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Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose

Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose Subhash Chandra Bose (January 23, 1897–August 18, 1945) also known as Netaji, was a prominent leader of the Indian independence movement aganist British colonial rule. Bose helped organize and later lead the Indian National Army put together with Indian prisoners-of-war and plantation workers from Singapore and other parts of Southeast Asia. "Give me blood and I shall give you freedom" - was one of the most popular statements made by him, where he urges the people of India to join him in his freedom movement.

Bose's Political Career

Bose advocated the practical approach that the political instability at war-time Britain should be taken advantage of—rather than simply wait for the British to grant political "Home Rule" after the end of the war (which was the view of Gandhi, Nehru and a section of the Congress leadership). In this he was influenced by the examples of Italian statesmen Giuseppe Garibaldi and Mazzini. During his stay in Europe from 1933-1936, he met several European leaders and thinkers including Mussolini, Edward Benes, Karl Seitz, Eamon De Valera, Romain Rolland and Alfred Rosenberg. He came to believe that India could achieve political freedom only if it had political, military and diplomatic support from outside and that an independent nation necessitated the creation of a national army. His correspondence reveals that despite his sheer dislike for British subjugation, he was deeply impressed by their methodical and systematic approach and their steadfastedly disciplinarian outlook towards life. In England, he exchanged ideas with British Labour Party leaders and political thinkers on the future of India. He came to accept the view that a free India needed Socialist authoritarianism, on the lines of Turkey's Kemal Ataturk for at least two decades. In Germany At the start of World War II, Bose escaped his incarceration at home by taking the guise of a Pathan insurance agent ("Ziaudddin") to Afghanistan and from there to Moscow with the passport of an Italian nobleman Count Orlando Mazzota. From Moscow he reached Rome and from there he traveled to Germany where he instituted the Special Bureau for India under Adam von Trott zu Solz, broadcasting on the German-sponsored Azad Hind Radio. He founded the Free India Centre in Berlin and established the Indian Legion, (consisting of some 4500 soldiers) from Indian prisoners of war who had previously fought for the British in North Africa, who had capitulated to Erwin Rommel's Afrika Corps. The Azad Hind legion was attached to the Waffen SS, and they swore their allegiance to Hitler and Bose for the independence of India. Bose had openly criticised Hitler's treatment of Jews, annulment of democratic institutions in Germany and Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union. Disappointed with the support for Indian independence from Hitler, he travelled by submarine around the Cape of Good Hope to Imperial Japan, which helped him to raise his army. This was the only civilian-transfer across two different submarines of two different navies in World War II. In Japan A testament to Bose's organizational acumen, the Indian National Army (INA) consisted of some 85,000 regular troops, a separate women's army unit named after Rani Lakshmi Bai (in a regular army, the women's army unit was the first of its kind in Asia), who gave her life in the First War of Independence in 1857. These were under the aegis of a regular government, with its own currency, court and civil code, named the "Provisional Government of Free India" (or the Arzi Hukumate Azad Hind) and recognised by nine states: Germany, Japan, Italy, Croatia, Nationalist China, Siam, Burma, Manchukuo and the Philippines. On the declaration of its formation in Singapore, President Eamon de Valera of the neutral Irish Free State sent a note of congratulations to Bose. This government had participated as a delegate or observer in the Japanese-controlled so-called Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. En route to India, some of Bose's troops assisted in the Japanese victory over the British in the battles of Arakan and Meiktila, along with the Burmese National Army led by Ba Maw and Aung San. The Provisional Government and the INA were established in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal, part of the British Indian Empire. India's northeastern towns of Kohima and Imphal, although placed under siege by the Japanese, were always under the control of the British. When the Japanese were defeated at the battles of Kohima and Imphal, the Provisional Government's aim of establishing a base in mainland India was lost forever and the INA was forced to pull-back along with the defeated Japanese Imperial Army. Japan's surrender after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki also led to the effective surrender of the Indian National Army. Bose was in Singapore at that time and decided to go to Tokyo for his next course of action. Unfortunately, there was no trace of him from that point. He was just 48 and his death or disappearance is still a mystery. Political views Though