Jump to content

Talk:Subhas Chandra Bose

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

False Accusations on Netaji

[edit]

User fowler&fowler is trying to defend a false accusation about Netaji being an antisemitic just for his alliance with the Axis during ww2. How ever this is a totally false notion and the alliance was actually an enemy's enemy sort of thing. Also I would like to draw the example of Finland, who got support from Germany due to the Soviet invasion, but were not Anti Semitic and had refused to Hitler's demand against Jews in Finland. The Same applies for Netaji and the INA, who were fighting British colonialism and the BRUTAL tortures and FAMINES (Search: Bengal Famine) inflicted by them. He was a hero and is respected by Indians, as a freedom fighter. Please stand up against this propaganda of falsely accusing him. SuvGh (talk) 14:15, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Not a false accusation. Read the whole Subhas Chandra Bose#Anti-semitism. CharlesWain (talk) 14:44, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Please refer to correct sources which are not biased. 2409:4060:2D8A:53A9:0:0:5A08:E408 (talk) 15:56, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@CharlesWain But ok, I'll here you out. If you have to put it, you have to give proper sources, and not put in the introductory page, but somewhere in the later sections. Because, for the sake of argument even if we agree it's true, I'll say that the fact the G. Washington had slaves of his own which is why he didn't outright ban slavery, is not written in his introductory page. This guys means a lot of emotions to Indians, and it's good to respect that. He did do a lot for the Independence movement, so till it's settled, you can put it in the back somewhere. And sorry for any mean-ness I might have shown to you. SuvGh (talk) 16:08, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
can you agree to this atleast? SuvGh (talk) 16:09, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Wasn't anti-Semitism already opposed by masses since the 20th century? Slavery was not universally opposed when George Washington was in power. Nevertheless, he did an exceptional work (for that time) by freeing his slaves upon his will. In smaller words, you cannot use his example to justify your emotive POV. CharlesWain (talk) 17:44, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Idk what sources you have seen,but slavery was a moral evil all the time.Also Netaji's contributions also lies in helping the poor even when he was a child.So either add both +ve and the "-ve" where ever u have encountered it,with proper sources,or leave it in the back pages,and forget about it.In this case I agree with user SuvGh and the a anonymous user.
If you don't have proper sources,don't spread hatred. SuvGh (talk) 01:55, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • typo- I, user SuvGh agree with that anonymous user.
anyways please provide verified and NON british sources(Important) in the talk page, before further edits SuvGh (talk) 02:01, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes I have noticed this before when I came across this page and I hoped someone would fix this. Thank you for speaking up for this. This is indeed a mis-guided endeavour to defem a national Hero. 2409:4060:2D8A:53A9:0:0:5A08:E408 (talk) 15:56, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@2409:4060:2D8A:53A9:0:0:5A08:E408 Thanks for the support. SuvGh (talk) 16:01, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: I have readded the original citations to the lead sentence until January 25, two days after SCB's 128 birth anniversary. Please see MOS:LEADCITE which states: "The necessity for citations in a lead should be determined on a case-by-case basis by editorial consensus. Complex, current, or controversial subjects may require many citations."

Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:19, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Request for locking the page until July January 25

[edit]

user:Vanamonde93, user:RegentsPark, user:Bbb23, user:Drmies and user:Bishonen: May I request that the page be locked in its WP:STATUSQUO version, (see here) starting today and until January 25? Every year, for a few days before and after Bose's birthday on the 23rd, there is edit-warring on this page, often over content in the lead. Otherwise, the page has remained relatively stable. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:23, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

See this edit. Just SuvGh needs to be blocked per WP:NOTHERE. Capitals00 (talk) 16:59, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Fowler, you mean Jan 25 as above, not July as the header has it, right? Seems a sensible request. Johnbod (talk) 17:11, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, Johnbod. Thanks for that. Have corrected. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:30, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 23 January 2025

[edit]

Died: Not Confirmed. Death Place: Not Confirmed. ( There is no valid proof of his death. So if any website tells his death day, it is completely false information. Please correct it.) 115.187.42.51 (talk) 18:24, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

 Not done: Numerous official reports and enquiries have concluded that Bose did die on 18 August 1945. That some people choose not to believe this is well covered in the article. Nthep (talk) 18:34, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Empire of Japan or Japanese Fascism

[edit]

​​An editor changed a Wiklink from Japanese Fascism to Empire of Japan.[1] And another editor has reverted it back to Japanese Fascism,[2] saying that Bose's collaboration was with ideologies, not necessarily the formal names of states; the Empire of Japan had existed since the Meiji Restoration, but it was Japanese Fascism, the one complicit in major war crimes during WWII, that Bose had allied with. Given that page 345 of the source cited for the quotation said "To many, Bose's programme resembled that of the Japanese fascists..."[3] this seems entirely sensible. But if you think it should Wikilink to Empire of Japan, please explain why.

P.S. Please do not alter the quotation to say "imperialists"; the source says "fascists".-- Toddy1 (talk) 18:49, 26 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Recent big change to the lead

[edit]
Old version Malhar1234's new version
Subhas Chandra Bose[a] (23 January 1897 – 18 August 1945) was an Indian nationalist whose defiance of British authority in India made him a hero among many Indians,[e] but his wartime alliances with Nazi Germany and Fascist Japan left a legacy vexed by authoritarianism,[j] anti-Semitism,[q] and military failure.[u] The honorific 'Netaji' (Hindustani: "Respected Leader") was first applied to Bose in Germany in early 1942—by the Indian soldiers of the Indische Legion and by the German and Indian officials in the Special Bureau for India in Berlin. It is now used throughout India.[v]

Bose was born into wealth and privilege in a large Bengali family in Orissa during the British Raj. The early recipient of an Anglo-centric education, he was sent after college to England to take the Indian Civil Service examination. He succeeded with distinction in the first exam but demurred at taking the routine final exam, citing nationalism to be the higher calling. Returning to India in 1921, Bose joined the nationalist movement led by Mahatma Gandhi and the Indian National Congress. He followed Jawaharlal Nehru to leadership in a group within the Congress which was less keen on constitutional reform and more open to socialism.[w] Bose became Congress president in 1938. After reelection in 1939, differences arose between him and the Congress leaders, including Gandhi, over the future federation of British India and princely states, but also because discomfort had grown among the Congress leadership over Bose's negotiable attitude to non-violence, and his plans for greater powers for himself.[22] After the large majority of the Congress Working Committee members resigned in protest,[23] Bose resigned as president and was eventually ousted from the party.[24][25]

In April 1941 Bose arrived in Nazi Germany, where the leadership offered unexpected but equivocal sympathy for India's independence.[26][27] German funds were employed to open a Free India Centre in Berlin. A 3,000-strong Free India Legion was recruited from among Indian POWs captured by Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps to serve under Bose.[28][x] Although peripheral to their main goals, the Germans inconclusively considered a land invasion of India throughout 1941. By the spring of 1942, the German army was mired in Russia and Bose became keen to move to southeast Asia, where Japan had just won quick victories.[30] Adolf Hitler during his only meeting with Bose in late May 1942 agreed to arrange a submarine.[31] During this time, Bose became a father; his wife,[32][y] or companion,[33][z] Emilie Schenkl, gave birth to a baby girl.[32][aa][26] Identifying strongly with the Axis powers, Bose boarded a German submarine in February 1943.[34][35] Off Madagascar, he was transferred to a Japanese submarine from which he disembarked in Japanese-held Sumatra in May 1943.[34]

With Japanese support, Bose revamped the Indian National Army (INA), which comprised Indian prisoners of war of the British Indian army who had been captured by the Japanese in the Battle of Singapore.[36][37][38] A Provisional Government of Free India was declared on the Japanese-occupied Andaman and Nicobar Islands and was nominally presided by Bose.[39][40][ab] Although Bose was unusually driven and charismatic, the Japanese considered him to be militarily unskilled,[ac] and his soldierly effort was short-lived. In late 1944 and early 1945, the British Indian Army reversed the Japanese attack on India. Almost half of the Japanese forces and fully half of the participating INA contingent were killed.[ad][ae] The remaining INA was driven down the Malay Peninsula and surrendered with the recapture of Singapore. Bose chose to escape to Manchuria to seek a future in the Soviet Union which he believed to have turned anti-British.

