Revolutionary roads: Why India needs to remember Har Dayal and Subhas Chandra Bose

At the beginning of World War I (WW1), on a cold winter afternoon, a shabbily dressed Indian wearing thick glasses arrived at a prisoner of war camp in rural Germany. He was led by German military officers to a particular zone guarded by attack dogs and impenetrable barbed wires where the fearless Indian soldiers were held. Speaking in fluent German he softly thanked his hosts for granting him an opportunity to interact with his countrymen. He turned to the Indian prisoners-of-war who were dazed to see a free Indian present amongst them. The erudite man began speaking in Hindustani and eloquently addressed the brave soldiers who were engaged to fight for their King-Emperor in the Great War on the battlefields of Europe. This professional Indian force was an extraordinary mix of faiths and had fought shoulder-to-shoulder in the war that was to end all wars. They had carved a name for themselves for their gallantry in the trenches of Ypres, Neuve Chapelle and the Somme. Several of their brothers, friends and fellow villagers lay buried in the bloody snow.

For the first time since the Indians had been shipped from their homeland and farms in Northern India, they heard a man speaking about India’s independence. His words brought back memories of the green fields, dusty village paths, the smell of the rain-drenched earth, and the sun’s warmth on a winter afternoon in India. He spoke passionately about the inhuman exploitation of India by the British ‘Vampire’. He even sat with the men and ate lunch like a family member. The soldiers were overwhelmed by this Oxford-educated man who exhibited no class, caste, religion, race, or any other prejudice in his speech and actions. He then sang a patriotic song written by his favorite teacher at Government College in Lahore — “Saare Jahan Se Achcha Hindustan Hamara”. The mission he told them was to invite able and courageous warriors to join him in fighting for the freedom of India. There was not a single dry eye in the lunchroom. Immediately the hands of volunteers shot up in the crowd. Each volunteer was warmly embraced by the visitor.

That visitor was Har Dayal (1884-1939).

The idea of a revolutionary army violently overthrowing the despotic regime of ‘Hukumat-i-Britannia’ had its origin in the Ghadr of 1857 — the first war of Indian independence (1857-1858) also known as the mutiny in some uninformed circles. On the eve of WW1, a large number of Indians settled overseas decided to create a second rebellion inspired by the Har Dayal led Ghadr party and its newspaper. This was the second war of Indian independence. The final and decisive third war of Indian independence was fought under the leadership of Subhas Chandra Bose. The Azad Hind Fauj crushed British imperialism and led us to freedom.

The popular narrative of Indian history ignored these two heroes for decades. Though there are acres and acres of literature on every other aspect of the Indian freedom movement the details of the Ghadr Party and Azad Hind Fauj have remained somewhat in the dark. It all began when Hukumat-i-Britannia purposefully censored all the news and information relating to the immeasurably popular Har Dayal and Subhas Bose and promoted other leaders extensively in the Indian media as it suited their imperialistic ambition. The Hukumat-i-Britannia feared the intellectually refined Har Dayal and exiled him from India for life. Recognised in the West as ‘the greatest man of India’, ‘brainiest man in the Indian revolutionary party’, and the architect of the Ghadr Party, he remained anonymous and absent from our history books. Several Indians recall that their grandfathers were named after him, and their great grandfathers thought he was far more important for India than all the other known names. Correspondingly, the lifework of Subhas Bose was calculatingly removed from our school and college textbooks, and he was painted out of our lives to favor several others. No one comprehended that omitting the multilayered story of our freedom movement damaged the sensible understanding of our nation’s history.

Har Dayal was a generation ahead of Bose however both these revolutionary leaders had similarities that set them apart from everyone else. They had attained unusual academic brilliance — Har Dayal’s academic record was unsurpassed at St Stephens School, St Stephens College, and Punjab University. A gifted polymath, he was considered among the brightest students to enter Oxford and later completed an extraordinary doctorate on Buddhism from the University of London. In 1912, he achieved the unique distinction of being the first Indian to be appointed a lecturer at an American University (Stanford) thereby breaking the glass ceiling for the Indian community in North America. Subhas Bose too excelled in his studies and performed brilliantly at Calcutta University and Cambridge. While Har Dayal consciously opted out of appearing for the Indian Civil Service examination even though it would have been a cakewalk for him, Bose qualified (stood 4th) and then became the first and only Indian to resign from the ‘heaven born service’.

