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Separating myth and reality about a great Indian hero

Yet he is either unknown to Westerners or, for those who have heard of him, reviled as a traitor who sided with Germany and Japan against Britain in the dark days of the Second World War. Mihir Bose, like Netaji, a Bengali (but no relation) has just published a book in Britain in which he tries to separate the myth and prejudice about Netaji from his real role and to show that he was a great visionary, a true Indian patriot who sacrificed his life for his nation’s cause.

He differed from Mahatma Gandhi and Pandit Nehru in that he worked for Indian independence there and then, not at some unspecified date in the future. He recognised and was alarmed by the genius of the British in mobilising Indians to fight for Britain against each other and then persuading them to collaborate with its imperial rule. He wanted Indians to “stand on our own two legs” and stop being dependent on others. He scorned passive resistance and believed that only military service would bring Indians the strength and decisiveness to win their freedom. The British recognised the danger he posed — he was jailed eleven times between 1920 and 1941 for periods varying from six months to three years.

He was not deterred. When the authorities tried to silence him by expelling him from his own country, he defied the ban and came back, only to be imprisoned again. As war loomed in Europe in 1939, he warned Indians that Britain would try to drag India into a European war. Just as he predicted, when war broke out in September 1939 the Governor-General, without even consulting Indian leaders, declared that India was at war with Germany too. Netaji immediately started a mass movement against the use of Indian troops, arguing it made no sense to lose Indian lives for the sake of a colonial and imperial power.

There was wide support for his actions and the British promptly imprisoned him once more. He was under house arrest early in 1941 when he suddenly disappeared, only to turn up in Kabul, Afghanistan, and then to vanish again. In November that year, Netaji made his position crystal clear. In a broadcast on German radio he revealed that he had struck a deal with Germany for help to fight the British. How this plan would work was revealed in 1943 — after Japan had entered the war — when Netaji was warmly welcomed in Tokyo. There he was declared head of the Indian National Army (INA), which consisted largely of 40,000 Indian soldiers who had been taken prisoner after Singapore fell to the Japanese in 1942.

Netaji planned to free India by invading from the Eastern front. Under solely Indian command, the INA marched through Burma and occupied Coxtown on the Burma-India border. INA soldiers kissed the soil of Mother India and shouted, “Delhi chalo” (Onward to Delhi). But the campaign got bogged down and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the imminent end to the war sent Netaji hurrying from Singapore to Tokyo to decide what to do next. His plane crashed near Taipei and he died in hospital of severe burns, aged only 48. But his influence did not die with him.

Britain decided to put a representative group of INA officers and men on trial for treachery. The court martial was to be held in the Red Fort in Delhi with all the ceremony the Raj could muster. But there was a countrywide protest. Ordinary Indians, even those who had fought for Britain, refused to countenance any punishment for fellow Indians who had fought for India’s freedom. Britain was in no position to face open rebellion and declared a general amnesty for all INA soldiers. Subhash Chandra Bose and his militant stance for India’s independence made him a controversial figure in his lifetime and a legend after his death.

For many he has the status of an Indian mythological hero. They insist that he did not die in the plane crash and will re-appear when his country again needs him. In fact, when Mihir Bose launched his book at the Nehru centre in London recently there was heated clashes between those who believed that Bose had died in the plane crash and those who insisted that the crash was faked just to confuse his enemies. Mihir Bose has told the story of this dedicated nationalist leader and the earth-shaking events of the independence struggle with a verve and passion that will inspire a new generation in India and Britain, two great countries inextricably linked by their common history. It should also inspire more Indian writers to tackle their own history and not leave the task to outsiders.