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His Majesty's Opponent: Subhas Chandra Bose and India's Struggle Against Empire PDF

441 Pages·2011·1.85 MB·English
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HIS MAJESTY’S OPPONENT HIS MAJESTY’S OPPONENT SUBHAS CHANDRA BOSE AND INDIA’S STRUGGLE AGAINST EMPIRE Sugata Bose the belknap press of harvard university press Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, Eng land n 2011 Copyright © 2011 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-i n- Publication Data Bose, Sugata. His majesty’s opponent : Subhas Chandra Bose and India’s struggle against empire / Sugata Bose. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978- 0- 674- 04754- 9 (alk. paper) 1. Bose, Subhas Chandra, 1897–1945. 2. Nationalists—India— Biography. 3. Statesmen—India—Biography. 4. India—Politics and government—1919–1947. I. Title. DS481.B6B68 2011 954.03′5092—dc22 [B] 2010038250 In honor of Sisir Kumar Bose (1920–2000) Contents Preface ix 1 A Flaming Sword Forever Unsheathed 1 2 God’s Beloved Land 15 3 Dreams of Youth 45 4 Exile in Europe 85 5 The Warrior and the Saint 135 6 One Man and a World at War 180 7 The Terrible Price of Freedom 201 8 Roads to Delhi 238 9 A Life Immortal 304 Notes 329 Index 371 Preface Subhas Chandra Bose was an uncle of my father, Sisir Kumar Bose, and a young er brother of my paternal grandfather, Sarat Chandra Bose. I never met Subhas Chandra Bose, since he passed from the scene in 1945, a good eleven years before I was born. I never met Sarat Chandra Bose either; he died in 1950. Growing up during the early de cades of in de pen dent India, I knew them not as relatives but as historical public figu res. Like millions of other South Asians, I thought of Subhas Chan- dra Bose as Netaji—“Revered Leader”—one of those who spearheaded India’s freedom struggle. I was also aware of how controversial he was in the West, because of his wartime alliances. According to my father, Netaji believed that his family was coterminous with his country. I was taught, from childhood, never to claim a special relationship with him based on an accident of birth. Though I belong to a generation that never knew Netaji in person, I had the opportunity to meet the men and women who had worked closely with him. They were frequent visitors and guests at my family’s home in Calcutta, first at 1 Woodburn Park, and after 1974 at 90 Sarat Bose Road (the house we called “Basundhara”). Sitting on the veran- dah of Woodburn Park, I heard Abid Hasan recount the thrilling story

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