Subhas Chandra Bose
Subhas Chandra Bose was an Indian nationalist who broke with Gandhi over non-violence and sought Axis help to expel the British by force. Born in Cuttack in 1897 into a wealthy Bengali family, he was sent to Britain and passed the Indian Civil Service examination in 1920, placing fourth, then resigned before taking up the post because he would not serve the colonial government. He rose through the Congress under the Bengali leader Chittaranjan Das, was mayor of Calcutta, and was imprisoned repeatedly. He argued for complete independence rather than dominion status, and for a socialist, industrialised, centrally planned India. He was elected Congress president in 1938 and again in 1939, the second time defeating Gandhi's chosen candidate. Gandhi treated the result as a personal defeat, the working committee resigned, and Bose left to form the Forward Bloc. Placed under house arrest in 1940, he escaped Calcutta in January 1941 disguised as a Pathan insurance agent, travelled overland through Afghanistan to Moscow and on to Berlin, where he raised a legion from Indian prisoners of war and broadcast to India. Disappointed by German inaction, he travelled by German and Japanese submarines to Southeast Asia in 1943. There he took over the Indian National Army, formed from Indian prisoners captured at Singapore, expanded it to some 40,000 including a women's regiment, and proclaimed the Provisional Government of Free India. The INA advanced with the Japanese into Manipur and was destroyed at Imphal and Kohima in 1944 by monsoon, disease and supply failure. He died in a plane crash in Taiwan in August 1945, a death still disputed in India. The 1945 trials of INA officers at the Red Fort provoked mass protests.
- Lived: 1897 CE – 1945 CE
- Nationality: Indian
- Roles: independence_leader
