'His life is more appealing than the legend'

Harvard University professor, grand nephew of Subhas Chandra Bose and author of the latest biography on Netaji, Sugata Bose tells Sunday Mid day why Bose would have been a disappointed man today

On July 5, exactly 68 years after Subhas Chandra Bose was handed control of the Indian National Army in Singapore, his grand nephew Sugata Bose visited the city to release a biography of his grand uncle, one of the gigantic figures of the Indian freedom struggle, who is best known for the role he played in rallying Indian soldiers for the Azad Hind Fauj, or the Indian National Army in 1943.


Pic/ Atul Kamble

In His Majesty's Opponent, Bose uses previously unpublished letters and photographs, sourced from different corners of the world where Netaji travelled to and wrote from, in a bid to present to the world Subhas Chandra Bose as "a human being of flesh-and-blood and not just a military hero".

Excerpts from an interview with the author.

The way we present our history to ourselves, especially of the Independence Movement, is through legend-making and deification. Netaji's house in Cuttack is now a museum. How do you think that takes away from who Netaji really was?
Deification can lead to a complete distortion of a person's real life. That's why there always needs to be some element of critical assessment and evaluation. I'm not saying one needs to be cynical in one's approach to the lives of great men and women, but one should not dispense with one's critical faculties either.

Having a museum or an archive is not a bad thing. In many ways, what my father did by setting up the Netaji Research Bureau in Kolkatau00a0 in 1957 was to make sure that all possible material -- letters, photographs, documents, recordings, film footageu00a0-- was all there so that we were able to preserve and later disseminate what were the best traditions of our freedom movement. It was not done in the spirit of deification, but in the spirit of documentation for future generations.

Netaji had many detractorsu00a0-- those who criticised him for his wartime alliances with the Axis Powers (Japan, Germany, Italy). Sometimes I feel, those who went overboard in deifying him might, in some sense, have done a bit more harm than his detractors, since you could answer his detractors with a reasoned argument.

You don't learn anything from just garlanding his statues, and I hope the younger generation learns from his life.

Having looked at the past and analysed the period of Indian history where there was a call to a greater cause, what do you think Netaji's reaction would have been to the present state of affairs?
There was a tremendous amount of idealism in his life. If you look at his passports, under occupation, he always wrote 'public servant'. Looking at today, he would have been rather saddened by the fact that most people want to take something. He would have wanted the young people of India to be giving. He was constantly speaking for the underdogs of society, whoever happened to be marginalised along lines of gender, class or caste.

These days I hear about fasts and hunger strikes -- Netaji undertook two fasts in his life, and both were in prison. He was dead serious and wouldn't take these kinds of things lightly. I think what he would have liked to see in today's India, is a spirit of service among the people, particularly younger people.

There are so many versions of Netaji -- of his relationship with Gandhi, his position within the Congress, of the way he passed away. Was this book an attempt to lay to rest rumours and differing accounts of Netaji's work and life?
One of the things I wanted to do was to present his life in the context of global history, and convey, particularly to a young readership, his multi-faceted personality. We typically have a very one dimensional view of him as a warrior hero, but that was not all there was to him.

The life is more fascinating than the legend. I wanted to bring out the Subhas Chandra Bose who read philosophy, who wrote about ethical struggles, who wrote about art, culture, music. One category of sources I've used the most are his private letters to members of his family, to friends, particularly from prison and exile.

His Majesty's Opponent: Subhas Chandra Bose and India's Struggle against Empire by Sugata Bose. Published by Allen Lane. Rs 699