Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose was one of the most outspoken freedom fighters of India. His words and actions inspired thousands to join the fight to free the country from the clutches of the British colonial rule.
In 1920, Bose cleared the Indian Civil Service Examination and went to England to work. An year later, he decided to resign his job and join the noncooperation movement started by Mahatma Gandhi.
By late 1920’s, he became the leader of the younger, radical, wing of the Indian National Congress eventually making his way to be elected as Congress President in 1938.
His 17 year long association with the Congress wasn’t a smooth run, simply because the party strongly preached Non-Violence and he did not.
He believed in Stalin’s Communism and Mussolini’s fascism, which made his approaches different from that of the usual songs sung by other Congress leaders. He represented a militant left wing of the party against Gandhi’s peaceful right wing. His undemocratic ideologies gradually distanced him away from the party and most of its followers. He was arrested and released several times for his actions. Bose was in detention for his association with an underground revolutionary group when the civil disobedience movement started in 1930.
Gandhi and his followers had serious issues with the methods Bose chose to challenge the Queen’s rule.
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When he became the President of the party he put forward a broad industrialisation policy which didn’t go well with Gandhi’s notions of benefiting from the country’s own resources by upbringing cottage industries.
The relationship with Gandhi had already turned hostile. In 1939, Bose defeated Dr. Pattabhi Sitaramayya, a rival candidate who Gandhi put forward to challenge his presidential rule.
“I am glad of his (Subhash’s) victory.. and since I was instrumental in introducing Dr Pattabhi not to withdraw his name after Maulana Azad Sahib did so, the defeat is more mine than his,” Gandhi said, after the announcement of Bose’s victory, ED Times reported.
This was a blow to Bose as he had huge respect for Gandhi and was first to hail Gandhi the Father of the Nation.
During his reign, Bose preached for Purna Swaraj that wanted the country to be completely free from any form of governal assistance from the British. Foreseeing the future of the country, he advocated communal harmony and not the Divide and Rule.
The Constitution of Indian National Congress does not allow the president to be removed. So a power-play occurs in the Congress Working Committee where at the party’s Annual meeting, Bose’s demands were ignored and later, 13 Gandhian members of the working committee resigned.
Considering the unrest, In April 1939, Bose gave up his presidential position, his successor Dr Rajendra Prasad later went on to become the first president of independent India.
After his step down, the congress leaders began negotiating with the British to slice the country into two based on religion.
In May 1939, Bose formed the All India Forward Bloc, a left-wing nationalist political party under the congress.
In July 1940, he was jailed again. He began his satyagraha to strongly express his refusal to stay behind bars. Frightened by his actions, the British government let him go.
After India’s independence in 1947, the party split from Congress and re-established itself as an independent political party.
Some believe and the history underlines it, had it not been for Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and his outspoken approach, India, like many African nations, would have taken some 30-40 years to probably be free from colonial rule.
