Subhas Chandra Bose

Subhas Chandra Bose

Subhas Chandra Bose was born in a Bengali Kayasth family on January 23, 1897 in Cuttack, Orissa, to Janakinath Bose, an advocate and Prabhavati Devi. He was the ninth child of a total of fourteen siblings. He studied in an Anglo school at Cuttack until the sixth standard and then shifted to Ravenshaw Collegiate School. From there he went to the Presidency College where he studied briefly. His nationalistic temperament came to light when he was expelled for assaulting Professor Oaten for his anti-India comments. Bose later topped the matriculation examination of Calcutta province in 1911 and passed his B.A. in 1918 in philosophy from the Scottish Church College under University of Calcutta.

Bose went to study in Fitzwilliam Hall of the University of Cambridge, and matriculated, that is formally enrolled in the Cambridge University, on 19 November 1919. He was a non-collegiate student. He studied Philosophy for Moral Sciences Tripos, as the honours BA is known. He was awarded a third class pass in the examinations for Part I of this tripos in 1921. He graduated BA by proxy on 4 November 1922.

His high score in the Civil Service examinations meant an almost automatic appointment. He then took his first step as a revolutionary and resigned the appointment on the premise that the "best way to end a government is to withdraw from it". At the time, Indian nationalists were shocked and outraged because of the Amritsar massacre and the repressive Rowlatt legislation of 1919. Returning to India, Bose wrote for the newspaper Swaraj and took charge of publicity for the Bengal Provincial Congress Committee. His mentor was Chittaranjan Das who was a spokesman for aggressive nationalism in Bengal. In the year 1923, he was elected the President of All India Youth Congress and also the Secretary of Bengal State Congress. He was also Editor of the newspaper "Forward", founded by Deshabandhu. Bose worked as the CEO of the municipal corporation of Calcutta for Das when the latter was elected mayor of Calcutta in 1924. In a roundup of nationalists in 1925, Bose was arrested and sent to prison in Mandalay, where he contracted tuberculosis.

In 1927, after being released from prison, Bose became general secretary of the Congress party and worked with Jawaharlal Nehru for independence. Again Bose was arrested and jailed for civil disobedience; this time he emerged to become Mayor of Calcutta in 1930. During the mid-1930s Bose travelled in Europe, visiting Indian students and European politicians, including Mussolini. He observed party organization and saw communism and fascism in action. By 1938 Bose had become as leader of national stature and agreed to accept nomination as Congress president.

He is presumed to have died 18 August 1945. However, no actual evidence of his death on that day has been authenticated and many committees were set up by the government of India to investigate his death.