Celebrating Netaji's 123rd birth anniversary: Seven facts about Subhas Chandra Bose you should know

* Netaji came up with the slogan 'Jai Hind' and was also the one to chose Rabindranath Tagore’s 'Jana gana mana' as his preferred national anthem for the free India. He suggested 'Hindustani' to be India's national language.

* He was good in academics. Netaji stood second in his matriculation exam in 1913 and fourth in Indian Civil Services (ICS) examination. However, he resigned from his ICS job in 1921 as he did not want to work under the British government. He then came back to India from England which effectively acted as his initiation into India's struggle for freedom.

* He became politically active by joining Bengal Provincial Congress Committee which eventually led him to be at the forefront of the young workers who looked up to him. He started "Swaraj" newspaper and also became the editor of "Forward", another newspaper founded by his mentor Chittaranjan Das.

* He was arrested during the Civil Disobedience Movement. Later on, Netaji became the Mayor of Calcutta in 1930.

* Netaji wrote a book The Indian Struggle, which covered India's independence movement between 1920–1934. It was published in London in 1935 but the British banned the book out of fears that it would encourage unrest in the colony.

* He became a leader of national repute by the 1930s and was twice elected as the president of Congress party. Bose supported the idea of Swaraj (self-governance) including the use of force which led to his differences with Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru.

* On 22 June 1939, Bose organised the All India Forward Bloc a faction within the Congress. The purpose was to consolidate the political left and his major support base was in his home state Bengal.

* In Calcutta, Bose organised mass protests and was arrested. He was later put under house arrest from where he escaped and left India. He went to Germany via Afghanistan.

* However, in 1943 Bose lost hope that Germany could be of any help in gaining India's independence. He then turned to Asia where he finally came at the helm of the Indian National Army (INA).

* INA found support among expatriate Indians and its aegis Bose formed the Azad Hind government which came to produce its own currency, postage stamps, court and civil code. It was recognised by nine Axis states.

* Subhas Chandra Bose's death has been one of the biggest Indian mysteries. He is said to have died from third-degree burns on 18 August 1945 after his overloaded Japanese plane crashed around Taiwan. However, his supporters had refuted the news immediately after and the conspiracy theories have lived since.