Parakram Diwas: Celebrating India's First Prime Minister & Greatest Freedom Fighter NETAJI SUBHASH CHANDRA BOSE'S 125th BIRTH ANNIVERSARY

We at the Su-Niti News pay our heartiest reverence to the greatest and most prominent freedom fighter & leader - Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose on his 125th Birth Anniversary (23 January 1897); whose selfless love and service for our country led to India's Independence.

We the people of India, from now onwards will be celebrating his Birthday as "Parakram Diwas". It wouldn't even be wrong to call Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose as the first Prime Minister of India.

Childhood Picture of Subhash Chandra Bose

Introducing such a godly human being like Netaji Bose isn't required cause the world knows and bows down to him.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi also visited West Bengal today on 23rd January 2021 to celebrate Netaji's Importance & Legacy. The INA (Indian National Army) Veterans were also present. There a very special Cultural program took place where various Artists as well as childrens performed at the Victoria Memorial in Kolkata. WB Governor Jadgeep Dhankhar & WB CM Mamata Banerjee along with other some ministers were also present.

Also, it would be a disgrace to not highlight some of his most notable deeds in the history of Indian freedom movement as well as his greatest contributions, to the nation:-

Netaji between the age of 14 to 16

• At the age of 16, Subhash Bose was highly influenced by Swami Vivekananda and Sri Ramakrishna which made him focus towards the plight of "Bharat Mata" and its citizens.

• After securing 4th rank in the Indian Civil Service Examination from Cambridge University in London, he did not want to work under the British government and in 1921, he wrote to his elder brother Sarat Chandra Bose: "Only on the soil of sacrifice and suffering can we raise our national edifice." He then returned back to India.

• In 1921, Netaji started the newspaper Swaraj (freedom or sovereignty) and took charge of publicity for the Bengal Provincial Congress Committee.

22 year old Netaji Bose

• In 1923, under the mentorship of Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das who was a spokesman for aggressive nationalism in Bengal, Bose was elected the President of All India Youth Congress and also the Secretary of Bengal State Congress. He was also the editor of the newspaper "Forward", founded by Chittaranjan Das. Bose worked as the CEO of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation for Deshbandhu 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.

• Netaji was also involved in the Anushilan Samiti.

Through these efforts and positions during the 1920s, fear and hatred of the British towards Netaji started to fix its strong roots in the soil. His works were not just confined to abolish the British Raj in India but were also widespread in solving out all issues of the common citizens.

Netaji during early 1930s

• Netaji Bose became general secretary of the Congress party in 1927 after being released from prison, and worked with Jawaharlal Nehru for independence for a brief span of time. In late December 1928, Bose organised the Annual Meeting of the Indian National Congress in Calcutta. His most memorable role was as General Officer Commanding (GOC) Congress Volunteer Corps.

• Netaji had been arrested and jailed for civil disobedience and protests against the British Government a lot of times which made him even bolder and emerged to become Mayor of Calcutta in 1930.

• Though being actively involved in the Congress Party by being elected as its President from 18 January 1938 – 29 April 1939 and again being re-elected in 1939 during the annual session of the Congress. U. Muthuramalingam Thevar strongly supported Bose in the intra-Congress dispute and mobilised all south India votes for Bose.

Netaji arriving at the 1939 annual session of the Congress

• However, due to the manipulation of the Gandhi-led clique in the Congress Working Committee, Bose found himself forced to resign from the Congress presidency. Some other reasons for Netaji's seperation were disagreements and seperate ideology clash with Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and the Congress High Command.

• On 22 June 1939 Bose organised the All India Forward Bloc, aimed at consolidating the political left, but its main strength was in his home state, Bengal. U Muthuramalingam Thevar, who was a staunch supporter of Bose from the beginning, joined the Forward Bloc. When Bose visited Madurai on 6 September, Thevar organised a massive rally as his reception.

M.K Gandhi with Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose

• In England, Netaji exchanged ideas on the future of India with British Labour Party leaders and political thinkers like Lord Halifax, George Lansbury, Clement Attlee, Arthur Greenwood, Harold Laski, J.B.S. Haldane, Ivor Jennings, G.D.H. Cole, Gilbert Murray and Sir Stafford Cripps.

• On the outbreak of war, Bose advocated a campaign of mass civil disobedience to protest against Viceroy Lord Linlithgow's decision to declare war on India's behalf without consulting the Congress leadership. Having failed to persuade Gandhi of the necessity of this, Bose organised mass protests in Calcutta calling for the 'Holwell Monument' commemorating the Black Hole of Calcutta, which then stood at the corner of Dalhousie Square, to be removed. He was thrown in jail by the British, but was released following a seven-day hunger strike. Bose's house in Calcutta was kept under surveillance by the CID.

