Off-centre | ‘Indian people are once again a free nation’: Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s final stand

Subhas Chandra Bose arrived in Singapore on 2 July 1943. Already hailed as “Netaji”, the great leader, the Indian National Army which came into his command, soon swelled to a force of over 40,000. They comprised prisoners of war from the fallen British army and local recruits. Meanwhile, the Indian Independence League membership had swelled to over 300,000.

Bose felt that the time was propitious. On 21 October 1943, just three and a half months after he landed in Singapore, Bose proclaimed the formation of the Provisional Government of Azad Hind (Free India). It was an impressive ceremony at the Cathay Building, with himself as the Head of State, Prime Minister, and Minister of War.

What is more, this government was not only recognised by several nations but went on to liberate the first bit of Indian soil in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands from the British colonial rule. It was a credible state-in-the-making, with its own bank and fledgling government in exile.

Bose’s speech on the occasion was memorable. It still fills us with awe and wonder at his daring and derring-do: “In the name of God, in the name of bygone generations who have welded the Indian people into one nation, and in the name of the dead heroes who have bequeathed to us a tradition of heroism and self-sacrifice we call upon the Indian people to rally round our banner and strike for India’s freedom. We call upon them to launch the final struggle against the British and their allies in India and to prosecute that struggle with valour and perseverance and full faith in final victory until the enemy is expelled from Indian soil and the Indian people are once again a Free Nation.”

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This was a momentous act by any standards, but especially so for a people so colonised and dominated as Indians were. Bose was the only nationalist leader who dared to dream of expelling the British from Indian soil through an armed struggle.

In India, however, his alliance with the Japanese was not viewed favourably by most leaders of the time including Gandhi, and Nehru. His alliance with the Germans after his escape from India, was criticised even by Sri Aurobindo. Nevertheless, Bose became a hero, even a cult figure in India. His pictures, in full military regalia, become a part of India’s calendar art for decades to come.

In some of these depictions, he was seen with Gandhi, Nehru, and the other leaders in the same posters and paintings. In the mind of the masses, there was no conflict between the revolutionaries and the pacifist freedom fighters. All were sons and daughters of Mother India, fighting for her freedom. In a sense, it is this composite narrative that the present regime is also trying to revive, although some have accused it of legacy raiding and poaching.

Mahatma Gandhi. Getty Images

If INA had not lost to Britain’s Indian army on India’s North-Eastern front, one can only wonder what course history might have taken. Defeating the British and reconquering India by the force of arms would certainly have given Indians a different kind of self-confidence. A strong man at the helm of affairs in Delhi and the British defeated and thrust out militarily might have also prevented the Partition of India.

Bose’s INA and Provisional Government were models of communal amity, a fact that Gandhi also acknowledged and lauded. But the INA lost. None of their comrades and fellow soldiers facing them on the British side defected, as had been expected. Instead, after its collapse, INA soldiers became prisoners of war once again, standing trial for treason. The INA trail, held inside the Red Fort, captured the national imagination.

INA soldiers became national heroes, supported by the Congress and Gandhi. Nehru himself donned his unused Barrister's robes to defend them. Though the defence lost, the days of British power in India were, however, numbered. The sentences against Bose’s soldiers could never be carried out.

Bose’s slogan of “Dilli Chalo” had an ironic fulfilment. His army had not stormed Delhi as victors but were brought there as captives. Yet, history had the last laugh. Though Bose was feared dead in a plane crash and the INA defeated, its soldiers were released. India herself was soon free, in just over two years of the end of World War II. The granite statue to Netaji, soon to be installed in the canopy close to India Gate, at last brings one of greatest heroes and freedom-fighters home.

More pertinent, to this day, than Bose’s alliance with the Japanese imperialists or the fate of his failed mission, is what we might call his “oceanic vision”.

Conceived from the other end of the Indian Ocean, Bose’s idea of Azad Hind or “Free India” was especially influenced by the last three years of his life which he spent in Singapore, for which all his previous life can be seen as a preparation.

What was impossible to conceive in India, Britain, or Berlin, the heart of the Axis powers, seemed almost within snatching distance from sea-town Singapore. Bose actually believed that he could liberate India and go on to form a benignly authoritarian, socialistic republic. Some of this idealism survived even reverses and defeats in North-East India and Burma and the long retreat away from the borders of India back to the as yet unreclaimed South East Asia.

The photo of Bose in military uniform, a favourite pinup in patriotic families, also led to the nurturing of the cult of Bose as the forgotten but real hero of India’s war of independence, in contra-distinction to the non-violent Mahatma Gandhi. No surprise that it is a statue based on this very image of Bose that will find its place at India Gate. Gandhian non-violence, though very much the dominant and official narrative, could not erase its violent sibling; the nation’s psyche had a place of honour for both.

Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose was born on 23 January, 1897, in Cuttack, Odisha. A politician and intellectual par excellence, Netaji is known for his special contribution to India’s freedom struggle. News18

India’s valiant, though abortive armed struggle against British imperialism has finally been acknowledged in the national narrative.

This is the concluding part of the three-part ‘Giving Netaji his due’ series.

The author is a professor of English at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Views expressed are personal.

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