Firebrand who shaped Bengal’s politics, culture
His life and death continue to intrigue generations, but 125 years after Subhas Chandra Bose was born, his legacy still shapes not just the politics of Bengal but also the region’s society, culture and literature — a testament to the abiding attraction of his firebrand patriotism and his grassroots connect.
Born in Cuttack in 1897 in a prominent Bengali family, Bose went to college in erstwhile Calcutta and chose the city as his political arena.
He started a newspaper, rose steadily through the Congress, gave rousing addresses, and eventually became mayor of Calcutta in 1930. His rise to the top in Congress, bitter fall-out with Mahatma Gandhi, and dramatic escape from house arrest in 1941 not only established his stature as the tallest politician from Bengal but also made the public believe that he was a magician who could achieve anything. His travels to Europe and south-east Asia, brushes with fascism and Nazi Germany, and empowering the Indian National Army to battle British troops burnished his colossal stature.
“Culturally and socially, people of Bengal are highly emotional. They regard Netaji as the greatest patriot India has ever seen,” said Amal Kumar Mukherjee, former principal of Presidency College where Bose was a student before he was expelled in 1916.
Since independence, numerous theories abound over the claim that Bose survived an air crash in Taiwan in August 18, 1945. Even before independence people claimed that they had met Bose in a railway carriage. The sightings gained more attention starting the 1950s with links drawn to at least six different monks. To be sure, at least four commissions have found no evidence that any of these people were actually Bose, even though the Justice Mukherjee Commission controversially concluded in 2006 that Netaji didn’t die in the crash.
“The official version was that he died in the plane crash. Why in that case was the Mukherjee Commission formed when the Shah Nawaz Committee set up in 1956 and the Khosla Commission set up in 1970 clearly said that Netaji died in Taihoku?...people are confused,” said Chandra Kumar Bose, Bose’s grandnephew and a Bharatiya Janata Party leader in Bengal.
For many experts, Netaji’s relevance is due to his ideology, not the controversy around his death. Shouvik Mukhopadhyay, a professor of history at Calcutta University, sees Bose as the architect of a nationalist thought process based on pluralism and secularism. To understand Bose’s legacy, one had to follow freedom fighter Chittaranjan Das, who was a mentor to Bose, he said. “Das bridged the chasm between Hindus and Muslims at the state and national level. Bose took this a step forward. Hence, he has become all the more relevant in today’s scenario,” he said.