Very little can be said when penning down the life and struggles of some famous revolutionaries and eminent personalities. Their lives are a struggle which sets an ideal, a track for us to follow. Their achievements had brought glory to their country and will continue to spread the aura of supreme wonder as the generation progresses.
India has gone through many changes over the years. Before it was the Indus valley civilization later developed into a big mass of land, called India. Over the years it had been possessed by different rulers, different kings; taken over, inherited, looted, devastated. But still this country had been successful to stay up with its head held high.
The first invaders the Aryans settled here. Later came the Portuguese, French, sultans, Mughals, Tuglaqs, and finally the British. It’s been only seventy one years that Indians have started ruling themselves.
The britishers had been forced to evacuate this land. And this task was not a child’s play. Several sacrifices had to made, several tactics drawn up, several conspiracies made to get this land out of grab of the British.
Many people gave up their lives to rebuild the glory of this nation.
And one such persona was Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. A very famous name right? And name surrounded with wonder, awe, respect and mystery. He was one of our supreme freedom fighters, a defiant nationalist and also the father or the pioneer of the Indian army.
Rewinding to the past, we get to know
- He was born on 23rd January 1897 in Cuttack, Orissa of Bengal province.
- He died on 18th august 1945.
- He was born to Prabhavati Devi and Janakinath Bose, who was an advocate He was the ninth in a family of fourteen children.
Table of Contents
Early life of Subhash Chandra Bose
He was admitted to the Protestant European School, just like his other brothers and sisters, in January 1902. The day Subhash was admitted to this school, Beni Madhab Das, the headmaster, understood how brilliant and scintillating his genius was.
After scoring the second position in the matriculation examination in 1913, he got admitted to the Presidency College where he studied briefly.
Middle life
His nationalistic notions came to limelight when he was expelled for abusing and assaulting Professor Oaten for the latter’s anti-India comments. He later joined the Scottish Church College at the University of Calcutta and passed his B.A. in 1918 in philosophy.
Bose promised his father that he will appear in the Indian Civil Service (ICS) examination. So he left for England in 1919 to study in Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge and matriculated on 19 November 1919.
He came in the fourth position in the ICS examination and was selected too, but he did not want to work under the supervision of an alien government which would mean serving the British directly or indirectly.
As he stood on the verge of taking the plunge by resigning from the Indian Civil Service in 1921, he wrote to his elder brother Sarat Chandra Bose: “Only on the soil of sacrifice and suffering can we raise our national edifice.”
He resigned from his civil service job on 23 April 1921 and returned to India.
Later life
- He started his own newspaper Swaraj, (swaraj means a self- ruling government) took up charge of publicity for the Bengal Provincial Congress Committee.
- In the year 1923, Bose was elected the President of All India Youth Congress and also the Secretary of Bengal State Congress.
- In a roundup of the nationalist in the year 1925, Bose was arrested and sent to jail in Mandalay, where he contracted tuberculosis. Bose was sent to jail numerous times during his lifetime.
- The Indian National Army (INA) was the thought work of Japanese Major (and post-war Lieutenant-General) Iwaichi Fujiwara, head the Japanese intelligence unit Fujiwara Kikan and had its origins laid strong in the first meetings between Fujiwara and the president of the Bangkok
- Fujiwara’ dream and mission in hand was “to raise an army which would fight alongside the Japanese army.” After the initial proposal by Fujiwara the Indian National Army was formed as a result of discussion between Fujiwara and Mohan Singh in the second half of December 1941.
- The Indian Independence League, was energetically spearheaded by the nationalist leader Rash Behari Bose. The first INA was however disbanded in December 1942 when clashes occurred between the Hikari Kikan and Mohan Singh, who became suspicious that the Japanese High Command was using the INA as a mere pawn and propaganda tool.
In July, in a meeting in Singapore, Rash Behari Bose passed on the control of the organisation to Subhas Chandra Bose. Bose was able to reorganize and reorder the messed up army and organise massive support among the excessive Indian population in south-east Asia, who lent their support by both enlisting in the Indian National Army, as well as financially in response to Bose’s calls for sacrifice for the independence cause.
INA had a separate women’s unit, the Rani of Jhansi Regiment (named after Rani Lakshmi Bai) headed by Capt. Lakshmi Swaminathan, which is seen as a first of its kind in Asia.
Bose lived in Berlin from 1941 until 1943. During his earlier visit to Germany in 1934, he had met Emilie Schenkl, the daughter of an Austrian veterinarian whom he married in 1937. Their daughter is Anita Bose. Bose’s party, the Forward Bloc, has contested this fact.
This fantastic man had a very tragic and mysterious death. His death occurred from third-degree burns on 18 August 1945 when his overloaded Japanese plane crashed in Japanese-ruled Formosa (now Taiwan).
Conspiracy theories, started coming up after his death. Some of his supporters (especially in Bengal) refused at the time, and have refused since, to believe either the fact or the circumstances of his death. This has kept alive the various martial myths about Bose’s death
Bose’s body was cremated in the main Taihoku crematorium two days later, 20 August 1945.
Conclusion
Synonym of Aim is Target. We can score high only when bull’s eye out is set. These martyrs had their visions of a better tomorrow and had their eyes focused straight on the target. They became successful to get want they wanted. Not only did they achieve success but they built a better India so much so that we can now live peacefully here.
There are many things which we can learn from the lives of these people. And the best way to learn it is to rewind time and having a peek into the history records and books. They are not just books. They are keys to the saintly lives of these people.
Short Paragraph on Subhash Chandra Bose (200 words)
Subhash Chandra Bose was a great freedom fighter with a mass following. He was born in Cuttack on 23rd January, 1897. Bose was greatly influenced by his mother.
Subhash Chandra Bose was very bright student. He secured the first division in his intermediate Examination in 1915. He passed B.A. form Presidency College in 1919. He cleared the Indian Civil Service (I.C.S.) Examination in England, securing the fourth position in the merit list.
Since childhood, he had a yearning to be a freedom fighter. He could not tolerate the insult of Indians. He came back to India in 1921 after completeingthe training of the ICS. But rather than accepting a high government job, he decided to serve his Motherland.
Here, he joined the Swaraj Party and was jailed many times for opposing the British rule. Subhash became the President of the Congress in 1938. His views were different from the Mahatma Gandhi.
He formed the Indian national Army during the Second World War. He had planned to win India’s freedom with the help of this Army.
He gave the famous slogan, “Friends, give me your blood, and I promise you freedom”. He even asked help from Hitler, who promised to help him. During the Second World War, he fought for the Japanese against the British. But Bose had to escape from Tokyo, when Japan surrendered.
Unfortunately, he died in a plane crash in 1945. His countrymen found it too difficult to believe that their leader was no more.
But his deed towards nation is remembered always.
“Tum Mujhe Khoon do, Mai tume Aazadi duga”
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