Bose died from third-degree burns after his plane crashed in Japanese Taiwan on 18 August 1945.[af] Some Indians did not believe that the crash had occurred,[ag] expecting Bose to return to secure India's independence.[ah][ai][aj] The Indian National Congress, the main instrument of Indian nationalism, praised Bose's patriotism but distanced itself from his tactics and ideology.[ak][48] The British Raj, never seriously threatened by the INA, charged 300 INA officers with treason in the Indian National Army trials, but eventually backtracked in the face of opposition by the Congress,[al] and a new mood in Britain for rapid decolonisation in India.[am][48][2] Bose's legacy is mixed. Among many in India, he is seen as a hero, his saga serving as a would-be counterpoise to the many actions of regeneration, negotiation, and reconciliation over a quarter-century through which the independence of India was achieved.[an][ao][ap] His collaborations with Japanese fascism and Nazism pose serious ethical dilemmas,[aq] especially his reluctance to publicly criticize the worst excesses of German anti-Semitism from 1938 onwards or to offer refuge in India to its victims.[ar][as][at]

Subhas Chandra Bose[au] (23 January 1897 – 18 August 1945) was an Indian nationalist whose defiance of British authority in India made him a hero among many Indians.[56] The honorific 'Netaji' (Hindustani: "Respected Leader") was first applied to Bose in Germany in early 1942—by the Indian soldiers of the Indische Legion and by the German and Indian officials in the Special Bureau for India in Berlin. It is now used throughout India.[av] [az]

Bose was born into wealth and privilege in a large Bengali family in Orissa during the British Raj.[57] The early recipient of an Anglo-centric education, he was sent after college to England to take the Indian Civil Service examination. He succeeded with distinction in the first exam but demurred at taking the routine final exam, citing nationalism to be the higher calling. Returning to India in 1921, Bose joined the nationalist movement led by Mahatma Gandhi and the Indian National Congress. He followed Jawaharlal Nehru to leadership in a group within the Congress which was less keen on constitutional reform and more open to socialism.[ba] Bose became Congress president in 1938. After reelection in 1939, differences arose between him and the Congress leaders, including Gandhi, over the future federation of British India and princely states, but also because discomfort had grown among the Congress leadership over Bose's negotiable attitude to non-violence, and his plans for greater powers for himself.[22] After the large majority of the Congress Working Committee members resigned in protest,[23] Bose resigned as president and was eventually ousted from the party.[24][25]

In April 1941 Bose arrived in Nazi Germany, where the leadership offered unexpected but equivocal sympathy for India's independence.[26][27] German funds were employed to open a Free India Centre in Berlin. A 3,000-strong Free India Legion was recruited from among Indian POWs captured by Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps to serve under Bose.[28][bb] Although peripheral to their main goals, the Germans inconclusively considered a land invasion of India throughout 1941. By the spring of 1942, the German army was mired in Russia and Bose became keen to move to southeast Asia, where Japan had just won quick victories.[30] Adolf Hitler during his only meeting with Bose in late May 1942 agreed to arrange a submarine.[31] During this time, Bose became a father; his wife,[32][bc] or companion,[33][bd] Emilie Schenkl, gave birth to a baby girl.[32][be][26] Identifying strongly with the Axis powers, Bose boarded a German submarine in February 1943.[34][35] Off Madagascar, he was transferred to a Japanese submarine from which he disembarked in Japanese-held Sumatra in May 1943.[34]

With Japanese support, Bose revamped the Indian National Army (INA), which comprised Indian prisoners of war of the British Indian army who had been captured by the Japanese in the Battle of Singapore.[36][37][38] A Provisional Government of Free India was declared on the Japanese-occupied Andaman and Nicobar Islands and was nominally presided by Bose.[39][40][bf] Although Bose was unusually driven and charismatic, the Japanese considered him to be militarily unskilled,[bg] and his soldierly effort was short-lived. In late 1944 and early 1945, the British Indian Army reversed the Japanese attack on India. Almost half of the Japanese forces and fully half of the participating INA contingent were killed.[bh][bi] The remaining INA was driven down the Malay Peninsula and surrendered with the recapture of Singapore. Bose chose to escape to Manchuria to seek a future in the Soviet Union which he believed to have turned anti-British.

Bose died from third-degree burns after his plane crashed in Japanese Taiwan on 18 August 1945.[bj] Some Indians did not believe that the crash had occurred,[bk] expecting Bose to return to secure India's independence.[bl][bm][bn] The Indian National Congress, the main instrument of Indian nationalism, praised Bose's patriotism but distanced itself from his tactics and ideology.[bo][48] The British Raj, never seriously threatened by the INA, charged 300 INA officers with treason in the Indian National Army trials, but eventually backtracked in the face of opposition by the Congress,[bp] and a new mood in Britain for rapid decolonisation in India.[bq][48][2] Bose's legacy is mixed. Among many in India, he is seen as a hero, his saga serving as a would-be counterpoise to the many actions of regeneration, negotiation, and reconciliation over a quarter-century through which the independence of India was achieved.[br][bs][bt]

His collaborations with Japanese fascism and Nazism for India's Independence, pose serious ethical dilemmas,[bu] especially his reluctance to publicly criticize the worst excesses of German anti-Semitism from 1938 onwards or to offer refuge in India to its victims.[bv][bw][bx]

