GANDHI OR BOSE.......WHO DO I PREFER AND WHY.

Today I was going through a book in which there was a mention of Subhash Chandra Bose. Although I knew much about Bose I thought I should know more about him and referred to Wikipedia. Wikipedia contained a lot of information on Bose and I abridged it for myself which I have given below.

As per my opinion he had been a great leader but had dictatorial tendencies and is also intolerant. He assaulted his own professor because he made some anti Indian comments. He tried to take Hitler’s help and his Indian Legion soldiers swore allegiance to Hitler’s command. When Japanese funding of INA slowed down he imposed higher taxation on Indian populations in Malaysia and Singapore and sometimes extracted it by force. Hitler used him as long as Bose was with him and so did the Japanese.

Despite his excellent leadership qualities which fired up people, I would rather prefer Gandhi to Bose anytime.

CONCISE BIO OF BOSE ABRIDGED FROM WIKIPEDIA:

Subhash Chandra Bose was born in 1897 in Cuttack to Janakinath Bose and Prabhabati Debi. His father was an advocate. He was the 9th amongst the 14 children.

After schooling in Cuttack Bose topped the matriculation examination of the Calcutta province in 1911. He then joined the Presidency college at Calcutta for his BA but was later expelled as he attacked one professor Oaten for making some anti India comments.

He then completed his BA in philosophy from the Scottish Church College , Calcutta. He enrolled in the Cambridge University in 1919 where he did his BA in Honors but with just average marks.

He got selected to the Indian Civil Service but resigned from the appointment as a protest against the British Government. When he came back to India, Chittaranjan Das became his mentor in the Congress.

In 1923 he was elected the President of the all India Youth Congress and also the secretary of the Bengal State Congress.

He was the editor of the Paper Dehbandhu founded by Chittaranjan Das. He also worked as the CEO of the municipal corporation of Calcutta when CR Das became the Mayor in 1924.

In a roundup of nationalists in 1925 Bose was arrested and sent to Mandalay prison in Burma. In 1927 on being released from prison he became the General Secretary of the Congress party.

Bose was again arrested and jailed for civil disobedience and when he was released he became the mayor of Calcutta in 1930. During this tenure he visited Europe and saw both communism and fascism in action.

In 1938 Bose contested as the Congress president and won. This despite the fact that Bose is ideologically opposed to Gandhi who opposed his candidature. The rift also divided Nehru and Bose.

Bose was re elected as a President in 1939 over Pattabhi Seetaramayya who was favored by Gandhi. Due to opposition from the followers of Gandhi Bose ultimately had to resign as the President of the Congress. He then organized the Forward Bloc whose influence is confined to Bengal alone.

Most of the Congress leaders of that time felt it would be better to wait till Britain was through with the 2nd world war and they would get independence. Bose was opposed to this and thought that the political instability in Britain during the war should be taken advantage of. He believed that Independent India needed at least 20 years of socialist authoritarianism.

His ideas were totally against what Gandhi believed. While Gandhi said one should show the other cheek if one is slapped on one cheek, Bose believed that if someone slapped you once then you should slap them twice.

There were two cases pending against him and he felt that the British would not let him leave the country. He then escaped to Germany via Afghanistan and the Soviet Union.

He founded the Free India Center in Berlin and created the Indian legion consisting of 4500 Indian POW’s taken by the Axis powers during their fight with the British in North Africa. Its members swore allegiance to both Bose as well as Adolf Hitler. The following is the oath sworn by them:

"I swear by God this holy oath that I will obey the leader of the German race and state, Adolf Hitler, as the commander of the German armed forces in the fight for India, whose leader is Subhash Chandra Bose".

Bose was also prepared for an invasion of India by Nazi troops spearheaded by Azad Hind Fouz through Russia. Hitler did not show much interest for Indian independence and Bose decided to leave Germany in 1943.

The Indian National Army was founded by Capt. Mohan Singh in 1942 at Singapore with the Japanese POW’s of Indian origin. This was with the support of the Independence league headed by Rash Behari Bose. The first INA was disbanded when Mohan Singh felt that the Japanese were using the INA as a mere propaganda tool.

The idea of INA was again revived with the arrival of Bose in 1943 and rash Behari Bose handed over the organization to Subhash Bose.

Bose was able to rekindle the idea and received a massive support from the people of Indian origin form South East Asia who not only enlisted in the army but also gave financial support. At its height it consisted of 85,000 troops including a separate women’s unit, the Rani of Jhansi Regiment headed by Captain Lakshmi Swaminathan.

At a rally of Indians in Burma 1944 Bose gave the famous call “Give me blood and I shall give you Freedom”. The Azad Hind Government was recognized by the Axis powers.

The INA helped the Japanese by creating diversionary tactics when the Japanese were advancing to Manipur, Imphal and Kohima.

When the Andaman and Nicobar Islands were taken by the Japanese forces, the provisional Government with INA was established there with Lt.Col.A.D.Loganathan appointed as Governor General. Despite this the Japanese navy remained in control of the administration. Enraged with the lack of control Loganathan later relinquished his authority.

The Japanese along with the INA brigades were defeated in their effort to take the northeast. Bose expected that the Indian troops in British service would desert to INA during the battle. Nothing of the sort happened and on the contrary troops started deserting the INA . Japanese funding for the INA decreased and Bose was forced to raise taxes on the Indian populations of Malaysia and Singapore sometimes extracting money by force.

The INA was forced to pull back with the retreating Japanese army. With the fall of Rangoon the Bose’s government ceased to be a political entity. A large proportion of the INA troops surrendered when Rangoon fell. Japans surrender at the end of the war led to the total surrender of the INA.

Bose is alleged to have died in a plane crash in Taiwan, on 18 August 1945 while an route to Tokyo and possibly then the Soviet Union. The Japanese plane he was travelling on had engine trouble and when it crashed Bose was badly burned, dying in a local hospital four hours later. His body was then cremated. This version of events is supported by the testimonies of a Captain Yoshida Taneyoshi, and a British spy known as "Agent 1189.

The lack of a body has led to many theories have been put forward concerning his possible survival.