Bose's alliance with the Axis has been criticised by some commentators, others consider him a hero for his forceful stance against oppressive British imperialism. In working with the Japanese he was however fighting his own countrymen, who defended India within the Indian Army against the Japanese invasion. Some 2.6 million Indian soldiers fought with the Allies, thus vastly outnumbering the Indian National Army. At the time of the start of the Second World War, great divisions existed in the Indian independence movement about whether to exploit the weakness of the British to achieve independence. Many felt that any distinctions between the political allegiances and ideologies of the warring factions of Europe were inconsequential in the face of the possibility of Indian independence, and that it was immensely hypocritical of the British to condemn pro-democracy Indians for allying themselves with anti-democratic Axis forces when the British themselves showed so little respect for democracy or democratic reforms in India. Bose counter-attacked Britain's allegation for collaborating with the Axis by openly crticising the British campaign during World War 2, saying that while Britain was fighting for the freedom of the European nations under Nazi control, it wasn't granting India its rightfull independence. Though Bose did ally himself with the Axis powers, there is little to suggest he shared any of their doctrines of racial superiority; instead it appears he was motivated to join them largely out of political pragmatism i.e., on the logic "The enemy's enemy is a friend". It is perhaps best to view his actions through the prism of realpolitik. Re-evaluation of Netaji Bose and the unit's heroism is still remembered among many Indians. It is also fondly remembered by some Japanese and Indian historians who see Japanese efforts to support Bose as supporting the view that it was fighting a war on behalf of the oppressed peoples of Asia. The Indian people were so much enamored of Bose's oratory and leadership qualities, fearlessness and mysterious adventures, that he had become a legend. They refused to believe that he died in the plane crash. The famous Red Fort trial wherein Bose's generals and the INA officers were tried, became landmark events. Initially, the British Government thought of a court-martial, but there was a countrywide protest against any kind of punishment. For common Indians, Axis and Allied powers hardly mattered, but they could not tolerate punishment of fellow countrymen who were fighting for freedom. The British Government was in no position to face open rebellion or mutiny and a general amnesty for INA soldiers was declared. A characterization of Bose as a collaborator has been criticised by many commentators, who claim that what such critics fail to see is the fundamentally oppressive nature of the British rule in India. Nothwithstanding the democratic credentials of Britain (and the United States) in their own country, they did not extend it to their colonies. Bose, having lived in Colonial India, democratic Britain and Fascist Germany, stated he could see little difference between the fundamentally oppressive nature of British imperialism and that of Axis fascism. What many Western and Western-influenced scholars fail to see was that the Indian National Army, or Azad Hind Fauz (in Hindustani) was an organization devoid of any of the divisive energies of provincialism, casteism, communalism, bigotry, parochialism, religious fundamentalism, orthodoxy due to social obscurantism and social intolerance, which in their wake, have more often than not, caused harm to India's secular and socio-cultural fabric. However certain degrees of caste and religious prejudice existed. There was also significant dissent among the volunteers of the Free Indian Legion of the Waffen-SS because the Germans organised the unit on meritocratic rather than caste and religious lines. Gandhi called Bose the "Patriot of Patriots" (Bose had called Gandhi "Father of the Nation"). He has been given belated recognition in India, by renaming Calcutta's civil airport and a university in his name. Bose's potrait is also hung in the Indian Parliament and his statue is placed in front of the West Bengal state assembly hall. Many of the ideals of Bose have been adopted in independent India like the adoption of Rabindranath Tagore's "Jana Gana Mana", the national song of the Provisional Government of Azad Hind as independent India's National Anthem, the adoption of Hindi as India's national language, the tricolour of India's national flag (inspired partly from the flag of the Azad Hind Fauz). Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport, located in Dum Dum, West Bengal, near Kolkata (Calcutta) is named after him. Bose was posthumously awarded the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian award in 1992, but it was later withdrawn in response to a Supreme Court of India directive following a Public Interest Litigation filed in the Court against the "posthumous" nature of the award. The Award Committee could not give conclusive evidence of Bose's death and thus it on it invalidated the "posthumous" award.

Created on 2005-05-26 10:35:10 by sudipta Updated on 2005-05-31 23:43:03 by sudipta