Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose: Historic Figure of India’s Freedom Struggle

Subhash Chandra Bose was born on 23 January, 1897 in the Cuttack city of the present day Odisha province in eastern India; then the Orissa Division of the Bengal province of British India. He belonged to an aristocratic Bengali family and his father was one of the most successful lawyers of Cuttack.

Netaji stood fourth in the prestigious Indian Civil Service (ICS) exams in the year 1919, which was quite tough to pass on the first trial. But he resigned from the coveted Indian Civil Service as he didn’t want to work in the alien British government and returned to India and became active in the freedom movement.

Netaji joined the Indian National Congress in 1921 and became on of the foremost leader of the radical youth wing of Congress. During this time period he was arrested by the British government and imprisoned. He was selected as the president of Congress for consecutive two terms in the year 1938 & 1939.

Slowly & gradually, Netaji got inclined towards the path of the armed struggle to flee India from the foreign rule and thus resigned Congress. Due to the tremendous public support gained by him in his freedom campaigns, the British government held him in house arrest in his Calcutta’s residence. However he was successful in escaping from the British watch and reached Germany via Afghanistan & Soviet Russia. During this entire struggle, Netaji was thinking on only a single though about how India could be made free from the clutches of the foreign British rule and started working intensively on the planning. During this time period, he married an Austrian girl named Emilie Schenkl. 

Netaji third from left with the leading team of INA
(Pic courtesy: www.frontline.in)

Netaji believed that in order to defeat the Britishers and make India a sovereign nation, the help of the anti-British nations; i.e. the Axis nations group of the Second World War comprising Germanys, Japan must be taken. His strategic skills, planning and leadership skills can be seen while negotiating with the Nazi Germany & Hitler as well as the Japanese administration and influencing them to help his cause to force the British forces to quit India. Thus, the respectful title of “Netaji” (leader) was bestowed upon him due to his unique leadership capability.

His step of the formation of the Azad Hind Fauj or the Indian National Army (INA) in the year 1943 in Singapore with the motive to make the motherland independent through aggressive armed struggle is one of the most significant aspects of the Indian freedom struggle. Through the aggressive operations carried out by the INA on the eastern front of the British India, Netaji was successful in shocking the roots of the British Empire in the subcontinent. In one of his famous speech made by him in Rangoon (present day Yangon) on 4 July 1944; he gave the famous inspirational slogan of “Tum Mujhe Khoon Do, Mein Tumhe Azadi Doonga” (Give me your blood, I will gift you independence). 

Much more can be discussed about Netaji. Shri Anup Dhar will throw light on various facts about Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose through detailed interaction on 7 July 2015 in Dheerajlal J Shah Town Hall; Anand.