Subhash Chandra Bose.

 तुम मुझे खून दो में तुम्हे आज़ादी दूंगा .

                                                           सय्तमेव मेव आयते ...

Subhas Chandra Bose ( listen (help·info); 23 January 1897 – 18 August 1945 [unconfirmed]), popularly known as Netaji (Hindi/Bengali: “Respected Leader”) was an Indian revolutionary who led the Axis supported Azad Hind forces against the Allied powers during World War II. Bose was one of the most prominent leaders of the Indian independence movement.

The son of a wealthy and prominent Bengali lawyer, Bose studied at Presidency College, Calcutta (Kolkata), from which he was expelled in 1916 for nationalist activities, and the Scottish Church College, Calcutta (graduating in 1919). He then was sent by his parents to the University of Cambridgein England to prepare for the Indian Civil Service. In 1920 he passed the civil service examination, but in April 1921, after hearing of the nationalist turmoils in India, he resigned his candidacy and hurried back to India. Throughout his career, especially in its early stages, he was supported financially and emotionally by an elder brother, Sarat Chandra Bose (1889–1950), a wealthy Calcutta lawyer and Congress Party politician.

He is presumed to have died "in absentia" on 18 August 1945 from injuries sustained in an alleged aircraft crash in Taihoku (Taipei). However, no actual evidence of the death of Subhas Chandra Bose on that day has ever been officially authenticated and many committees were set up by the government of India to investigate the mystery of his presumed death.^[1]

Early life

Subhas Chandra Bose was born in a Bengali Hindu, Kayastha family on January 23, 1897^[2][3] in Cuttack, Orissa,(Bengal Presidency), to Janakinath Bose, an advocate and Prabhavati Devi.^[4] His parents' ancestral house was at Kodalia village (near Baruipur; now known as Shubhashgram, South 24 Parganas, West Bengal).^[5] He was the ninth child of a total of fourteen siblings. He studied in an Anglo school (Stewart School) at Cuttack until the seventh standard as that time Stewart School functioned till seventh standard and then shifted to Ravenshaw Collegiate School. Bose stood second in the matriculation examination of Calcutta province in 1911 and after passing he went to the Presidency College where he studied briefly. His nationalistic temperament came to light when he was expelled for assaulting Professor Oaten for the latter's anti-India comments. He later joinedScottish Church College under University of Calcutta and passed his B.A. in 1918 in philosophy. Subhas Chandra Bose left India in 1919 for England with a promise to his father that he would appear in the Indian Civil Services Examination (ICS). He went to study in Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge^[6], and matriculated on 19 November 1919.He came fourth in the ICS examination and was selected but he did not want to work under an alien government which would mean serving the British. He resigned from the civil service job and returned to India. 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 Deshabandhu Chittaranjan Das. Bose worked as the CEO of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation for Das when the latter was elected mayor of Calcutta in 1924.^[7] In a roundup of nationalists in 1925, Bose was arrested and sent to prison in Mandalay, where he contracted tuberculosis.^[8]

National politics

In 1927, after being released from prison, Bose became general secretary of the Congress party and worked with Jawaharlal Nehru for independence. Again Bose was arrested and jailed for civil disobedience; this time he emerged to become Mayor of Calcutta in 1930. During the mid-1930s Bose travelled in Europe, visiting Indian students and European politicians, including Mussolini. He observed party organization and saw communism and fascism in action.^[9] By 1938 Bose had become a leader of national stature and agreed to accept nomination as Congress president.

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. His uncompromising stand finally cut him off from the mainstream of Indian nationalism. Bose then organized the Forward Bloc on June 22, aimed at consolidating the political left, but its main strength was in his home state, Bengal. U Muthuramalingam Thevar, who was disillusioned by the official Congress leadership which had not revoked the Criminal Tribes Act (CTA), joined the Forward Bloc. When Bose visited Madurai on September 6, Thevar organised a massive rally as his reception.

Bose advocated the approach that the political instability of war-time Britain should be taken advantage of—rather than simply wait for the British to grant independence after the end of the war (which was the view of Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and a section of the Congress leadership at the time). In this, he was influenced by the examples of Italian statesmen Giuseppe Garibaldi andGiuseppe Mazzini.

His correspondence reveals that despite his clear dislike for British subjugation, he was deeply impressed by their methodical and systematic approach and their steadfastly disciplinarian outlook towards life. In England, he exchanged ideas on the future of India with British Labour Party leaders and political thinkers like Lord Halifax, George Lansbury, Clement Attlee, Arthur Greenwood,Harold Laski, J.B.S. Haldane, Ivor Jennings, G.D.H. Cole, Gilbert Murray and Sir Stafford Cripps . He came to believe that a free India needed socialist authoritarianism, on the lines of Turkey'sKemal Atatürk, for at least two decades. Bose was refused permission by the British authorities to meet Atatürk at Ankara for political reasons. During his sojourn in England, only the Labour Party and Liberal politicians agreed to meet with Bose when he tried to schedule appointments. Conservative Party officials refused to meet Bose or show him courtesy because he was a politician coming from a colony. In the 1930s leading figures in the Conservative Party had opposed even Dominion status for India. It was during the Labour Party government of 1945–1951, with Attlee as the Prime Minister, that India gained independence. On the outbreak of war, Bose advocated a campaign of mass civil disobedience to protest against Viceroy Lord Linlithgow's decision to declare war on India's behalf without consulting the Congress leadership. Having failed to persuade Gandhi of the necessity of this, Bose organized mass protests in Calcutta calling for the 'Holwell Monument' commemorating the Black Hole of Calcutta, which then stood at the corner of Dalhousie Square, to be removed.^[10] He was thrown in jail by the British, but was released following a seven-day hunger strike. Bose's house in Calcutta was kept under surveillance by the CID,^[11] but their vigilance left a good deal to be desired. With two court cases pending, he felt the British would not let him leave the country before the end of the war.