Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose: True Patriotic Indian Freedom Fighter

This article has been submitted in departmental magazine MEGHADRI, of BCA department of Raja N L Khan Women's College to remember one of the greatest son of India, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.

 The Indian nation is gearing up the 125^th year of birth anniversary of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. But did he receive his due place in the recorded history of Indian freedom fighting history? Did the nation pay enough seriousness in solving the mystery of his death? Did the nation pursue the vision of Netaji in nation building after independence? The answer is: NO.

Let us briefly remember the life of this great patriotic son of India. Subhas chandra Bose was born in Cuttack of Odisha on 23^rd January in 1897. He was the youngest son of Janakinath Bose and Prabhabati Devi. He received his school education in Ravenshaw Collegiate School of Cuttack. In his early student life, he was greatly influenced by his teacher Beni Madhab Das. During this time, he read the writings of Swami Vivekananda and teachings of Swami Vivekananda left a very prominent impression in his mind. Later on, he came to Calcutta for higher education and enrolled in Presidency College.

During this period, the Indian freedom struggle was moving gradually toward peak. Subhas came in touch with various famous personalities of that time such as Deshbandhu Chitta Ranjan Dash. He qualified in the tough Indian Civil Service examination in 1920 and joined this ICS but then resigned to join the freedom fight movement of India. C. R. Dash was his initial mentor. He first joined as Chief executive Officer of Calcutta Municipal Corporation ad later on he became Mayor of this Calcutta Municipal Corporation.

As the involvement of Subhas Chandra Bose grew in freedom movement, British found him playing very pivotal role in freedom movement and made him under arrest several times. Subhas was hardliner in freedom movement of Indian Congress and that led him to loose favor of Gandhi-ji. As, the possibility of another World War was looming over after the first World War, Subhas was in favor of freedom movement to be in a very high pitch. But the Indian Congress under the leadership of Gandhi-ji, did not allow his voice to be officially recognized. 

Many stalwarts of the then country such as Rabinranath Tagore, Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, Vithalbhai Patel etc. Rabindranath Togore gave him the titte "Deshnayak". However, Subhash  Chandra Bose had the greatest regard for Gandhiji, and it is him who first coined the term "father of the nation" as a title of Gandhi-ji. 

In 1941, he escaped from his residence in Calcutta, where he was under house arrest. He reached Moscow via Afghanistan. Then finally he reached Germany. He believed in principle of “enemy of enemy is a friend”. So, he was interested to receive help from Germany, Italy, Russia against British to make India a free country. Although, in doing such attempt, he was very critical in maintaining the high esteem of India and informed those foreign countries that all the financial helps received from them would be as lons which will be repaid after independence of India.

Later on, Rash Behari Bose invited him to Japan and made him the supreme commander of Indian National Army or Azad Hind Fauz. Netaji Subhas was very instrumental to garner military and financial support from both Japan and Germany. INA received huge support from the non-residential indians in South Eastern Asian countries such as Singapore, Burma etc. When the World War II started, INA also started marching towards India through Berma. INA entered India into Manipur and raised the Indian tri-color flag there. But the sudden defeat of Japan after atomic bomb explosion in Hiroshima and Nagasaki by America, Japan had to withdraw the supportive supply line of INA. Despite this hardship, INA put up a great courageous fight against British during this time. But finally, INA was defeated by British. Meanwhile, Netaji Subhas was rumoured to have died in plance crash in 1945. During this INA daays, Netaji was successful in establishing complete harmony among different sects of soldiers. He started a complete women regiment in INA which was still unheard in many countries at that time. The judiciary judgements of INA captains by the British created a huge freedom movement among the country men and also among the navy personnel, who ultimately started revolting in 1946. All these facilitated the independence of India in 1947.

Except, setting up some judiciary commissions, naming some airports or roads by his name, all the governments of India took very little initiative to solve one of the greatest mystery of World History: the disappearance of Netaji. 

 Many historians believe that had Netaji alive during independence, the partition of India could have been avoided. He had a clear vision of governance and many of those were visible in the operations of INA.  But, unfortunately, history took a different turn.

 Before, I conclude, I want to mention that, if at any point of time, you get the opportunity to visit Elgin Road or Bhawanipore Education Society Kolkata for purposes such as appearing in examinations, do visit the nearby Netaji Research Bureau there and have a glimpse of history by plenty of photographs and documents there. You can read the books Aami Subhas Bolchi and Subhas Ghare Fere Nai, written in bengali, from the college library and know the details of those days of history and Netaji.