By Tom Wright
A new biography of Indian nationalist hero Subhas Chandra Bose could help resuscitate the leader’s troubled reputation outside of India.
- Courtesy Harvard University Press
- A new biography of Subhas Chandra Bose could help resuscitate the leader’s troubled reputation outside India.
Long a member of the pantheon of Indian nationalist heroes, Mr. Bose is held in mild contempt in the West for his dalliance with totalitarian powers. In Japan, he is still hugely admired, and his ashes are believed to be housed in Tokyo’s Renjoki temple.
Harvard professor Sugata Bose, who is the grandson of the nationalist leader’s brother, sets out to correct this one-sided view.
The book, “His Majesty’s Opponent,” aims to be the definitive biography of a man who, as the author writes, devoted “his life to ensuring the sun did finally set on the British Empire.”
Mr. Bose’s life is an action-packed thriller tailor-made for biographical treatment. The author has purposely aimed the book at a global audience who might know Indian independence icons like Jawaharlal Nehru, the nation’s first prime minister or Mahatma Gandhi but not be acquainted with a man whom Indians know as “Netaji,” or Respected Leader.
Mr. Bose, the Harvard professor, wrote the book at Netaji’s old family house on Elgin Street in Kolkata.
The home is now a museum to Mr. Bose, which charts his life. Parked outside is the car in which he escaped British house arrest in 1941, the beginning of an odyssey which would take him all over the world.
Mr. Bose was born at the close of the 19th Century in Orissa but grew up in Kolkata. Twice elected president of the Indian National Congress in 1938 and 1939, he later clashed with Gandhi because, unlike the Mahatma, he backed violent efforts to oust the British from India.
After fleeing house arrest he found his way to Moscow and then Berlin, where he met Hitler and married a Austrian woman.
He travelled by German and Japanese submarines to Singapore, where on Oct. 21, 1943, he proclaimed the formation of the Provisional Government of Azad Hind (“Free India”).
Ultimately, the army he raised — made up largely of Indian soldiers in the British army who had been captured by the Japanese — was unsuccessful. They were beaten in Manipur by British and American forces, and had to retreat.
Mr. Bose died in a plane crash in Taiwan, never living to see an independent India (There are some who dispute this and his death is shrouded in mystery.)
But his legacy was long lasting. His actions helped to spark naval rebellions against the British in Mumbai and Karachi in the aftermath of the war. The threat of armed rebellion surely pushed the British to draw the curtain on their Indian empire more quickly than they otherwise would have.
Mr. Bose also was the first to call Gandhi, with whom he had many disagreements, the “Father of the Nation.” And he coined the phrase “Jai Hind,” (“Long Live India”) now so popular in everyday Indian speech.
You can follow Mr. Wright on Twitter @TomWrightAsia.