Left: Netaji in Beard; Right: Sisir Kumar Bose (Nephew); Below: the car used for the GREAT ESCAPE

• Netaji had by then grown a beard which helped him to escape on the night of 16 January 1941, dressing as a Pathan (brown long coat, a black fez-type coat and broad pyjamas) to avoid being identified disguising as A Pashtun named Jiauddin. Bose escaped from under British surveillance from his Elgin Road house in Calcutta on the night of 17 January 1941, accompanied by his nephew Sisir Kumar Bose. He reached Germany, first via Afghanistan and then Soviet Russia.

(left) Bose with Heinrich Himmler, the Nazi Minister of Interior, head of the SS, and the Gestapo, 1942.

Bose meeting Adolf Hitler

• In Germany, he was attached to the Special Bureau for India under Adam von Trott zu Solz which was responsible for broadcasting on the German-sponsored Azad Hind Radio. He founded the Free India Center in 1942 in Berlin, and created the Indian Legion (consisting of some 4500 soldiers) out of Indian prisoners of war who had previously fought for the British in North Africa prior to their capture by Axis forces.

• The Indian Legion was attached to the Wehrmacht, and later transferred to the Waffen SS. Its members swore the following allegiance to Hitler and Bose: "I swear by God this holy oath that I will obey the leader of the German race and state, Adolf Hitler, as the commander of the German armed forces in the fight for India, whose leader is Subhas Chandra Bose".

• This oath clearly abrogates control of the Indian legion to the German armed forces whilst stating Bose's overall leadership of India. He was also, however, prepared to envisage an invasion of India via the USSR by Nazi troops, spearheaded by the Azad Hind Legion.

Netaji using the Azad Hind Radio from Russia

• In all, 3,000 Indian prisoners of war signed up for the Free India Legion. But instead of being delighted, Bose was worried. A left-wing admirer of Russia, he was devastated when Hitler's tanks rolled across the Soviet border. Matters were worsened by the fact that the now-retreating German army would be in no position to offer him help in driving the British from India.

• He first met Pritam Singh Dhillon, the president of the Bangkok chapter of the Indian Independence League, and through Pritam Singh's network recruited a captured British Indian army captain, Mohan Singh, on the western Malayan peninsula in December 1941.

• This was along the concept of, and with support of, what was then known as the Indian Independence League headed by expatriate nationalist leader Rash Behari Bose.

Netaji with the Army Chiefs of the Azad Hind Fauj. Beside Netaji is Laxmi Iyer, leader of Rani Jhansi Regiment under Azad Hind Fauj. Others in the picture are Captain Mohan Singh and Pritam Singh Dhillon

On 17th February 1942, Netaji formed the Azad Hind Fauj or the Indian National Army along with Captain Mohan Singh. This was India's First Military ever formed comprising of women soldiers as well. India would have never got its Army if Mr. M.K Gandhi's ideology of Ahimsa were followed.

Netaji with Azad Hind Fauj's Rani Jhansi Regiment

• When he met Hitler in May 1942, his suspicions were confirmed, and he came to believe that the Nazi leader was more interested in using his men to win propaganda victories than military ones. So, in February 1943, Bose boarded a German U-boat and left for Japan.

The crew of Japanese submarine I-29 after the rendezvous with German submarine U-180 300 sm southeast of Madagascar; Bose is sitting in the front row (28 April 1943)

• The INA had captured the Andaman and Nicobar Islands naming it the Shaheed & Swaraaj Islands. It had almost captured Nagaland but at that moment Japan surrendered and most of the INA soldiers then got martyred and the British Raj seriously threatened by the INA charged 300 INA officers with treason in the INA trials.

Netaji Speaking in Tokyo in 1943

Netaji's death is hoaxed by propagandists that he had died in 1945 in a plane crash. But with official facts it has 90% been proved that Netaji was alive till 1985 under seclusion. The facts of Netaji being alive till 1985 have been vastly and deeply researched by Former Journalist & Author Anuj Dhar & his team of Mission Netaji. Many of unrevealed facts have also been mentioned in Anuj Dhar's books.

Therefore with a heavy heart and teary eyes, we salute Netaji's immense struggles and visions. We also seek from the Government of India for Netaji to be posthumously awarded the Bharat Ratna.

Jai Hind!