For over two decades, I had walked into dark endless libraries, searched dimly lit underground archives, browsed through numerous dusty bookshops, meandered into war cemeteries, listened to fragments of recorded memories, heard speeches on old scratchy tapes, played back worn-out military marching tunes, sat through monotonous speeches at book launches, attended tedious academic lectures, mined the Internet to its depth, read tattered timeworn newspaper cuttings, examined faded photographs, viewed hours of archival documentary footage, photographed derelict statues, communicated with dozens of elderly folks about historical events, filmed interviews with old soldiers, talked to erudite professors and driven to far off memorials, museums and monuments in Asia, Europe, and North America through snowy blizzards, pouring rain and the summer heat researching Indian history’s most exciting period—the life, the times and the radical thinking of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. The mission to write his biography had completely consumed me.
Inspired by my late father who had lived through those long-forgotten times, I set out ambitiously to investigate this enigmatic revolutionary. A star of the Indian independence movement Netaji was an extraordinary man. In India’s most testing time of colonisation, Netaji became the hope of a nation. An indispensable figure of our history he walked with destiny. At the moment of supreme crisis, with the entire Congress leadership jailed after the Quit India movement during the WW2, millions of Indians turned to him for leadership. It was as if his entire life was a preparation for leading India to freedom. He had the power of words to communicate his resolve with clarity, force and inspiration. For the men, women and children who heard Netaji speak on the Azad Hind Radio from Germany, Japan and South East Asia, his words transformed them forever. Recordings of his speeches still provoke goose bumps. His Majesty’s Government and Prime Minister Winston Churchill banned him from their media, terrified that his penchant for militarism would spur a revolt in India. Later British historians summarily dismissed him as a misguided patriot, fascist and even a quisling. In deeper examination it is crystal clear that Netaji was a revolutionary and his views of gender equality, non-sectarianism and economic justice were contemporary. He was also the master of the art of the possible entering into Faustian pacts with the Axis powers. And without a doubt, Indian National Army’s motto ‘unity, faith and sacrifice’ created by Netaji’s inspired a generation of Indians who sought to emulate him. Today Netaji’s overriding achievement as the foremost anti-imperialist during India’s freedom movement can be summed up in a single sentence: he was the true liberator of India.
As I set out on the trail of that Prince of Patriots, I was aware that plenty of books had already been written about Netaji. However, in my exploration, I went beyond compiling chronologies, presenting dry facts or imposing a single thesis across a lifespan. I searched for numerous facts that had been buried away for over half a century as well as unearthed deceptions that had been spread around for petty personal gains. In this enterprise I surveyed the entire period of European colonisation from Vasco da Gama’s first sighting of the coast of India in May 1498 to the liberation of Goa in December 1961 by the Indian armed forces and from Plassey to Partition in between. In the retelling of the dramatic story of Netaji’s life I sought answers to what really transpired between him and the Congress leadership at the famous Tripuri session in 1939 and meticulously scrutinized the minutes of his meetings with leaders of the Axis Powers. Even though the specifics were very sketchy, I studied Netaji’s fantastic escape from Kolkata in January 1941 and his three-month long two-stage submarine journey in 1943 that had never been attempted before by anyone. I carefully traced the stories of the Indian National Army from the victory at Moirang near Kohima right to the end of INA trial at Red Fort in Delhi where three Indian patriots Gurbaksh Singh Dhillion. Shah Nawaz Khan and Prem Sehgal emerged victorious against the mighty British Empire. I also connected the dots between the Ghadr of 1857, the Ghadr Party revolutionaries throughout WW1 and the heroic Indian National Army during WW2. More importantly despite the elusiveness of some important facts I tried to inhabit Netaji’s world—to understand what motivated him, how did he align his intentions with actions, what was his spiritual impulse and how did he accomplish the unthinkable?
However, life stories don’t just write themselves. Biographies have themes. They have chapters, a beginning, middle and end. There are established standards of narrative craft and execution in this genre. Writing biographies require discipline, focus, and a vast reservoir of perseverance plus neutrality of Swiss proportions to see them through. In addition, I faced the challenge that every biographer of Netaji faces: How to balance a life filled with moments of triumph and disappointment and adulation and tragedies. While eavesdropping for years on another century there were long and lonely stretches when I wondered where this never-ending journey would lead. At times some professional colleagues, close friends and relatives respectfully inquired, “What do you do for a living?”. But all that did not distract me from my mission. The harder part however was sitting down face to face with the blank iMac screen staring at me and filling it gently with words, sentences, paragraphs, and chapters. Perhaps this is the story of a typical day in the life of someone who lives by the pen. Yet at that stage, it did look like it would take an entire lifetime for me to write this biography. The amount of dedicated time and hard work the effort entailed forced me to postpone the idea of publishing it multiple times. Then there were a series of events that forced my hand.
