There are few Indian heroes whose lives have been as exciting and spectacular as Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose's. That, on the other hand, is a judgement of his life based on what is publicly known about him. These usually revolve around his resignation from the Indian Civil Service, joining the freedom movement, being exiled twice for more than seven years, challenging Gandhi's leadership in the Congress, taking an extremist stance against the British Raj, eluding the famed intelligence network to travel to Europe and then Southeast Asia, forming two governments and raising two armies, and then disappearing into the unknown. All of this happened in barely two decades.
Bose's intense political activities surrounding revolutionary groups in Bengal, Punjab, Maharashtra, and the United Provinces, his efforts to bridge the growing communal divide and his influence among the splintered political landscape, his outlook and relationships with women, his plunge into the depths of spirituality, his penchant for covert operations, and his efforts to engineer a rebellion among the Indian armed forces are now all revealed by new information. With this additional information, what appeared to be dramatic now becomes more intense, with plots and subplots centred on one man's exclusive emphasis on liberating the homeland and picturing its development in a new era.
Furthermore, Bose's joining the Axis side is one of the most sensitive matters that has stopped political parties and successive governments from saying much about him. While Jawaharlal Nehru and other key Congress leaders openly condemned the move, the Communist Party of India launched a long-running smear campaign against it. Congress leaders were given orders by Sardar Patel to defend the INA forces without eulogising their leader.
Was Bose a true Nazi supporter? Why did he jeopardise his political reputation by allying with the Axis countries, knowing full well the strong public opinion that prevailed among India's political elite and intelligentsia against Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and imperial Japan?
Bose: The Unwritten Story of an Inconvenient Nationalist is fast-paced, thought-provoking, and completely unputdownable. It will open a window to many previously untold and unheard anecdotes of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.
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