Subhas Chandra Bose

Subhas Chandra Bose (23 January 1897 – 18 August 1945) is remembered across India as a defiant figure who challenged British rule, yet his reputation is complicated by his partnerships with Nazi Germany and Japan—alliances that brought charges of authoritarianism, antisemitism, and eventual military collapse. The title Netaji, meaning "Respected Leader" in Hindustani, was first used for him in Germany early in 1942, coined by Indian soldiers in the Indische Legion and by officials in Berlin’s Special Bureau for India; today it is common throughout India.

Bose grew up in a wealthy Bengali family in Orissa under British rule. After an English-style education, he went to England to sit for the Indian Civil Service exams. He passed the first crucial test with high marks but refused to take the routine final exam, insisting that nationalism was a greater calling. Returning to India in 1921, he joined Mahatma Gandhi and the Indian National Congress in the independence movement.

1937–1940: Indian National Congress

Alongside Jawaharlal Nehru, Bose led a faction within Congress that favored socialism over constitutional reform. He became Congress president in 1938. After being re-elected in 1939, tensions grew with Gandhi and other leaders over the future federation of British India and the princely states, as well as over Bose’s flexible stance on non-violence and his desire for expanded personal authority. When most of the Congress Working Committee resigned in protest, Bose stepped down as president and was eventually expelled from the party.

1941–1943: Collaboration with Nazi Germany

In April 1941, Bose arrived in Nazi Germany, where leaders offered unexpected but cautious sympathy for Indian independence. German funds set up a Free India Centre in Berlin, and a Free India Legion of about 3,000 men was formed from Indian prisoners of war captured by Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps, serving under Bose. Though not a priority for Germany, a land invasion of India was considered inconclusively throughout 1941. By spring 1942, the German army was bogged down in Russia, and Bose wanted to move to Southeast Asia, where Japan had recently scored rapid victories.

Adolf Hitler met Bose once, in late May 1942, and agreed to provide a submarine. Around this time, Bose became a father: his wife or companion, Emilie Schenkl, gave birth to a daughter. Strongly identifying with the Axis, Bose boarded a German submarine in February 1943. Off Madagascar, he transferred to a Japanese submarine, reaching Japanese-held Sumatra in May 1943.

1943–1945: Japanese-occupied Asia

With Japanese backing, Bose rebuilt the Indian National Army (INA), made up of Indian prisoners of war from the British Indian army captured by Japan at the Battle of Singapore. A Provisional Government of Free India (Azad Hind) was declared on the Japanese-occupied Andaman and Nicobar Islands, with Bose as its nominal head. Though driven and charismatic, Bose was seen by the Japanese as militarily unskilled, and his military campaign was brief. In late 1944 and early 1945, the British Indian Army pushed back the Japanese attack on India.

Nearly half of the Japanese forces and half of the INA contingent were killed. The remaining INA retreated down the Malay Peninsula and surrendered when Singapore was recaptured. Bose chose to flee to Manchuria, hoping to find a future in the Soviet Union, which he believed had turned against the British.

18 August 1945: Death

Bose died from third-degree burns after his plane crashed in Taiwan (then under Japanese occupation) on 18 August 1945. Some Indians refused to believe the crash had occurred, expecting him to return and secure India’s independence. The Indian National Congress praised Bose’s patriotism but kept its distance from his methods and ideology.

The British Raj, never seriously threatened by the INA, charged 300 INA officers with treason in the Indian National Army trials, but eventually backed down due to opposition from Congress and a new mood in Britain for rapid decolonization. Bose’s legacy is mixed. Many in India see him as a hero, his story offering a counterpoint to the quarter-century of negotiation and reconciliation that actually achieved independence. Yet his collaborations with Japanese fascism and Nazism raise serious ethical questions, especially his reluctance to publicly condemn German anti-Semitism from 1938 onward or to offer refuge in India to its victims.