Notes
  1. ^ /ʃʊbˈhɑːs ˈtʃʌndrə ˈboʊs/ ⓘ shuub-HAHSS CHUN-drə BOHSS;[1]
  2. ^ "His romantic saga, coupled with his defiant nationalism, has made Bose a near-mythic figure, not only in his native Bengal, but across India."[2]
  3. ^ "Bose's heroic endeavor still fires the imagination of many of his countrymen. But like a meteor which enters the earth's atmosphere, he burned brightly on the horizon for a brief moment only."[3]
  4. ^ "Subhas Bose might have been a renegade leader who had challenged the authority of the Congress leadership and their principles. But in death he was a martyred patriot whose memory could be an ideal tool for political mobilization."[4]
  5. ^ [b][c][d]
  6. ^ "To many [Congress leaders], Bose's programme resembled that of the Japanese fascists, who were in the process of losing their gamble to achieve Asian ascendancy through war. Nevertheless, the success of his soldiers in Burma had stirred as much patriotic sentiment among Indians as the sacrifices of imprisoned Congress leaders."[5]
  7. ^ "Marginalized within Congress and a target for British surveillance, Bose chose to embrace the fascist powers as allies against the British and fled India, first to Hitler's Germany, then, on a German submarine, to a Japanese-occupied Singapore. The force that he put together ... known as the Indian National Army (INA) and thus claiming to represent free India, saw action against the British in Burma but accomplished little toward the goal of a march on Delhi. ... Bose himself died in an aeroplane crash trying to reach Japanese-occupied territory in the last months of the war. ... It is this heroic, martial myth that is today remembered, rather than Bose's wartime vision of a free India under the authoritarian rule of someone like himself."[2]
  8. ^ The deaths of Subhas Chandra Bose in August 1945 and Vallabhbhai Patel in December 1950 removed not only Nehru's principal competitors for national leadership but also powerful competitors for authoritarian state ideologies. On the eve of World War II, Bose successfully challenged Gandhi's hold on Congress by being elected its president in 1938 and again in 1939. Bose, like Nehru, had been shaped by a Cambridge education and exposure to European events in the 1930s. For a time they worked together in Congress's socialist left. By 1938, they diverged on the prospects and value of fascism and on political means. Bose thought Hitler and Mussolini represented the wave of the future and would win the war they both anticipated. Nehru believed that the Soviet experiment provided economic lessons for independent India, fascism should be opposed and would be defeated, and Gandhi's and the liberal state's concerns for right means was essential. ... In ... 1943, Bose arrived ... in Singapore where, with Japanese support, he formed a government in exile (Azad Hind or Free India) and took command of the Indian National Army (INA), composed of twenty-thousand of the eighty-thousand Indian officers and men captured by the Japanese when Singapore fell. Styling himself Netaji (leader on the Fuhrer mode), he declared his objective to be liberation of India by military means.[6]
  9. ^ Not all Indians, even within the Congress, agreed with the anti-fascist position of the CFD (Congress Foreign Department), and no foreign policy initiative went without contestation. There remained many in India who formally and informally challenged this position by supporting fascist regimes over anti-fascist solidarity. Most prominent was Subhas Chandra Bose, a left-leaning Congressmen from Bengal who famously aligned with and raised an Indian army to support the Axis powers in the Second World War. Well before the war and at the same time that the CFD championed the anti-fascist cause in Spain and Abyssinia, Bose argued in letters to Nehru that his foreign policy was ‘nebulous’ and filled with ‘frothy sentiments and pious platitudes’ that failed to prioritise the ‘nation’s self-interest’.°’ He appealed to Nehru to abandon ‘lost causes’ like Spain and instead leverage the international situation for India’s advantage by serving the British a strong ultimatum at a moment when their power in Europe is threatened. He added that ‘condemning countries like Germany and Italy’, served no purpose for Indian nationalist goals.'[7]
  10. ^ [f][g][h][i]
  11. ^ "The most troubling aspect of Bose's presence in Nazi Germany is not military or political but rather ethical. His alliance with the most genocidal regime in history poses serious dilemmas precisely because of his popularity and his having made a lifelong career of fighting the 'good cause'. How did a man who started his political career at the feet of Gandhi end up with Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo? Even in the case of Mussolini and Tojo, the gravity of the dilemma pales in comparison to that posed by his association with Hitler and the Nazi leadership. The most disturbing issue, all too often ignored, is that in the many articles, minutes, memorandums, telegrams, letters, plans, and broadcasts Bose left behind in Germany, he did not express the slightest concern or sympathy for the millions who died in the concentration camps. Not one of his Berlin wartime associates or colleagues ever quotes him expressing any indignation. Not even when the horrors of Auschwitz and its satellite camps were exposed to the world upon being liberated by Soviet troops in early 1945, revealing publicly for the first time the genocidal nature of the Nazi regime, did Bose react."[8]
  12. ^ Between 1938 and 1939 the reactions of the Anti-Nazi League, the Congress, and the progressive press toward German anti-Semitism and German politics showed that Indian public opinion and the nationalist leaders were fairly well informed about the events in Europe. If Bose, Savarkar and others looked favourably upon racial discrimination in Germany or did not criticise them, it cannot be said, to justify them, that they were unaware of what was happening. The great anti-Jewish pogrom known as “the Night of Broken Glass” took place on 9th November 1938. In early December, pro-Hindu Mahasabha journals published articles in favour of German anti-Semitism. This stance brought the Hindu Mahasabha into conflict with the Congress which, on 12th December, made a statement containing clear references to recent European events. Within the Congress, only Bose opposed the party stance. A few months later, in April 1939, he refused to support the party motion that Jews might find refuge in India.[9]
  13. ^ Jawaharlal Nehru called the Jews 'People without a home or nation' and sponsored a resolution in the Congress Working Committee. Although the exact date is not known, yet it can be said that it probably happened in December 1938 at the Wardha session, the one that took place shortly after Nehru returned from Europe. The draft resolution read: 'The Committee sees no objection to the employment in India of such Jewish refugees as are experts and specialists and who can fit in with the new order in India and accept Indian standards.' It was, however, rejected by the then Congress President Subhas Chandra Bose, who four years later in 1942 was reported by the Jewish Chronicle of London as having published an article in Angriff, a journal of Goebbels, saying that "anti-Semitism should become part of the Indian liberation movement because Jews had helped the British to exploit Indians (21 August 1942)" Although by then Bose had left the Congress, he continued to command a strong influence within the party.[10]
  14. ^ None of the works that deal with ... Subhas Chandra Bose, or his Indian National Army has engaged either Bose’s reaction to German mass killing of Sinti and Roma (Gypsies) because their ancestors came from India or the reaction of the soldiers in his army to the sex slaves kidnapped in Japanese-occupied lands and held in enclosures attached to the camps in which they were being trained to follow their Japanese comrades in the occupation of India.[11]
  15. ^ Bose requested a declaration from the Germans that they supported the movement for freedom in India – and in Arab countries. He had opposed Nehru in permitting political asylum to Jews fleeing Europe in 1939. He was prepared to ingratiate himself with Nazi ideology by writing for Goebells's Der Angriff in 1942. He argued that anti-Semitism should become a factor in the struggle for Indian freedom since the Jews had collaborated with British imperialism to exploit the country and its inhabitants.[12]
  16. ^ As a heterogeneous empire, Bose observed, the British had to be pro-Arab in India and pro-Jewish elsewhere and accused that London “has to please Jews because she cannot ignore Jewish high finance." ... Bose’s anti-Jewish slur was no different from the anti-Semitic remarks in the League deliberations referred to earlier. Bose also opposed Nehru’s efforts to provide asylum to a limited number of European Jewish refugees who were fleeing from Nazi persecution. Despite the opposition led by Bose, Nehru “was a strong supporter of inviting (Jewish refugees) to settle down in India... (and felt that) this was the only way by which Jews could be saved from the wrath of the Nazis... Between 1933 and the outbreak of the War, Nehru was instrumental in obtaining the entry of several German Jewish refugees into India."[13]
  17. ^ [k][l][m][n][o][p]
  18. ^ (p.117) the INA was raised during the Second World War, with the support of the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA); lasted less than three years; and went through two different configurations during that period. In total, it numbered some 40,000 men and women, half of whom are estimated to have been recruited from Indian Army prisoners of war (POWs). The INA’s battlefield performance was quite poor when assessed either alongside the IJA or against the reformed Fourteenth Army on the battlefields of Assam and Burma. Reports of its creation in 1942/3 caused consternation among the political and military leadership (p. 118) of the GOI, but in the end its formation did not constitute a legitimate mutiny, and its presence had a negligible impact on the Indian Army.[14]
  19. ^ "The (Japanese) Fifteenth Army, commanded by ... Maj.-General Mutuguchi Renya consisted of three experienced infantry divisions — 15th, 31st and 33rd — totalling 100,000 combat troops, with the 7,000 strong 1st Indian National Army (INA) Division in support. It was hoped the latter would subvert the Indian Army's loyalty and precipitate a popular rising in British India, but in reality the campaign revealed that it was largely a paper tiger."[18]