Har Dayal and Bose had revolutionary fervor flowing in their veins and were deeply spiritual persons. Both men were also ardent Indian nationalists with a global outlook. The political stance of the two leaders was somewhat comparable and it led to the formation of the global revolutionary organisations — the Ghadr Party and Azad Hind Fauj. Most importantly both movements had a strong non-sectarian base and women and men volunteered to be led by Har Dayal and Bose irrespective of their caste, religion, and regional origins. They also believed in gender parity at a time when it was not prevalent. Although the two trailblazers spoke multiple languages they used ‘Hindustani’ as a unifying language in their speeches. They were gifted public speakers with the ability to transform the thinking of the masses. Har Dayal who knew Iqbal selected his Tarana, ‘Saare Jahan Se Aaacha’ as his anthem while Bose who was called Deshnayak by Gurudev Tagore chose the poem, ‘Subh Sukh Chain’, later it became India’s national anthem ‘Jan Gan Man’.

Har Dayal mysteriously escaped from India in August 1908 and subsequently on the eve of WW1 in 1914 journeyed incognito from California to Switzerland using several aliases. Bose escaped from his home in Calcutta (Kolkata now) on a January night in 1941 to reach Berlin via Kabul and then traveled undercover from war-torn Europe to Japan in a submarine. As WW1 erupted in Europe Har Dayal recruited Indian prisoners-of-war in Germany to wage a war with the Hukumat-i-Britannia with plans for his army to enter India from Afghanistan. Bose’s Indian Legion in Germany too had Indian prisoners-of-war in WW2 with a similar strategy and a route through Afghanistan. Har Dayal almost singlehandedly built the Berkeley-Berlin-Baghdad-Bengal axis for India’s freedom while Bose eventually connected Tokyo-Singapore-Bangkok-Rangoon and fought in the now famous Battles of Kohima and Imphal.

Har Dayal’s enterprise set up the first Provisional Government of India in Kabul in December 1915 while Netaji led the formation of the second Provisional Government of India in October 1943. Hukumat-i-Britannia created a global espionage organization called Secret Service Bureau (MI6 now) to hunt for Har Dayal during WW1 and Churchill ordered the Special Operations Executive (SOE) to stalk Bose throughout WW2. Both patriots inspired several generations of revolutionaries and dreamt of the Indian flag flying at the Red Fort in Delhi at the end of their struggle. That was not to be in Har Dayal’s lifetime. He passed away on a cold winter night on 3rd March 1939 in Philadelphia but by that time the baton had been passed on to Subhas Bose whose efforts led to the annihilation of the Hukumat-i-Britannia. In those dark hours of WW2, he was our nation’s only hope and the most beloved leader across India.

Eventually, Azad Hind Fauj’s military enterprise culminated in Delhi, the birthplace of Har Dayal, in the form of INA trials at the Red Fort in November 1945. The INA trials generated a nationwide campaign and united the nation cutting across political ideologies, parties and religions like never before. With the Indian armed forces spread around the world favoring the independence of India over the loyalty to the King Emperor of England, the Hukumat-i-Britannia knew their time was up. That was the moment the mighty Hukumat-i-Britannia lost, and India gained its independence.

In many ways, Har Dayal and Bose who envisaged the end of the British Empire via an armed revolution were light years ahead of their contemporaries. Advancing nationalistic identity over communalism and scientific thought over superstition, they connected the dots between ancient India and the Ghadr of 1857 with the war of India’s independence. Surprisingly the paths of Har Dayal and Bose, two almost identical pioneers of that era never crossed though they were in Britain and Europe around the same time. Indian revolutionaries such as Ajit Singh, Rash Behari Bose, Vinayak Savarkar, Bhai Parmanand, Maulvi Barkartullah, Mahendra Pratap Singh, MN Roy, and ACN Nambiar were perhaps the connection between these two torchbearers of the Indian freedom movement.

Today the lifelong contributions of Har Dayal and Subhas Chandra Bose in India’s march toward freedom are finally gaining prominence in our nation. Their sacrifice is recognised and celebrated. A major district park in Delhi has been named after Har Dayal since August 2022 and the statue of Bose is now placed at the most prominent location in the heart of the capital. Our thought leaders Har Dayal and Subhas Bose will continue to encourage us forever. At this juncture of human history with shifting power equations in the global context, we must always be inspired by the fact that we the people of India destroyed Hukumat-i-Britannia, the greatest empire the world had ever known, and then built the largest democracy in the history of human civilization.

The writer is the author of The Man India Missed The Most Subhash Chandra Bose and The Great Indian Genius Har Dayal. Views expressed are personal.

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