His faith in religion was revived when he discovered Swamy Vivekananda’s teachings.
As we approach Netaji’s 127th birth anniversary, on 23 January, it is an ideal time to reflect on some lesser-known aspects of his life. For instance, many are unaware of Netaji’s childhood and his early quest for meaning and purpose. Subhash Bose, although he never penned a full autobiography, did write about his early years in ‘An Indian Pilgrim: An Unfinished Autobiography.’ The book details how, as a child, he spent time in nature and read extensively under the guidance of his headmaster, Beni Madhav. However, this path to wisdom, suggested by his teacher, left him unsatisfied.
In his childhood, he turned to religion, chanting hymns, practicing yoga, and showing filial devotion following the advice of a nonagenarian Swami. His father, Subhash recalls in his memoir, was surprised to find his son touching his feet every morning. However, the Swami’s teachings ultimately disappointed him, and he found religion lacking when he encountered its caste discriminatory and ritualistic elements.
His faith in religion and its true essence was later revived when he discovered the writings and teachings of Swami Vivekanand. He admired Vivekanand’s call to Indians to consider ‘the ignorant India, the poor and destitute Indian, the Brahmin Indian, the Pariah Indian’ as their brothers. He was profoundly influenced by Vivekanand’s belief that religion was meaningless if it did not encompass the desire to serve the poor and oppressed.
The inspiring tale of young Subhash’s selfless work in a cholera-stricken area is worth noting. Accompanied by some friends, he journeyed to a village where people were succumbing to the disease. Unperturbed by the risk to their personal safety, Subhash and his friends utilized their limited resources to provide aid. When his uncle arrived to take Subhash home, he stood his ground, refusing to leave until the task he had undertaken was complete.
Netaji’s understanding of the world around him deepened when he enrolled at Presidency College in Calcutta. He was taken aback and shocked by the disrespectful and racist behaviour of the English while commuting on trams in Calcutta. Some of these Englishmen did not shy away from insulting and abusing Indian co-passengers, even resorting to physical assault. There were even instances where the English passengers kicked anyone who passed by. Subhash observed that the demeanour of the English passengers altered when they were confronted. He deduced that the key to dealing with a bully is to stand up to them, rather than turning the other cheek. As a class representative, he championed the cause of students who were bullied and mistreated by EF Oaten, an English teacher. After his altercation with the teacher, he was expelled from college. Not only was Subhash’s life impacted this incident also marked a turning point in the teacher’s life, leading him to reflect and reform and reevaluate his assumptions about Indians in general and Bengalis in particular. Decades later, upon hearing of Subhash Bose’s alleged death in an aircrash, he even composed a poem as a heartfelt homage to his most renowned student.
The following extract from Oaten’s poem reflects the teacher’s remorse:
Did I once suffer, Subhas, at your hands?
Your patriot heart is stilled, I would forget!
Let me recall but this, that while as yet
The Raj that you once challenged in your land
Was mighty; Icarus-like your courage planned
To mount the skies, and storm in battle set
The ramparts of High Heaven, to claim the debt
Of freedom owed, on plain and rude demand.
Long neglected, Netaji’s efforts to mitigate the Bengal Famine have not been adequately highlighted by the media or historians. It is widely known that millions of Indians perished in the Bengal famine, largely due to British indifference. However, it is less known that Netaji, even while collaborating with the so-called Axis powers, strived to provide food aid to a starving nation. During the entirely preventable Bengal famine, Subhash Bose repeatedly proposed to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to allow ships to transport rice from Burma to India. Regrettably, these life-saving suggestions were rejected. As revealed in ‘Churchill’s Secret War,’ an award-winning book by Madhusree Mukerjee, Churchill dismissively responded to urgent messages from officials in Calcutta informing him of the dire situation in India. The British Prime Minister reacted similarly upon learning of Subhash Bose’s letter to the Viceroy suggesting a method to transport rice from Burma to India to feed the starving masses. Overfond of eating himself, Winston Churchill was convinced that Mahatma Gandhi never actually kept his fasts but ate on the sly.
Addressing another major misconception about Netaji, many erroneously believe that Netaji greatly admired Adolf Hitler. As Ms. Mukerjee’s book reveals, this was far from the truth. Subhash Bose did not approach Hitler as a supplicant. Instead, he met him as a proud Indian and demanded that the Fuhrer retract derogatory remarks about Indians that the German dictator had previously made. For the cause of Indian independence, Netaji would have even made a pact with the Devil. Furthermore, as writer Shashi Tharoor points out, Winston Churchill’s failure to prevent a completely avoidable famine that resulted in the starvation deaths of millions of Indians places him among the great villains of the last century, whose crimes are of such magnitude that he deserves to be ranked alongside Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. After all, from a victim’s perspective who is to say that being gassed to death is better than slowly starving to death?
In fact, as disclosed in Ms. Mukerjee’s book, Subhash Bose reportedly confessed that he had never met anyone who could match Hitler in terms of obstinacy, stubbornness, and unwillingness to consider a different viewpoint. In this regard, Hitler reminded him of the Fakir of Ipi, a tribal chief and warlord from North Waziristan, now part of Khyber Pakhtunwa in modern-day Pakistan, whom he encountered during his travels through Afghanistan.
Rajesh Talwar, the author of thirty-nine books spanning multiple genres, has served the United Nations for over two decades across three continents. His most recent book is titled ‘The Boy Who Fought an Empire.’