  20. ^ "The real fault, however, must attach to the Japanese commander-in-chief Kawabe. Dithering, ... prostrated with amoebic dysentery, he periodically reasoned that he must cancel Operation U-Go in its entirety, but every time he summoned the courage to do so, a cable would arrive from Tokyo stressing the paramount necessity of victory in Burma, to compensate for the disasters in the Pacific. ... Even more incredibly, he still hoped for great things from Bose and the INA, despite all the evidence that both were busted flushes."[19]
  21. ^ [r][16][17][s][t]
  22. ^ "Another small, but immediate, issue for the civilians in Berlin and the soldiers in training was how to address Subhas Bose. Vyas has given his view of how the term was adopted: 'one of our [soldier] boys came forward with "Hamare Neta". We improved upon it: "Netaji"... It must be mentioned, that Subhas Bose strongly disapproved of it. He began to yield only when he saw our military group ... firmly went on calling him "Netaji"'. (Alexander) Werth also mentioned adoption of 'Netaji' and observed accurately, that it '... combined a sense both of affection and honour ...' It was not meant to echo 'Fuehrer' or 'Duce', but to give Subhas Bose a special Indian form of reverence and this term has been universally adopted by Indians everywhere in speaking about him."[20]
  23. ^ "Younger Congressmen, including Jawaharlal Nehru, ... thought that constitution-making, whether by the British with their (Simon) Commission or by moderate politicians like the elder (Motilal) Nehru, was not the way to achieve the fundamental changes in society. Nehru and Subhas Bose rallied a group within Congress ... to declare for an independent republic. (p. 305) ... (They) were among those who, impatient with Gandhi's programmes and methods, looked upon socialism as an alternative for nationalistic policies capable of meeting the country's economic and social needs, as well as a link to potential international support (p. 325)."[21]
  24. ^ "Having arrived in Berlin a bruised politician, his broadcasts brought him—and India—world notice.[29]
  25. ^ "While writing The Indian Struggle, Bose also hired a secretary by the name of Emilie Schenkl. They eventually fell in love and married secretly in accordance with Hindu rites."[32]
  26. ^ "Although we must take Emilie Schenkl at her word (about her secret marriage to Bose in 1937), there are a few nagging doubts about an actual marriage ceremony because there is no document that I have seen and no testimony by any other person. ... Other biographers have written that Bose and Miss Schenkl were married in 1942, while Krishna Bose, implying 1941, leaves the date ambiguous. The strangest and most confusing testimony comes from A. C. N. Nambiar, who was with the couple in Badgastein briefly in 1937, and was with them in Berlin during the war as second-in-command to Bose. In an answer to my question about the marriage, he wrote to me in 1978: 'I cannot state anything definite about the marriage of Bose referred to by you, since I came to know of it only a good while after the end of the last world war ... I can imagine the marriage having been a very informal one ...'... So what are we left with? ... We know they had a close passionate relationship and that they had a child, Anita, born 29 November 1942, in Vienna. ... And we have Emilie Schenkl's testimony that they were married secretly in 1937. Whatever the precise dates, the most important thing is the relationship."[33]
  27. ^ "Apart from the Free India Centre, Bose also had another reason to feel satisfied-even comfortable-in Berlin. After months of residing in a hotel, the Foreign Office procured a luxurious residence for him along with a butler, cook, gardener and an SS-chauffeured car. Emilie Schenkl moved in openly with him. The Germans, aware of the nature of their relationship, refrained from any involvement. The following year she gave birth to a daughter.[32]
  28. ^ "Tojo turned over all his Indian POWs to Bose's command, and in October 1943 Bose announced the creation of a Provisional Government of Azad ("Free") India, of which he became head of state, prime minister, minister of war, and minister of foreign affairs. Some two million Indians were living in Southeast Asia when the Japanese seized control of that region, and these emigrees were the first "citizens" of that government, founded under the "protection" of Japan and headquartered on the "liberated" Andaman Islands. Bose declared war on the United States and Great Britain the day after his government was established. In January 1944 he moved his provisional capital to Rangoon and started his Indian National Army on their march north to the battle cry of the Meerut mutineers: "Chalo Delhi!"[40]
  29. ^ "At the same time that the Japanese appreciated the firmness with which Bose's forces continued to fight, they were endlessly exasperated with him. A number of Japanese officers, even those like Fujiwara, who were devoted to the Indian cause, saw Bose as a military incompetent as well as an unrealistic and stubborn man who saw only his own needs and problems and could not see the larger picture of the war as the Japanese had to."[15]
  30. ^ "Gracey consoled himself that Bose's Indian National Army had also been in action against his Indians and Gurkhas but had been roughly treated and almost annihilated; when the survivors tried to surrender, they tended to fall foul of the Gurkhas' dreaded kukri."[41]
  31. ^ Initially, INA troops in the Arakan stayed loyal to the INA and their IJA masters. However, as starvation and defeat began to take their toll, loyalties began to waver, and two companies from the Bose Brigade surrendered en masse to British forces in July 1944.[42]
  32. ^ "The good news Wavell reported was that the RAF had just recently flown enough of its planes into Manipur's capital of Imphal to smash Netaji ("Leader") Subhas Chandra Bose's Indian National Army (INA) that had advanced to its outskirts before the monsoon began. Bose's INA consisted of about 20,000 of the British Indian soldiers captured by the Japanese in Singapore, who had volunteered to serve under Netaji Bose when he offered them "Freedom" if they were willing to risk their "Blood" to gain Indian independence a year earlier. The British considered Bose and his "army of traitors" no better than their Japanese sponsors, but to most of Bengal's 50 million Indians, Bose was a great national hero and potential "Liberator". The INA was stopped before entering Bengal, first by monsoon rains and then by the RAF, and forced to retreat, back through Burma and down its coast to the Malay peninsula. In May 1945, Bose would fly out of Saigon on an overloaded Japanese plane, headed for Taiwan, which crash-landed and burned. Bose suffered third-degree burns and died in the hospital on Formosa."[43]
  33. ^ "The retreat was even more devastating, finally ending the dream of gaining Indian independence through military campaign. But Bose still remained optimistic, thought of regrouping after the Japanese surrender, contemplated seeking help from Soviet Russia. The Japanese agreed to provide him transport up to Manchuria from where he could travel to Russia. But on his way, on 18 August 1945 at Taihoku airport in Taiwan, he died in an air crash, which many Indians still believe never happened."[4]
  34. ^ "There are still some in India today who believe that Bose remained alive and in Soviet custody, a once and future king of Indian independence. The legend of 'Netaii' Bose's survival helped bind together the defeated INA. In Bengal it became an assurance of the province's supreme importance in the liberation of the motherland. It sustained the morale of many across India and Southeast Asia who deplored the return of British power or felt alienated from the political settlement finally achieved by Gandhi and Nehru.[44]
  35. ^ "On 21 March 1944, Subhas Bose and advanced units of the INA crossed the borders of India, entering Manipur, and by May they had advanced to the outskirts of that state's capital, Imphal. That was the closest Bose came to Bengal, where millions of his devoted followers awaited his army's "liberation". The British garrison at Imphal and its air arm withstood Bose's much larger force long enough for the monsoon rains to defer all possibility of warfare in that jungle region for the three months the British so desperately needed to strengthen their eastern wing. Bose had promised his men freedom in exchange for their blood, but the tide of battle turned against them after the 1944 rains, and in May 1945 the INA surrendered in Rangoon. Bose escaped on the last Japanese plane to leave Saigon, but he died in Formosa after a crash landing there in August. By that time, however, his death had been falsely reported so many times that a myth soon emerged in Bengal that Netaji Subhas Chandra was alive—raising another army in China or Tibet or the Soviet Union—and would return with it to "liberate" India.[45]
  36. ^ "Subhas Bose was dead, killed in 1945 in a plane crash in the Far East, even though many of his devotees waited—as Barbarossa's disciples had done in another time and in another country—for their hero's second coming."[46]
  37. ^ "The thrust of Sarkar's thought, like that of Chittaranjan Das and Subhas Bose, was to challenge the idea that 'the average Indian is indifferent to life', as R. K. Kumaria put it. India once possessed an energised, Machiavellian political culture. All it needed was a hero (rather than a Gandhi-style saint) to revive the culture and steer India to life and freedom through violent contentions of world forces (vishwa shakti) represented in imperialism, fascism and socialism."[47]
  38. ^ As cases began to come to trial, the Indian National Congress began to speak out in defence of INA prisoners, even though it had vocally opposed both the INA's narrative and methods during the war. The Muslim League and the Punjab Unionists followed suit. By mid-September, Nehru was becoming increasingly vocal in his view that trials of INA defendants should not move forward.[49]
  39. ^ "The claim is even made that without the Japanese-influenced 'Indian National Army' under Subhas Chandra Bose, India would not have achieved independence in 1947; though those who make claim seem unaware of the mood of the British people in 1945 and of the attitude of the newly-elected Labour government to the Indian question."[50]
