activist Subhash Chandra Agrawal filed an application
whether it was true that there were some files related to Bose with the union government, and sought complete copies, along with the details of the matter.
The application also sought copies of requests made by people to make the files public, and the action taken by the government on the requests.

The PMO provided a list with the file numbers and their subject matter, marked under the heads ‘Declassified’, ‘Top Secret’, ‘Secret’, ‘Classified’ and ‘Unclassifed’.

But the PMO refused to provide their copies, saying “disclosure of the documents contained in these files would prejudicially affect relations with foreign countries”, and that these files were “exempt from disclosure”

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January 11, 2015
BJP leader Subramanian Swamy on Saturday demanded declassification of secret files on the leader, Swamy also claimed that Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose did not die in a plane crash in 1945 but was killed at the instance of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin

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Thursday, December 04, 2014

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