JOIN USThe enigma of Bose
It is well known that ‘Netaji’ Subhas Chandra Bose waged his major fight against the British from outside India, by raising a legion called the Indian National Army.
Many also know that he initially joined the Indian National Congress and Mahatma Gandhi in the non-violent fight against the British. He died under mysterious circumstances in an air crash towards the end of World War II. But little else is commonly known about one of the best-known figures of India’s freedom struggle.
Therefore, Sugata Bose’s biography, His Majesty’s Opponent, is most welcome. It traces Bose’s life from his birth on January 23, 1897, his tumultuous fight against the British from within and outside India, right up to his death on August 18, 1945.
Sugata, presently the Gardiner Professor of History at Harvard University, is the grandson of Netaji’s brother, Sarat Chandra Bose. It is evident that the author held Netaji in high esteem. But Sugata deftly steers clear of reducing the book into a hagiography.
Netaji was perhaps one of the very few who dared to openly oppose Gandhiji’s views, especially when the Mahatma’s writ ran large in the early Congress party. Subhas decided to stand for elections to the post of president of the party for the second time in 1939, although Gandhi had made it clear that he favoured Pattabhi Sitaramayya of Andhra.
Subhas Bose won by 1,580 votes to Sitaramayya’s 1,375. Sugata writes, “...for the first time in two decades, Gandhi’s authority had been successfully challenged within the Indian National Congress.” What is more note-worthy is that Gandhi, usually known to be philosophical and magnanimous, was not pleased at this turn of events. He was uncharacteristically peevish, and said, “The defeat is more mine than his.”
The biography also records the fact that Bose resigned from the prestigious Indian Civil Service (ICS), although he had stood fourth in the order of merit at the qualifying examinations in England. Swami Vivekananda had profoundly impressed Bose when he was 15 years old.
From a comprehensive reading of Vivekananda’s letters and speeches, he had been convinced that service to humanity was to be his life’s goal. (Atmano Mokashartham Jagaddhitaya (ca) in Sanskrit, meaning “For your own salvation and for the service of humanity.”) Bose added another element: the service of humanity included the service of one’s country. In a letter to his brother Sarat Chandra, Subhas wrote emphatically from London “that national and spiritual aspirations” were “not compatible with obedience to Civil Service conditions.”
Subhas’s resignation from the ICS caused consternation in the corridors of power, and though the British did all they could to persuade him to change his mind, Bose gave up a lucrative career, because he was convinced that he must either “chuck this rotten service” or “bid adieu to all (my) ideals and aspirations.”
Like many other Indian leaders of the time, Bose was also jailed several times; his most well known stay was in Burma’s Mandalay Prison. In 1933, Subhas, once again a prisoner, and ailing, was allowed by the British to go abroad for treatment. (Freeing him in India, the British felt, was out of the question.)
What followed during his exile in Europe was tumultuous — and it was not just about meeting Italy's Mussolini. During the course of writing The Indian Struggle, Bose’s interpretation of the freedom movement from 1920 to 1934, he met Emilie Schenkl, who was to take down his dictations and type out the volume. They fell in love, and he eventually secretly married her on December 26, 1937.
The biography records Bose's eventual return to India, where he was once again imprisoned. He famously escaped from Calcutta in 1940 in disguise, aided by his nephew, Sisir Kumar Bose (the author’s father). He made his way to Kabul, crossing lofty mountains by foot and on mule. He eventually reached Berlin, helped by the Italians and the Russians. He would later arrive at Sumatra from Kiel in Germany by submarine, first in a German U-boat, then transferring into a Japanese I-boat in the Indian Ocean.
What forms the crux of this vividly written biography, for me personally, are the portions where Subhas Bose, who had been critical of both the Germans and the Japanese for their moves in Europe and the Far East, accepted the help of both Adolf Hitler and Hideki Tojo. Sugata has resisted the temptation of glossing over or justifying this move, which would haunt Bose’s persona forever.
There is a tinge of sadness when he writes, “Bose’s single-minded absorption in the cause of India’s independence led him to ignore the ghastly brutalities perpetrated by the forces of Nazism and fascism in Europe...by going to Germany because it happened to be at war with Britain, he ensured his reputation would long be tarred by the opprobrium that was due to the Nazis. A pact with the devil: such was the terrible price of freedom.”
Although the INA, with the help of the Japanese, did enter India and lay siege to Imphal, the British, with American help, organised a continuous airlift of supplies throughout the three-and-a-half month blockade. Badly extended in the Pacific, the Japanese had to ultimately withdraw, and the INA retreated into Burma, in shambles.
Also in shambles were Subhas Chandra Bose’s dreams of marching to Delhi, although the man never really gave up hope. Many refused to believe he died in the air accident, when his aircraft took off from Saigon towards Tokyo, but came crashing came down on the island of Formosa (Taiwan).
His death continued to intrigue successive Governments and the public even until 1999, when a one-man commission was appointed to conduct a fresh enquiry. The refusal to accept Netaji’s death is perhaps another example of the enduring fascination with the man.
Subhas Chandra Bose’s active collaboration with the Axis powers in World War II will continue to be debated for eternity. And the feeling that one gets, when one completes this definitive biography, is not only that of a comprehensive understanding of Bose, but also a sense of great sadness — that one solitary heroic man was hemmed in by so many unfortunate, contradictory world events, when his fight was always, and only, against the British.