Subhas
Chandra Bose: A Tragic Hero
He was born in the
year 1897- the twentieth anniversary of Queen Victoria’s assumption of the
title “Empress of India”- Kaiser-e-Hind. He
joined the ICS as per the wish of his father Janakinath Bose, who was a
government attorney and public prosecutor in Cuttack. But Bose resigned from
the ICS in 1921, going against the family advice, and joined the Congress led
by Gandhi. He was the first Indian who resigned from the ICS to serve the
Indian cause considered more important than being a loyal servant of the
British Government.
Bose emerged along
with Jawaharlal Nehru, seven years his elder, as the leader of the radical,
left-leaning younger generation of anti-colonial nationalists within the
Congress. He proposed a more radical alternative to Gandhi’s non-violent
campaign. In 1930s, Bose traveled to Europe and met, among others,
Mussolini and developed liking for the authoritarian regimes of Stalin’s
Russia, Hitler’s Germany and Mussolini’s Italy. He believed that
Gandhi's tactics of non-violence would not succeed in securing Indian
independence, and advocated violent resistance
In 1939, Bose,
who succeeded Nehru as the Congress President in 1938, with the blessings of
Gandhi, was seeking re-election. The right wing elements in the Congress, led
by Patel were vehemently opposed to his re-election as they found him too
aggressive and arrogant. Patel felt his re-election would be harmful to
country’s cause. In a bitterly fought election of the Congress President,
Bose emerged victorious, defeating Pattabhi Sitaramayya, securing 1580 votes of
delegates as against 1375 by his rival. Patel led the CWC members, except
for Nehru and Sarat Chandra Bose, to resign. Nehru sought to play a
mediating role, keeping distance from the machinations of members of the CWC.
Bose submitted his resignation as the Congress President. Nehru asked the
AICC not to accept the resignation, and proposed that Bose renominate the old
CWC and nominate two new members of his choice to fill the vacancies.
This was not acceptable to Bose as he wanted a more representative CWC.
Thus the efforts to bring a rapprochement between two warring groups had failed.
Sugata Bose, in his biography of Subhas Chandra Bose His Majesty’s
Opponent, gives a vivid account of the rift between Bose and the old guards
in the Congress.
Following the German
attack on Poland in September 1939 Brittan and France had declared war on
Germany. The outbreak of Second World War had changed all the political
calculations in India. Bose saw “the European war as an opportunity that was
rare in the history of a nation- a chance that India could not afford to lose.”
He could not persuade himself to accept the mainstream Congress discourse
of a unified nationalism exemplified by Nehru. The Viceroy, Lord
Linlithgow declared India a belligerent in the war against Germany without
consulting the Congress, which had government in eight of the eleven provinces
of British India, forcing them to resign in protest.
Bose called for the
observance of Siraj-ud-daula Day on July 3, 1940 to honor the memory of
Bengal’s last Nawab. He launched a movement for the removal of the Holwell
monument from Dalhousie Square in Calcutta. On July 2, he was arrested and
taken to Presidency Jail. Following the deterioration of his health, he was
shifted to his home. He was to be rearrested as soon as he had recovered
his health. Consequently, with the help of his nephew Sisir, he managed
to escape in disguise. Taking the pseudo name ‘Muhammad Zauddin’, he reached
Kabul, from there Moscow and finally Berlin on April 2, 1941. It was
ironic that the man who had espoused left-wing socialist views all along was
now seeking political asylum in Hitler’s fascist Germany.
He was seeking the
support of the Axis powers to overthrow the British government in India
through armed insurgency. He considered the end- freedom of India- as
more important than the means he was adopting. In Germany, he was
attached to the Special Bureau for India. He founded the Free India
Center in Berlin, and created the Indian Legion, consisting of some 4500 Indian
prisoners of war in North Africa captured by Axis forces. His
men pledged allegiance to Hitler by taking the oath: "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." He
managed to meet Hitler for the first time in Berlin on May 29, 1942. And after
the meeting he was disillusioned, realizing that Hitler was using him and his
men for propaganda and not interested in the Indian freedom.
He left Germany in a
Submarine on February 8, 1943 for Japan. He reached Tokyo on May 16 and met the
Japanese Prime Minister Hideki Tojo on June 10. He founded the Azad Hind Fauj (INA)
with the Japanese help by recruiting the soldiers held as prisoners, and the
Indian expatriates in South East Asia. He established a Provisional
Government- puppet regime of Japan. After the Japanese defeat in the
battles of Impal and Kohima, and the surrender of Japan, following America
dropping atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, August 6 and 9, 1945, Bose’s dream of waging a war against the British in
India was aborted. He was dejected when some INA officers and soldiers
deserted him.
Bose had made an
error of judgment in escaping from India and aligning with the Axis powers. He
overestimated his strength. He was unrealistic and expected too much from
Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia, who had dictators, staking his honor and
dignity. He was misguided. He was naïve to expect Germany and Russia to
invade British India. Even if he had succeeded in liberating India with their
help, what he failed to realize was that India would still be subjected to
imperial rule of a different kind and would not remain a totally independent
nation. He expressed admiration for the authoritarian methods of
governance, which he saw in Italy and Germany, and thought they could be used
in building an independent India. He believed an independent India needed
socialist authoritarianism of Turkey's Kemal Ataturk. According to Sugata Bose, “he did, on at least three
separate occasions speak of the need for period of authoritarian rule after
independence, to effect the dramatic social and economic transformation he
envisioned for India.”
In the end, all his
sacrifice and lifelong political activity proved futile because of his shortsightedness and misadventure. He
hoodwinked the authorities time and again to escape arrest and imprisonment.
It was a miscalculation that the Indian soldiers, serving in the British Army,
would revolt against the British and support his armed insurgency. He
will go down in the history of India’s freedom struggle as a tragic hero. Had
he not tried to escape after the Japanese surrender, he would have survived the
plane crash on August 18, 1945, resulting in his tragic premature death.
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