Some years ago, my brother and I were fortuitously placed across a fine-looking German gentleman at a formal high-powered dinner in Cannes during the film festival. As we began to break bread and make polite conversation even though we had not yet exchanged business cards, I inquired if he had ever been to India? He revealed that his father had lived in India.
I probed, “Ah when was that?”
He replied, “1940-44”
On hearing this I immediately sat up. I knew from my research that all German nationals in India during WW2 had been interned and delicately asked him if his father had stayed at the Pant Nagar Camp near Dehradun?
A bit surprised he softly answered, “Yes he had – but how do you know?”
Then intuitively I probed further, “Was your father the man who escaped?”
Bewildered he confirmed, “Yes, he did escape—but how do you know all this?”
Before I could react, he questioned me in halting English, “Do you know about Subhas… Chandra… Bose?”
That stunning May evening at an Italian restaurant facing the marina in the South of France, I was sitting in front of one of the three sons of Heins von Have, a German businessman who along with his friend Rolf Magener had a breathtaking escape from British India’s prison camp near the Himalayas to distant Burma in the middle of WW2. On the afternoon of 29 April 1944, Have and Magener disguised themselves as British military officers complete with swagger sticks and marched right through the main gate of the prison camp past the eleven feet high perimeter wire with the Indian guards saluting them. Heinrich Harrer, the famous mountaineer masked as an Indian worker, was one of the men escorted out by them in that daring escape. He rushed off into Tibet, where he became adviser to His Holiness the Dalai Lama and author of Seven Years in Tibet. Meanwhile Have and Magener caught a train to Calcutta (Kolkata now), more than 1,000 miles away. They took the names of Harry E. Lloyd and John Edward Hardin and their play-acting surprisingly succeeded even though they had a few narrow escapes. In Calcutta swarming with military officers, they pretended to be Swiss businessmen and travelled on by train and a river steamer to Chittagong. Once close to the Burmese front, they walked through the jungle and guided by the sound of heavy artillery fire crossed the front line near Maungdaw. Thirty-one days out across the jungle, in the dark they accidentally encountered a Japanese patrol that was shocked to find the two Germans in Burma in the middle of a war. The incredulous Japanese corporal confused them for British spies and the Japanese Intelligence interrogated them. Finally, they met Netaji who spoke to them in German and rescued them. After living in Tokyo for a while Heinz von Have eventually made it to Germany at the end of WW2. An autographed picture of Netaji has graced the living room of the home of von Haves in Hamburg for over seven decades. I knew about the astonishing escape of Heinz von Have and had detailed it in my book.
Subsequently a very respected Indian hotelier and a fan of Netaji on his ninetieth birthday in Mumbai put my commitment to test. Having suffered a stroke and knowing that his time was running out he tightly clasped both my hands and whispered, “You must finish what you started…” and then with watery eyes expressively added, “Promise me you will tell the world the story of our Netaji…”. Unable to give a firm date for the launch of my book I remember I had simply said, “Jai Hind Sir”. And soon thereafter that amazing man passed away but before departing he had encouraged me enough to continue writing. These two meetings finally convinced me that I had no reason to defer publishing my book.
Ultimately, on the evening of Monday, 23 January 2017, the train of my thoughts and ideas finally reached its destination. On the birth anniversary of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, I stood before my family, relatives, teachers, classmates, friends, colleagues, and many well-wishers, as I unveiled my investment of twenty years and launched The Man India Missed The Most, the biography of Subhas Chandra Bose. There it was a story of our nation’s legendary hero and his role in our war of independence told in about 160,000 words. The Oxford Cambridge Society supported the book launch and its highlight was the presence of the living legend of Indian cinema, Subhash Ghai who consented to be the Chief Guest. The response of the audience at the prestigious India International Centre in New Delhi was staggering and I was unexpectedly mobbed for autographs for the first time in my life. A day after the book launch a short email arrived in my inbox, Dr. Anita Pfaff Bose wrote to me from Augsburg in Germany—congratulating me for writing a book about her father.
And from that day onwards the course of my life changed drastically. I experienced a profound transformation—I became an author. Readers of the biography wrote back from all over the world, convincing me that Netaji continues to live in the hearts and minds of millions across this planet. And now as India gears up to finally recognise Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose during his 125th birth anniversary celebrations, we have once again an opportunity to follow in the footsteps of the liberator of India.
Bhuvan Lall is the author of ‘The Man India Missed The Most: Subhas Chandra Bose’ and ‘The Great Indian Genius: Har Dayal’. He is currently writing ‘The Path of Gautam Buddha’ and can be reached at writerlall@gmail.com. The views expressed are personal.
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