On 19 January 1941, Subhas Chandra Bose escaped in disguise from British surveillance in Calcutta to Kabul. There, he established contact with the German and Italian foreign ministries, thereby beginning a long period of collaboration with the Axis Powers to counter British rule in India. This led to the setting up of the Free India Centre, the radio station Azad Hind, and the Indian Legion in which 4,500 Indian volunteers were trained by German experts to fight for the freedom of their nation. While his compatriots resisted colonial rule on native soil, Bose spearheaded the cause of freedom in Europe. Using Machiavellian tactics, he discreetly played the Axis leaders off against each other and courted considerable public favour through his transmissions on Radio Azad Hind.
Subhas Chandra Bose is among the most controversial figures of the Indian freedom struggle. 'The Sign Of The Tiger' unfolds those days of his political career, mostly unknown to Indians-when Netaji recruited Indian prisoners of war to form the Indian Legion under the aegis of the German army and describes how they fought valiantly against the British in the Second World War. Written from a German perspective, the book focusses more on Bose's political vision than on his magnetic personality. A refreshing and enlightening read, specially to all those interested in the mysteries of Indian freedom struggle and Bose's lesser known exploits.
Not Many People Known About Bose`S Love For Emile Schenkl, His Austrian Wife. The Volume Includes 162 Letters Written Between 1934 And 1942 An Alos 18 Letters Of His Wife That Have Survived. Illuminate The Human And Emotional Aspects Of His Life.
The complete life story of SUBHAS CHANDRA BOSE from the pen of Krishna Bose, an eminent member of the Bose family and pioneering Netaji researcher. Featuring 95 images and letters from family albums and Netaji Research Bureau archives. Written over six decades by an esteemed scholar and Bose family member, Netaji: Subhas Chandra Bose’s Life, Politics and Struggle vividly reveals the human being alongside the revolutionary and freedom fighter, traversing Bose’s life from childhood to his mortal end in August 1945. Krishna Bose travelled the subcontinent and the world to discover Netaji’s life. As she pieces together her findings, we gain striking new insights into Subhas Chandra Bose’s political motivations, his personal relationships, and the epic journeys and daring military campaigns he undertook to secure India’s independence. We visit the Manipur battlefields where the Indian National Army waged its valiant war, the Andamans where Netaji raised the national tricolour; Singapore, where the INA tookshape; Vienna and Prague, his favourite European cities; and Taipei, where his life was tragically cut short. We meet Netaji’s key political contemporaries – from Nehru and Gandhi to Tojo and Hitler. And we learn in gripping detail about the Azad Hind Fauj’s spirit of unity and the bravery in war of its men – as well as the women who fought as the Rani of Jhansi Regiment. Krishna Bose closely knew many personalities who feature in this book – Basanti Debi, Subhas’s adopted mother; Emilie Schenkl,his spouse; Lakshmi Sahgal, Abid Hasan and many other leading soldiers of the Azad Hind movement – who all shared vital memories that helped complete Netaji’s life story. Drawing on Netaji Research Bureau’s archives and decades of fieldwork and interviews, this book offers an unmatched portrait of Subhas Chandra Bose – the man, his politics and his epic struggle for India’s freedom. Krishna Bose’s writings were compiled, edited and translated from Bengali by her son Sumantra Bose. Krishna Bose’s writings were compiled, edited and translated from Bengali by her son Sumantra Bose.
‘Nobody has done more harm to me . . . than Jawaharlal Nehru,’ wrote Subhas Chandra Bose in 1939. Had relations between the two great nationalist leaders soured to the extent that Bose had begun to view Nehru as his enemy? But then, why did he name one of the regiments of the Indian National Army after Jawaharlal? And what prompted Nehru to weep when he heard of Bose’s untimely death in 1945, and to recount soon after, ‘I used to treat him as my younger brother’? Rudrangshu Mukherjee’s fascinating book traces the contours of a friendship that did not quite blossom as political ideologies diverged, and delineates the shadow that fell between them—for, Gandhi saw Nehru as his chosen heir and Bose as a prodigal son.
About the Book FIRST PUBLISHED IN MARATHI IN 1998, THE NOVEL HAS BEEN TRANSLATED INTO FOURTEEN INDIAN AND FOREIGN LANGUAGES. This iconic Marathi novel by Vishwas Patil brings originality and new ideas to the most storied of lives—Subhas Chandra Bose. Possibly the most enigmatic figure in the history of India’s freedom struggle, Bose’s ideological differences with the two stalwarts of the Independence movement, Gandhi and Nehru, split the Congress down the middle. And yet he held them in high esteem, just as they admired him. While Bose asserted the independence of his own values even as he sought help from the Axis powers—Nazi Germany, Italy and later Japan—during World War II, for the cause of a free India, it was seen as treasonous and dangerous by many. Vishwas Patil recreates the life of a man who was twice elected president of the Congress, and quit to follow his own vision, forming the Indian National Army. His defiant nationalism provoked anger and distrust. Mahanayak traces Netaji’s steps from India to Germany, Italy, Singapore, Japan and Burma, to paint a complex portrait of a man of immense strengths and fatal failings. Rich with details drawn from the colossal canvas of the Indian revolution, this is an immersive historical novel that reads like a fast-paced thriller.