  40. ^ "Despite any whimsy in implementation, the clarity of Gandhi's political vision and the skill with which he carried the reforms in 1920 provided the foundation for what was to follow: twenty-five years of stewardship over the freedom movement. He knew the hazards to be negotiated. The British must be brought to a point where they would abdicate their rule without terrible destruction, thus assuring that freedom was not an empty achievement. To accomplish this he had to devise means of a moral sort, able to inspire the disciplined participation of millions of Indians, and equal to compelling the British to grant freedom, if not willingly, at least with resignation. Gandhi found his means in non-violent satyagraha. He insisted that it was not a cowardly form of resistance; rather, it required the most determined kind of courage.[51]
  41. ^ What he is remembered for is his vigor, his militancy, his readiness to trade blood (his own if necessary) for nationhood. In large parts of Uttar Pradesh, the historian Gyanendra Pandey has recently remarked, independence is popularly credited not to 'the quiet efforts at self¬regeneration initiated by Mahatma Gandhi,' but to 'the military daring of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.'[52]
  42. ^ " 'The transfer of power in India ,' Dr Radhakrishnan has said, 'was one of the greatest acts of reconciliation in human history.'"[53]
  43. ^ "The most troubling aspect of Bose's presence in Nazi Germany is not military or political but rather ethical. His alliance with the most genocidal regime in history poses serious dilemmas precisely because of his popularity and his having made a lifelong career of fighting the 'good cause'. How did a man who started his political career at the feet of Gandhi end up with Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo? Even in the case of Mussolini and Tojo, the gravity of the dilemma pales in comparison to that posed by his association with Hitler and the Nazi leadership. The most disturbing issue, all too often ignored, is that in the many articles, minutes, memorandums, telegrams, letters, plans, and broadcasts Bose left behind in Germany, he did not express the slightest concern or sympathy for the millions who died in the concentration camps. Not one of his Berlin wartime associates or colleagues ever quotes him expressing any indignation. Not even when the horrors of Auschwitz and its satellite camps were exposed to the world upon being liberated by Soviet troops in early 1945, revealing publicly for the first time the genocidal nature of the Nazi regime, did Bose react."[8]
  44. ^ Between 1938 and 1939 the reactions of the Anti-Nazi League, the Congress, and the progressive press toward German anti-Semitism and German politics showed that Indian public opinion and the nationalist leaders were fairly well informed about the events in Europe. If Bose, Savarkar, and others looked favourably upon racial discrimination in Germany or did not criticise them, it cannot be said, to justify them, that they were unaware of what was happening. The great anti-Jewish pogrom known as "the Night of Broken Glass" took place on 9 November 1938. In early December, pro-Hindu Mahasabha journals published articles in favour of German anti-Semitism. This stance brought the Hindu Mahasabha into conflict with the Congress which, on 12 December, made a statement containing clear references to recent European events. Within the Congress, only Bose opposed the party stance. A few months later, in April 1939, he refused to support the party motion that Jews might find refuge in India.[9]
  45. ^ Leaders of Indian National Congress (INC), which led the anti-colonial movement, responded in different ways to the plight of Jews. In 1938, Gandhi, the nationalist icon, advised the Jews to engage in non-violent resistance by challenging "the gentile Germal" to shoot him or cast him in dungeon. Jawaharlal Nehru, the future first prime minister of independent India, was sympathetic towards the Jews. The militant nationalist leader Subhas Chandra Bose, who escaped to Germany in 1941 with the aim of freeing India through military help from the Axis nations, remained predictably reticent on this issue.[54]
  46. ^ Jawaharlal Nehru called the Jews 'People without a home or nation' and sponsored a resolution in the Congress Working Committee. Although the exact date is not known yet, it can be said that it probably happened in December 1938 at the Wardha session, the one that took place shortly after Nehru returned from Europe. The draft resolution read: 'The Committee sees no objection to the employment in India of such Jewish refugees as are experts and specialists and who can fit in with the new order in India and accept Indian standards.' It was, however, rejected by the then Congress President Bose, who four years later in 1942 was reported by the Jewish Chronicle of London as having published an article in Angriff, a journal of Goebbels, saying that "anti-Semitism should become part of the Indian liberation movement because Jews had helped the British to exploit Indians (21 August 1942)" Although by then Bose had left the Congress, he continued to command a strong influence within the party.[10]
  47. ^ /ʃʊbˈhɑːs ˈtʃʌndrə ˈboʊs/ ⓘ shuub-HAHSS CHUN-drə BOHSS;[55]
  48. ^ "Another small, but immediate, issue for the civilians in Berlin and the soldiers in training was how to address Subhas Bose. Vyas has given his view of how the term was adopted: 'one of our [soldier] boys came forward with "Hamare Neta". We improved upon it: "Netaji"... It must be mentioned, that Subhas Bose strongly disapproved of it. He began to yield only when he saw our military group ... firmly went on calling him "Netaji"'. (Alexander) Werth also mentioned adoption of 'Netaji' and observed accurately, that it '... combined a sense both of affection and honour ...' It was not meant to echo 'Fuehrer' or 'Duce', but to give Subhas Bose a special Indian form of reverence and this term has been universally adopted by Indians everywhere in speaking about him."[20]
  49. ^ "His romantic saga, coupled with his defiant nationalism, has made Bose a near-mythic figure, not only in his native Bengal. but across India."[2]
  50. ^ "Bose's heroic endeavor still fires the imagination of many of his countrymen. But like a meteor which enters the earth's atmosphere, he burned brightly on the horizon for a brief moment only."[3]
  51. ^ "Subhas Bose might have been a renegade leader who had challenged the authority of the Congress leadership and their principles. But in death he was a martyred patriot whose memory could be an ideal tool for political mobilization."[4]
  52. ^ [aw][ax][ay]
  53. ^ "Younger Congressmen, including Jawaharlal Nehru, ... thought that constitution-making, whether by the British with their (Simon) Commission or by moderate politicians like the elder (Motilal) Nehru, was not the way to achieve the fundamental changes in society. Nehru and Subhas Bose rallied a group within Congress ... to declare for an independent republic. (p. 305) ... (They) were among those who, impatient with Gandhi's programmes and methods, looked upon socialism as an alternative for nationalistic policies capable of meeting the country's economic and social needs, as well as a link to potential international support (p. 325)."[21]
  54. ^ "Having arrived in Berlin a bruised politician, his broadcasts brought him—and India—world notice.[29]
  55. ^ "While writing The Indian Struggle, Bose also hired a secretary by the name of Emilie Schenkl. They eventually fell in love and married secretly in accordance with Hindu rites."[32]
  56. ^ "Although we must take Emilie Schenkl at her word (about her secret marriage to Bose in 1937), there are a few nagging doubts about an actual marriage ceremony because there is no document that I have seen and no testimony by any other person. ... Other biographers have written that Bose and Miss Schenkl were married in 1942, while Krishna Bose, implying 1941, leaves the date ambiguous. The strangest and most confusing testimony comes from A. C. N. Nambiar, who was with the couple in Badgastein briefly in 1937, and was with them in Berlin during the war as second-in-command to Bose. In an answer to my question about the marriage, he wrote to me in 1978: 'I cannot state anything definite about the marriage of Bose referred to by you, since I came to know of it only a good while after the end of the last world war ... I can imagine the marriage having been a very informal one ...'... So what are we left with? ... We know they had a close passionate relationship and that they had a child, Anita, born 29 November 1942, in Vienna. ... And we have Emilie Schenkl's testimony that they were married secretly in 1937. Whatever the precise dates, the most important thing is the relationship."[33]
  57. ^ "Apart from the Free India Centre, Bose also had another reason to feel satisfied-even comfortable-in Berlin. After months of residing in a hotel, the Foreign Office procured a luxurious residence for him along with a butler, cook, gardener and an SS-chauffeured car. Emilie Schenkl moved in openly with him. The Germans, aware of the nature of their relationship, refrained from any involvement. The following year she gave birth to a daughter.[32]
  58. ^ "Tojo turned over all his Indian POWs to Bose's command, and in October 1943 Bose announced the creation of a Provisional Government of Azad ("Free") India, of which he became head of state, prime minister, minister of war, and minister of foreign affairs. Some two million Indians were living in Southeast Asia when the Japanese seized control of that region, and these emigrees were the first "citizens" of that government, founded under the "protection" of Japan and headquartered on the "liberated" Andaman Islands. Bose declared war on the United States and Great Britain the day after his government was established. In January 1944 he moved his provisional capital to Rangoon and started his Indian National Army on their march north to the battle cry of the Meerut mutineers: "Chalo Delhi!"[40]
  59. ^ "At the same time that the Japanese appreciated the firmness with which Bose's forces continued to fight, they were endlessly exasperated with him. A number of Japanese officers, even those like Fujiwara, who were devoted to the Indian cause, saw Bose as a military incompetent as well as an unrealistic and stubborn man who saw only his own needs and problems and could not see the larger picture of the war as the Japanese had to."[15]
