Accidental Blogger

Gandhi's non-violent struggle against the British Empire takes the center stage in most popular narratives of the Indian independence movement, particularly outside India. But there was a parallel and contemporaneous movement espousing a violent overthrow of the colonial overlords by another Indian leader with substantial influence within the political arena of India's struggle for freedom. Subhas Chandra Bose the fiery leader of the latter effort was as much an idealist as Gandhi and similarly uncompromising in what he considered the correct path to achieving India's independence from two hundred years of foreign occupation. Bose's influence on younger and more radical minded Indian activists was considerable. To achieve his purpose, Bose sought out alliances with the enemies of the British during WWII, among them the murderous Nazi regime in Germany. For that he has been reviled by many historians. But his reputation in India remains that of a revered hero who was uncompromisingly faithful to his ideals and sought the help of the worst totalitarian regime of his time for the sake of India's freedom from the yoke of oppression under a different European empire.

Two recent books examine the seemingly contradictory aspects of Bose's life. The one by Roman Hayes takes the Indian leader to task for making a devil's pact with the Nazis and ascribes to Bose a similarly fascist and totalitarian mindset as Hitler and Mussolini. The second book by Bose's great nephew Sugata Bose explains that things were more complicated than a simplistic sinner or saint portrayal of the man. A comparative review of the two books by Sudip Bose (no relation) appeared in the Book Forum: 

On a moonlit January night in 1941, Subhas Chandra Bose, a leader of India’s independence movement—as influential in his time as Gandhi and nearly as mythologized in his homeland today—embarked on a perilous, clandestine journey. Frail from a hunger strike begun during his eleventh stint in British prisons, Bose was sent home to recuperate—to get just well enough, that is, to be arrested once again. Seeking to take advantage of Britain’s involvement in World War II, he knew he could not languish any longer in prison. So he worked out a bold escape. Disguised as a North Indian Muslim, he left his family’s home on Calcutta’s Elgin Road and sneaked out of the city in the direction of Delhi, where he caught a train to Peshawar—journeying on, under the name Orlando Mazzotta, to Samarkand, Moscow, and Berlin. It was April 1941, and Bose arrived in Nazi Germany, ready to launch a revolution.

Bose had traveled extensively in Europe in the 1930s as a spokesman-diplomat advocating for India’s emancipation. This second European exile, however, was born out of greater urgency, even desperation. He went to Germany believing that Britain would lose the war and that an alliance with the Axis powers would give India a seat opposite Britain at the postwar negotiating table. But he intended to take a more active stance as well, hoping to persuade the thousands of soldiers of Britain’s Indian Army, captured in Germany and Italian prisoner-of-war camps, to form a legion, turn against their colonial masters, and liberate the subcontinent from without.

That Bose managed to set up residence in Berlin during the most heinous period of German history seems nothing short of astonishing. He lived in a luxurious villa with his wife, Emilie, an Austrian Catholic woman, in defiance of the Nazis’ racial laws. He established a Free India Center and worked with the German Foreign Office. He organized the military training of an elite force of Indian commandos. He began broadcasting to India on his Azad Hind (Free India) Radio, waging a propaganda battle against the British. He met with Mussolini and many senior German officials, including Heinrich Himmler, Joachim von Ribbentrop, and Hitler, as he pursued official recognition of India’s independence.

More here.