The book tells the reader how after Second World War, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, the tallest Indian freedom fighter, slowly petered out in captivity in former Soviet Union, while Kremlin, taking full military advantage of Bose's presence in their land created fear in American and British political and military strategists and among the post-Independence Indian politicians. The research has also been an outcome of British and Indian Government documents and long interviews with senior Indian political leaders. The book is extremely sensitive as the stakeholders are not only big global powers, but the unresolved issue involves the Indian Government which puts a lid on the mystery by sticking to the fake air crash story in 1945 in Taiwan. It is bound to stir up a lot of heat with scholars – especially among, the British, Indian and American, besides exposing the role of the Russians, Indian Communists and the Nehru family that still heads the Congress now. What began as a journey into the unknown, has culminated into this book, an attempt which has taken 32 long years for the author. The research also reveals Bose's socio-political ideology about which he spoke during his Tokyo University speech on the Indian Civilization and how India would have `socialism with a human face.' It also happens to be an issue so far neglected by scholars and historians.
On the morning of April 3, 1941, 'Orlando Mazzotta', a man posing as an Italian diplomat, walked up the steps of the German Foreign Office on the Wilhelmstrasse in Berlin, having arrived from Moscow the previous afternoon. The Under-Secretary of State, Dr Ernst Woermann, immediately received him and listened carefully as he spoke of establishing a government-in-exile and launching a military offensive. The government he had in mind was Indian and the target of his offensive was British India. Although Woermann was taken aback by the nature of these proposals, he should not have been. 'Orlando Mazzotta' was in fact Subhas Chandra Bose, an Indian leftist radical nationalist and former President of the Indian National Congress who had escaped a few months earlier from Calcutta and reached Kabul. From there, the German and Italian legations assisted him in reaching Berlin, via Moscow, under Italian diplomatic cover. Bose is one of India's national icons, practically on a par with Gandhi, a hero of anti-colonial resistance against the British, who established the Indian National Army in order to recruit Indian soldiers to fight the imperial power. His activities in Nazi Germany - particularly taking into account their inevitably highly controversial implications - merit scrupulous, scholarly and detailed study, yet till today almost everything published on the subject has been suffused with hagiography. This book is the first to focus exclusively on Bose's interactions with Nazi Germany during the Second World War. Hayes's narrative makes extensive use of German, Indian and British documents, including memoranda, notes, minutes, reports, telegrams, letters and broadcasts, and he also presents the reader with fresh scholarly sources from the German historical archives. His book takes not only the political dimension into consideration but the intelligence and propaganda angles too, including the recruitment and training of Indian POWs captured in North Africa. Emphasis is also placed on the specific roles of key actors including Hitler, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Gandhi, Nehru, Mussolini, Churchill, Sir Stafford Cripps, Chiang Kai-shek, General Hideki Tojo and, to a lesser extent Dr Goebbels, Heinrich Himmler and Count Galeazzo Ciano. Hayes's objective is to reveal a lesser-known aspect of Nazi foreign policy and to challenge and provide an alternative to Gandhi-centric portrayals of the Indian independence movement. His book, augmented by a fascinating selection of hitherto largely unpublished photographs, will appeal to those interested in the Third Reich, Indian nationalism and anti-colonialism and the Second World War.
Written towards the end of 1937 during his Europe trip, after being nominated the President of the Indian National Congress, An Indian Pilgrim traces Bose's life story from birth till his resignation from the Indian Civil Service. It is an astounding account of his ideological development and his singular focus on India's reconstruction in which Swami Vivekananda played a large part—"I was barely fifteen when Vivekananda entered my life. Then there followed a revolution within and everything was turned upside down." The book recounts the development of the spirit of service, sacrifice and zeal for national liberation, which were the driving forces of his life.We hope this publication will gain wide circulation so that the spirit of Subhas Chandra Bose becomes the guiding light of the country's youth in these disturbing times.
1944, Kohima — a small, sleepy town in northeast India. Subhash Chandra Bose and his Indian National Army (INA) along with the Japanese, are on the brink of bringing the Empire to its knees and forcing the British out of India. But, inexplicably, the tables turn. The INA’s advance is thwarted and the victory march to Delhi is halted. Seventy years later, the British admit that the Battle of Kohima was the greatest battle they had ever fought. Even more so than the battles of Waterloo and Dunkirk. Was it then that old Indian curse — betrayal? Someone from within Netaji’s own ranks? Were there forces other than the British, waiting in the shadows closer to home, who stood to gain even more from the INA’s defeat? Or was it just love that irrevocably altered the course of India’s destiny? The Wrong Turn: Love and Betrayal in the Time of Netaji, is a sweeping tale of passion set against the freedom struggle. Debraj, the rakish playboy and scion of a distinguished Calcutta family, and Nishonko, the fiery revolutionary sworn to the cause of the INA, must not only fight their common enemy, but also for the love of Aditi, the rebel with the healing touch. A haunting tale of love, friendship and betrayal of an entire nation, The Wrong Turn veers inexorably towards a poignant redemption.