  60. ^ "Gracey consoled himself that Bose's Indian National Army had also been in action against his Indians and Gurkhas but had been roughly treated and almost annihilated; when the survivors tried to surrender, they tended to fall foul of the Gurkhas' dreaded kukri."[41]
  61. ^ Initially, INA troops in the Arakan stayed loyal to the INA and their IJA masters. However, as starvation and defeat began to take their toll, loyalties began to waver, and two companies from the Bose Brigade surrendered en masse to British forces in July 1944.[42]
  62. ^ "The good news Wavell reported was that the RAF had just recently flown enough of its planes into Manipur's capital of Imphal to smash Netaji ("Leader") Subhas Chandra Bose's Indian National Army (INA) that had advanced to its outskirts before the monsoon began. Bose's INA consisted of about 20,000 of the British Indian soldiers captured by the Japanese in Singapore, who had volunteered to serve under Netaji Bose when he offered them "Freedom" if they were willing to risk their "Blood" to gain Indian independence a year earlier. The British considered Bose and his "army of traitors" no better than their Japanese sponsors, but to most of Bengal's 50 million Indians, Bose was a great national hero and potential "Liberator". The INA was stopped before entering Bengal, first by monsoon rains and then by the RAF, and forced to retreat, back through Burma and down its coast to the Malay peninsula. In May 1945, Bose would fly out of Saigon on an overloaded Japanese plane, headed for Taiwan, which crash-landed and burned. Bose suffered third-degree burns and died in the hospital on Formosa."[43]
  63. ^ "The retreat was even more devastating, finally ending the dream of gaining Indian independence through military campaign. But Bose still remained optimistic, thought of regrouping after the Japanese surrender, contemplated seeking help from Soviet Russia. The Japanese agreed to provide him transport up to Manchuria from where he could travel to Russia. But on his way, on 18 August 1945 at Taihoku airport in Taiwan, he died in an air crash, which many Indians still believe never happened."[4]
  64. ^ "There are still some in India today who believe that Bose remained alive and in Soviet custody, a once and future king of Indian independence. The legend of 'Netaii' Bose's survival helped bind together the defeated INA. In Bengal it became an assurance of the province's supreme importance in the liberation of the motherland. It sustained the morale of many across India and Southeast Asia who deplored the return of British power or felt alienated from the political settlement finally achieved by Gandhi and Nehru.[44]
  65. ^ "On 21 March 1944, Subhas Bose and advanced units of the INA crossed the borders of India, entering Manipur, and by May they had advanced to the outskirts of that state's capital, Imphal. That was the closest Bose came to Bengal, where millions of his devoted followers awaited his army's "liberation". The British garrison at Imphal and its air arm withstood Bose's much larger force long enough for the monsoon rains to defer all possibility of warfare in that jungle region for the three months the British so desperately needed to strengthen their eastern wing. Bose had promised his men freedom in exchange for their blood, but the tide of battle turned against them after the 1944 rains, and in May 1945 the INA surrendered in Rangoon. Bose escaped on the last Japanese plane to leave Saigon, but he died in Formosa after a crash landing there in August. By that time, however, his death had been falsely reported so many times that a myth soon emerged in Bengal that Netaji Subhas Chandra was alive—raising another army in China or Tibet or the Soviet Union—and would return with it to "liberate" India.[45]
  66. ^ "Subhas Bose was dead, killed in 1945 in a plane crash in the Far East, even though many of his devotees waited—as Barbarossa's disciples had done in another time and in another country—for their hero's second coming."[46]
  67. ^ "The thrust of Sarkar's thought, like that of Chittaranjan Das and Subhas Bose, was to challenge the idea that 'the average Indian is indifferent to life', as R. K. Kumaria put it. India once possessed an energised, Machiavellian political culture. All it needed was a hero (rather than a Gandhi-style saint) to revive the culture and steer India to life and freedom through violent contentions of world forces (vishwa shakti) represented in imperialism, fascism and socialism."[47]
  68. ^ As cases began to come to trial, the Indian National Congress began to speak out in defence of INA prisoners, even though it had vocally opposed both the INA's narrative and methods during the war. The Muslim League and the Punjab Unionists followed suit. By mid-September, Nehru was becoming increasingly vocal in his view that trials of INA defendants should not move forward.[49]
  69. ^ "The claim is even made that without the Japanese-influenced 'Indian National Army' under Subhas Chandra Bose, India would not have achieved independence in 1947; though those who make claim seem unaware of the mood of the British people in 1945 and of the attitude of the newly-elected Labour government to the Indian question."[50]
  70. ^ "Despite any whimsy in implementation, the clarity of Gandhi's political vision and the skill with which he carried the reforms in 1920 provided the foundation for what was to follow: twenty-five years of stewardship over the freedom movement. He knew the hazards to be negotiated. The British must be brought to a point where they would abdicate their rule without terrible destruction, thus assuring that freedom was not an empty achievement. To accomplish this he had to devise means of a moral sort, able to inspire the disciplined participation of millions of Indians, and equal to compelling the British to grant freedom, if not willingly, at least with resignation. Gandhi found his means in non-violent satyagraha. He insisted that it was not a cowardly form of resistance; rather, it required the most determined kind of courage.[51]
  71. ^ What he is remembered for is his vigor, his militancy, his readiness to trade blood (his own if necessary) for nationhood. In large parts of Uttar Pradesh, the historian Gyanendra Pandey has recently remarked, independence is popularly credited not to 'the quiet efforts at self¬regeneration initiated by Mahatma Gandhi,' but to 'the military daring of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.'[52]
  72. ^ " 'The transfer of power in India ,' Dr Radhakrishnan has said, 'was one of the greatest acts of reconciliation in human history.'"[53]
  73. ^ "The most troubling aspect of Bose's presence in Nazi Germany is not military or political but rather ethical. His alliance with the most genocidal regime in history poses serious dilemmas precisely because of his popularity and his having made a lifelong career of fighting the 'good cause'. How did a man who started his political career at the feet of Gandhi end up with Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo? Even in the case of Mussolini and Tojo, the gravity of the dilemma pales in comparison to that posed by his association with Hitler and the Nazi leadership. The most disturbing issue, all too often ignored, is that in the many articles, minutes, memorandums, telegrams, letters, plans, and broadcasts Bose left behind in Germany, he did not express the slightest concern or sympathy for the millions who died in the concentration camps. Not one of his Berlin wartime associates or colleagues ever quotes him expressing any indignation. Not even when the horrors of Auschwitz and its satellite camps were exposed to the world upon being liberated by Soviet troops in early 1945, revealing publicly for the first time the genocidal nature of the Nazi regime, did Bose react."[8]
  74. ^ Between 1938 and 1939 the reactions of the Anti-Nazi League, the Congress, and the progressive press toward German anti-Semitism and German politics showed that Indian public opinion and the nationalist leaders were fairly well informed about the events in Europe. If Bose, Savarkar, and others looked favourably upon racial discrimination in Germany or did not criticise them, it cannot be said, to justify them, that they were unaware of what was happening. The great anti-Jewish pogrom known as "the Night of Broken Glass" took place on 9 November 1938. In early December, pro-Hindu Mahasabha journals published articles in favour of German anti-Semitism. This stance brought the Hindu Mahasabha into conflict with the Congress which, on 12 December, made a statement containing clear references to recent European events. Within the Congress, only Bose opposed the party stance. A few months later, in April 1939, he refused to support the party motion that Jews might find refuge in India.[9]
  75. ^ Leaders of Indian National Congress (INC), which led the anti-colonial movement, responded in different ways to the plight of Jews. In 1938, Gandhi, the nationalist icon, advised the Jews to engage in non-violent resistance by challenging "the gentile Germal" to shoot him or cast him in dungeon. Jawaharlal Nehru, the future first prime minister of independent India, was sympathetic towards the Jews. The militant nationalist leader Subhas Chandra Bose, who escaped to Germany in 1941 with the aim of freeing India through military help from the Axis nations, remained predictably reticent on this issue.[54]
  76. ^ Jawaharlal Nehru called the Jews 'People without a home or nation' and sponsored a resolution in the Congress Working Committee. Although the exact date is not known yet, it can be said that it probably happened in December 1938 at the Wardha session, the one that took place shortly after Nehru returned from Europe. The draft resolution read: 'The Committee sees no objection to the employment in India of such Jewish refugees as are experts and specialists and who can fit in with the new order in India and accept Indian standards.' It was, however, rejected by the then Congress President Bose, who four years later in 1942 was reported by the Jewish Chronicle of London as having published an article in Angriff, a journal of Goebbels, saying that "anti-Semitism should become part of the Indian liberation movement because Jews had helped the British to exploit Indians (21 August 1942)" Although by then Bose had left the Congress, he continued to command a strong influence within the party.[10]
References

