Bose, Subhas Chandra (sh

bhäsh` chŭn`drə bōs), 1897–1945?, Indian nationalist also known as Netaji. He began his political career in Calcutta (now Kolkata) and soon became the leader of the left wing of the Indian National Congress Indian National Congress, Indian political party, founded in 1885. Its founding members proposed economic reforms and wanted a larger role in the making of British policy for India.
..... Click the link for more information. . He was president of the party in 1938–39 but was forced to resign after a dispute with Mohandas Gandhi Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand (mōhän`dəs kŭ'rəmchŭnd` gän`dē)
..... Click the link for more information. ; he advocated militancy to achieve independence for India and believed in dictatorship to unify the country. Jailed by the British for his Axis sympathies in World War II, he escaped (1941) and fled to Germany. In 1943 he headed in Singapore a Japanese-sponsored "provisional government of India" and organized an "Indian national army." Although sympathetic to totalitarianism, his collaboration was principally directed toward freeing India from British rule and the establishment of an independent regime. He was said to have died in an airplane crash in Taiwan, but in 2005 the Taiwanese government said that an investigation showed that no crash had occurred.

Bibliography

See his collected writings and letters, ed. by J. S. Bright (2d ed. 1947); L. Gordon, Brothers Against the Raj (1990).

Bose, Subhas Chandra

(born Jan. 23, 1897, Cuttack, Orissa, India—died Aug. 18, 1945, Taipei, Taiwan [China]?) Indian revolutionary. Preparing in Britain for a career in the Indian civil service, he resigned his candidacy on hearing of nationalist turmoil back home. Sent by Mohandas K. Gandhi to organize in Bengal, he was deported and imprisoned several times. He favoured industrialization, which put him at odds with Gandhi's economic thought, and, though he was elected president of the Indian National Congress in 1938 and 1939, without Gandhi's support he felt bound to resign. He slipped out of India in 1941 and carried on his struggle against the British from Nazi Germany and later from Southeast Asia. In 1944 he invaded India from Burma (Myanmar) with a small army of Indian nationals and Japanese, but his army was soon forced to retreat. He fled Southeast Asia after the Japanese surrender in 1945 and died of burns suffered in a plane crash.