Subhash
Chandra Bose
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Subhash Chandra Bose was born on January 23, 1897 at Cuttack, in
Orissa. He was the sixth son of Janakinath and Prabhavati Bose.
Subhash was an excellent student and after school joined the
Presidency College, Calcutta, where he studied philosophy, a subject
he was interest in.
As a young boy Subhash felt neglected among his 8 siblings. At his
English school he suffered under the discrimination faced by Indians
which made him even sadder. |
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He
wanted to work for the poor but his father, had other ideas. He sent
Subhash to England to appear for the Indian Civil Service. In July
1920, barely eight months later Subhash Chandra Bose appeared in the
Civil Service Examination and passed it with distinction. But he
didn't want to be a member of the bureaucracy and resigned from the
service and returned to India.
Back
home, he participated in the freedom movement along with 'Deshbandhu'
C.R. Das. He was thrown into jail but that only made him more
determined. Subhash joined the congress and rose to its
Presidentship in 1938 a post he held for 2 years.
In
1939, when the Second World War started Gandhiji and other leaders
were against doing anything anti-Britain. But Subhash thought
differently. He knew, for instance, that the fall of the Roman
Empire had led to the freedom of its colonies. He decided to seek
foreign help for his cause of freeing India.
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He was
arrested and kept in his house under detention. On January 17, 1941,
while everyone was asleep, Bose slipped out of his house into a
waiting car. Disguised as a Muslim religious teacher, Bose managed
to reach Peshawar two days later. |
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Bose
went to Italy, Germany and even Russia to seek help but without
much use. Subash decided to organize Indians on his own. He
landed in Singapore and grouped Indians there into the Indian
National Army or the Azad Hind Fauj and declared himself the
temporary leader of the free Indian government. Japan, Germany
and Italy recognizied Subhash's government and the whole of
India rejoiced. |
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The
INA marched to Andaman and Nicobar islands, liberating and
renaming them as Shaheed and Swaraj islands. On March 18, 1944,
it crossed the Burmese border and reached Manipur where free
India's banner was raised with the shouts of 'Jai Hind' and 'Netaji
Zindabad'. But heavy rain prevented any further movement and the
units had to fall back. Even then Netaji was determined. On
August 17, 1945, he issued a Special Order to the INA which said
that "Delhi is still our goal". |
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He
then wanted to go to Russia to seek Soviet help to fight the
British. But the ill-fated plane in which he was flying, crashed
in Taipei on August 18, 1945, resulting in his death. |
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Some
people believe that Subhash Chandra Bose didn't die, that he
faked his own crash to escape the British who wanted to arrest
him. There were even reports of Bose living in Russia and other
foreign countries, even some claims of having seen him as a
sadhu… but none were ever proved and today his death in the
plane crash is the accepted version. |
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