References

  1. ^ Bose, Subhas Chandra (26 June 1943). "Speech of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, Tokyo, 1943". Prasar Bharati Archives. Archived from the original on 30 January 2021. Retrieved 26 January 2021.
  2. ^ a b c d e Metcalf & Metcalf 2012, p. 210.
  3. ^ a b Kulke & Rothermund 2004, p. 311.
  4. ^ a b c d Bandyopādhyāẏa 2004, p. 427.
  5. ^ Stein 2010, pp. 345.
  6. ^ Rudolph, Lloyd I.; Rudolph, Suzanne Hoeber (1987), In Pursuit of Lakshmi: The Political Economy of the Indian State, University of Chicago Press, pp. 69–70, ISBN 0-226-73138-3
  7. ^ Louro, Michele L (2021), "Anti-fascism and anti-imperialism between the world wars: The perspective from India", in Braskin, Kasper; Featherstone, David; Copsey, Nigel (eds.), Anti-Fascism in a Global Perspective: Transnational, Routledge, ISBN 9781138352186
  8. ^ a b c Hayes 2011, p. 165.
  9. ^ a b c Casolari 2020, pp. 89–90.
  10. ^ a b c Aafreedi, Navras J. (2021), "Holocaust education in India and its challenges", in Aafreedi, Navras J.; Singh, Priya (eds.), Conceptualizing Mass Violence: Representations, Recollections, and reinterpretatons, Abington, UK and New York, NY: Routledge, p. 154, ISBN 978-1-003-14613-1 Cite error: The named reference "afreedi-2021-bose" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  11. ^ Weinberg, Gerhard L. (2011), A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2nd Edition, p. xx, ISBN 978-0-521-61826-7
  12. ^ Shindler, Colin (2010), Israel and the European Left: Between Solidarity and Deligitimization, New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, Continuum, p. 112, ISBN 978-1-4411-8898-4
  13. ^ Kumaraswamy, P. R. (2010), Squaring the Circle: Mahatma Gandhi and the Jewish National Home, Digital version, Routledge, p. 153, ISBN 9781000097856
  14. ^ Marston 2014, pp. 117–118.
  15. ^ a b c Gordon 1990, p. 517.
  16. ^ "At the same time that the Japanese appreciated the firmness with which Bose's forces continued to fight, they were endlessly exasperated with him. A number of Japanese officers, even those like Fujiwara, who were devoted to the Indian cause, saw Bose as a military incompetent as well as an unrealistic and stubborn man who saw only his own needs and problems and could not see the larger picture of the war as the Japanese had to."[15]
  17. ^ *Markovits, Claude (2021), India and the World: A History of Connections, c.1750–2000, Cambridge, UK and New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, pp. 79, 113, 114, doi:10.1017/9781316899847, ISBN 978-1-107-18675-0, LCCN 2021000609, S2CID 233601747,   (p. 79) This was owing to Japan's own ambivalent attitude towards Indians: on the one hand, the Japanese saw them as potential allies in the fight against Britain, and they made an alliance with the dissident nationalist leader Subhas Chandra Bose; on the other hand, they despised them as a 'subject race' enslaved by the British. Thanks to this alliance, however, the Indians escaped some of the harshest measures that the Japanese took against the Chinese population in the region. That said, 100,000 Indian coolies, mostly Tamilian plantation workers, were conscripted as forced labour and put to work on various infrastructure projects for the Japanese Imperial Army. Some were sent from Malaya to Thailand to work on the infamous Thailand–Burma railway project, resulting in 30,000 deaths of fever and exhaustion (Nakahara 2005). Thousands of war prisoners who had refused to join the Indian National Army (INA) of Subhas Bose were sent to faraway New Guinea, where Australian troops discovered them hiding in 1945.
    • Markovits, Claude (2021), India and the World: A History of Connections, c.1750–2000, Cambridge, UK and New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, pp. 79, 113, 114, doi:10.1017/9781316899847, ISBN 978-1-107-18675-0, LCCN 2021000609, S2CID 233601747,  (p. 113) y. Amongst the 16,000 Indian prisoners taken by the Axis armies in North Africa, some 3,000 joined the so-called 'Legion of Free India' ('Freies Indien Legion'), in fact the 950th Infantry Regiment of the Wehrmacht, formed in 1942 in response to the call of dissident Indian nationalist leader Subhas Chandra Bose (1897–1945), who had escaped from India, where he was under house arrest, in 1940 and reached Germany in 1941 after a long trek via Afghanistan and the Soviet Union. The soldiers of that regiment swore allegiance both to Hitler and to Subhas Bose and wore special insignia over their German uniforms. A few German officers were detached to command the regiment (Hartog 2001). As a fighting force, however, the legion proved singularly ineffective. First stationed in the Netherlands, it was moved in 1943 to south-west France, where it did garrison duties along the 'Mur de l'Atlantique', not a very onerous task. Following the Allied landing in June 1944, it was incorporated into the Waffen SS and followed the German army in its gradual retreat from France, occasionally engaging in skirmishes with the French Résistance. There was a breakdown of discipline, some men took to looting and raping, and twenty-nine 'légionnaires' captured by the Résistance were publicly executed on Poitiers' main square in September 1944. The remains of the force ended up in Germany, and the legion was officially dissolved in March 1945. The men then tried to reach Switzerland, but most of them were caught by British and French troops. A few were summarily executed by Moroccan troops of the French army, but the majority were transferred to India where they were imprisoned awaiting trial, which eventually did not take place. They were not allowed to re-enlist in the army after the war but were awarded pensions by independent India.
    • Markovits, Claude (2021), India and the World: A History of Connections, c.1750–2000, Cambridge, UK and New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, pp. 79, 113, 114, doi:10.1017/9781316899847, ISBN 978-1-107-18675-0, LCCN 2021000609, S2CID 233601747,  (p. 114) Part of the INA participated in the Japanese invasion of March 1944, but its entry into India failed to trigger the rising that Bose had hoped for, and the INA soldiers met with a determined response from their ex-comrades in the Indian army. Many were taken prisoner, and the rest retreated into Burma, where they soon faced an invasion from India. While, from a strictly military point of view, Bose's attempt was a total fiasco, the political outcome of his adventure was more significant
    • Roy, Kaushik (2019), The Battle for Malaya: The Indian Army in Defeat, 1941–1942, Twentieth-Century Battles series, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, p. 222, ISBN 978-0-253-04415-0,  And not all the Indian PoWs who joined the first INA were volunteers. Between April and December 1942, those Indian commissioned officers, with the aid of some VCOs who had joined the INA, used violence to force the jawans to change sides. Those jawans who refused to join the INA were denied medical treatment and food and were even sent to work in the Japanese "death camps" (labor camps) in New Guinea. One example is that of John Baptist Crasta, who was born on 31 March 1910 near Mangalore in South India. He was an Indian Christian. In 1933, he joined the Indian Army in the noncombatant branch. In March 1941, the 12th Field Battalion in which Crasta was serving was ordered to Singapore. As head clerk, Crasta was in charge of supplying rations to the 11th Indian Division. According to him, torture of the nonvolunteers started under Mohan Singh's direction from late March 1942 onwards. In Crasta's own words: "Near Bidadare, a camp was created to torture non-volunteers. Although given the innocent name of Separation Camp, it was actually a concentration camp where the most inhuman atrocities were committed by the INA men on their non-volunteer Indian brethren. Subedars Sher Singh and Fateh Khan were put in charge of this notorious prison. High ranking officers who refused to have anything to do with the INA were thrown into it without clothing or food, made to carry heavy loads on their heads, and to double up on the slightest sign of slackness. . . . They would be caned, beaten, and kicked." However, Subhas Bose never used violence to compel the PoWs to join the second INA. Nevertheless, the Indian PoWs were subjected to virulent propaganda in order to ensure their compliance to join the INA.
  18. ^ Moreman 2013, pp. 124–125.
  19. ^ McLynn 2011, p. 429.
  20. ^ a b Gordon 1990, pp. 459–460.
  21. ^ a b Stein 2010, pp. 305, 325.
