Subhas Chandra Bose continues to be a well-known figure in India more than fifty years after his death, but in the West remains a shadowy figure unknown to many. He made headlines worldwide as the extremist leader of the Provisional Government of Free India after its establishment by the Axis powers during World War II and was viewed as sort of an Asian Hitler or Quisling, but when the Allies crushed Bose’s Indian National army, the world seemed quickly to forget him.
This work is a biography of Bose, the self-proclaimed Netaji, or “revered leader,” who sought to bring down the British Raj by making alliances with Rome, Berlin, and Tokyo during World War II and by helping India thrive economically and politically as a free socialist nation. It details his political activities, including radio broadcasts in which he attempted to sway his countrymen with pro–Axis propaganda and predicted a bloody end to imperialism at the hands of Axis powers, and his commanding of two liberation armies, one under Nazi authority and the other under Tokyo’s auspices, made up of rehabilitated and coerced prisoners of war. Bose is noted for having unified his country’s multiethnic population and enlisting the support of Indians overseas, all the while incurring the wrath of the Allies, who crushed his armies and his hopes of transforming India into a socialist nation. A discussion of his mysterious death in a plane crash while en route to an unknown location in 1945 concludes the book.

Marshall J. Getz, formerly a teacher and head of the history department at a school in Hong Kong, lives in Houston, Texas.

Marshall J. Getz
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 169
Bibliographic Info: notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2002
pISBN: 978-0-7864-1265-5
eISBN: 978-0-7864-8067-8
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgments     vi

Introduction     1

1. Janakinath’s Son     7

2. Money, Always Helped     16

3. Thieves, Spies and Saboteurs: The Friends of Wilhelm II     25

4. His Path     33

5. Not a Question of Spirit, but of Color     43

6. The Netaji     54

7. The Fauj     69

8. Darling of the Axis     76

9. Nobody’s Darling     92

10. The Falling Tiger     104

Conclusion     114

Endnotes     117

Bibliography     145

Index     151

“a character like Bose is rare. This is a man who, single-handedly, managed to penetrate the power base of the Axis while they were immersed in a war for survival”—RALPH; “good…useful…recommended”—Stone & Stone Second World War Books.