  22. ^ a b Matthews, Roderick (2021), Peace, Poverty, and Betrayal: A New History of British India, Oxford University Press, By this point the Congress leadership was in turmoil after the election of Subhas Chandra Bose as president in 1938. His victory was taken, principally by Bose himself, as proof that Gandhi's star was in decline, and that the Congress could now switch to his personal programme of revolutionary change. He set no store by non-violence and his ideals were pitched a good deal to the left of Gandhi's. His plans also included a large amount of leadership from himself. This autocratic temperament alienated virtually the whole Congress high command, and when he forced himself into the presidency again the next year, the Working Committee revolted. Bose, bitter and broken in health, complained that the 'Rightists' had conspired to bring him down. This was true, but Bose, who seems to have had a talent for misreading situations, seriously overestimated the strength of his support—a significant miscalculation, for it led him to resign in order to create his own faction, the Forward Bloc, modelled on the kind of revolutionary national socialism fashionable across much of Europe at the time.
  23. ^ a b Haithcox, John Patrick (1971), Communism and Nationalism in India: M. N. Roy and Comintern Policy, 1920–1939, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. 282–283, ISBN 0-691-08722-9, LCCN 79120755, One of the principal points of dispute between Bose and the Congress high command was the attitude the party should take toward the proposed Indian federation. The 1935 Constitution provided for a union of the princely states with the provinces of British India on a federal basis. This was to take place after a certain number of states had indicated their willingness to join. This part of the constitution never came into effect for it failed to secure the assent of the required number of princes, but nevertheless the question of its acceptance in principle was hotly debated for some time within the party. In opposing federation, Bose spoke for many within the Congress party. He argued that under the terms of the constitution the princes would have one-third of the seats in the lower house although they represented only one-fourth of India's population. Moreover, they would nominate their own representatives, whereas legislators from British India, the nominees of various political parties, would not be equally united. Consequently, he reasoned, the princes would have a reactionary influence on Indian politics. Following his election for a second term, Bose charged that some members of the Working Committee were willing to compromise on this issue. Incensed at this allegation, all but three of the fifteen members of the Working Committee resigned. The exception was Nehru, Bose himself, and his brother Sarat. There was no longer any hope for reconciliation between the dissidents and the old guard.
  24. ^ a b Low 2002, pp. 297, 313.
  25. ^ a b Gordon 1990, pp. 420–428.
  26. ^ a b c d Hayes 2011, pp. 65–67.
  27. ^ a b Hayes 2011, p. 152.
  28. ^ a b Hayes 2011, p. 76.
  29. ^ a b Hayes 2011, p. 162.
  30. ^ a b Hayes 2011, pp. 87–88.
  31. ^ a b Hayes 2011, pp. 114–116.
  32. ^ a b c d e f g h Hayes 2011, p. 15.
  33. ^ a b c d Gordon 1990, pp. 344–345.
  34. ^ a b c d Hayes 2011, pp. 141–143.
  35. ^ a b Bose 2005, p. 255.
  36. ^ a b Lebra 2008a, pp. vii–ix, xvi–xvii, 210–212 From the Abstract (pp vii–ix): It (the book) covers the beginnings of the Indian National Army, as part of a Japanese military intelligence operation under Major Iwaichi Fujiwara, ... From the Introduction (pp xvi–xvii): Major Fujiwara brought India to the attention of IGHQ (Imperial General Headquarters, Tokyo) and helped organize the INA. Fujiwara established the initial sincerity and credibility of Japanese aid for the Indian independence struggle. Captain Mohan Singh, a young Sikh POW from the British-Indian cooperated with Fujiwara in the inception of the INA. From pages 210–212: Two events forced India on the attention of IGHQ once hostilities broke out in the Pacific: Japanese military successes in Malaya and Thailand, particularly the capture of Singapore and with it thousands of Indian POWs, and reports by Major Fujiwara of the creation of a revolutionary Indian army eager to fight the British out of India. Fujiwara presided at the birth of the Indian National Army, together with a young Sikh, Captain Mohan Singh. Two generals sent by IGHQ to review Fujiwara's project reported favourably on his proposals to step up intelligence activities through the civilian and military arms of the independence movement.
  37. ^ a b Lebra 2008b, p. 100  Hot-headed young Bengali radicals broke into the convention hall where Fujiwara, the founder of the INA, was to address the assemblage and shouted abuse at him.
  38. ^ a b Gordon, Leonard (2008), "Indian National Army" (PDF), in William A. Darity Jr. (ed.), International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 2nd Edition, Volume 3, pp. 610–611, archived (PDF) from the original on 1 November 2021, retrieved 1 November 2021, The Indian National Army (INA) was formed in 1942 by Indian prisoners of war captured by the Japanese in Singapore. It was created with the aid of Japanese forces. Captain Mohan Singh became the INA's first leader, and Major Iwaichi Fujiwara was the Japanese intelligence officer who brokered the arrangement to create the army, which was to be trained to fight British and other Allied forces in Southeast Asia.
  39. ^ a b Low 1993, pp. 31–32 But there were others who took a different course, perhaps out of expediency, perhaps in an effort to hold on to their existing gains, perhaps because they could see no end to the Japanese occupation. Thus as early as 1940, the erstwhile Chinese revolutionary and one-time leftist leader, Wang Ching-wei, became premier of a Japanese puppet government in Nanking. A few months later Subhas Bose, who had long been Nehru's rival for the plaudits of the younger Indian nationalists, joined the Axis powers, and in due course formed the Indian National Army to support the Japanese. In the Philippines, Vargas, President Quezon's former secretary, very soon headed up a Philippines Executive Commission to cooperate with the Japanese; in Indonesia both Hatta and Sukarno, now at last released, readily agreed to collaborate with them; while shortly afterwards Ba Maw, prime minister of Burma under the British, agreed to serve as his country's head of state under the Japanese as well. ... As the war turned against them so the Japanese attempted to exploit this situation further. In August 1943 they made Ba Maw prime minister of an allegedly more independent Burma. In October 1943 they established a new Republic of the Philippines under the presidency of yet another Filipino oligarch, José Laurel. In that same month Subhas Bose established under their auspices a Provisional Government of Azad Hind (Free India)
  40. ^ a b c d Wolpert 2000, p. 339.
  41. ^ a b McLynn 2011, pp. 295–296.
  42. ^ a b Marston 2014, p. 124.
  43. ^ a b Wolpert 2009, p. 69.
  44. ^ a b Bayly & Harper 2007, p. 22.
  45. ^ a b Wolpert 2000, pp. 339–340.
  46. ^ a b Chatterji 2007, p. 278.
  47. ^ a b Bayly 2012, p. 283.
  48. ^ a b c d Bayly & Harper 2007, p. 21.
  49. ^ a b Marston 2014, p. 129.
  50. ^ a b Allen 2012, p. 179.
  51. ^ a b Stein 2010, p. 297.
  52. ^ a b Fay 1995, p. 522.
  53. ^ a b Corbett, Jim; Elwin, Verrier; Ali, Salim (2004), Lives in the Wilderness: Three Classic Indian Autobiographies, Oxford University Press
  54. ^ a b Roy, Baijayanti (2019), "The Past is Indeed a Different Country: Perception of Holocaust in India", in Ballis, Anja; Gloe, Markus (eds.), Holocaust Education Revisited, Wiesbaden, Germany: Springer VS, p. 108, ISBN 978-3-658-24204-6
  55. ^ Bose, Subhas Chandra (26 June 1943). "Speech of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, Tokyo, 1943". Prasar Bharati Archives. Archived from the original on 30 January 2021. Retrieved 26 January 2021.
  56. ^ "As Netaji turns 125, it's 'Dilli chalo' again for India's 'lost hero'". The Times of India. ISSN 0971-8257. Retrieved 2025-01-31.
  57. ^ "Subhas Chandra Bose | Biography, Death, & Legacy | Britannica". www.britannica.com. 2025-01-25. Retrieved 2025-01-31.

Discussion

[edit]

I did the above to enable a discussion of whether the changes to the lead would make the article better or worse. The changes are too large for diffs to be much use. @Malhar1234: please could you tell us why you think your changes are a good idea. (By the way there are also changes to the Ideology and Quotes sections, but a diff enables us to see what they are.[4])-- Toddy1 (talk) 22:57, 31 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Toddy1 In reality the changes aren't very complex; I suggest you turn on the improved diff viewer in preferences, which enables you to view diffs such as the one linked above properly. The only notable change to the lead was the removal of the clause "but his wartime alliances with Nazi Germany and Fascist Japan left a legacy vexed by authoritarianism, anti-Semitism, and military failure", which from an outside viewers perspective does not seem like a very uncontroversial removal. Flemmish Nietzsche (talk) 23:11, 31 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Subhas_Chandra_Bose&oldid=1273138102"