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| Looking back into family history: Sugata Bose Published: Friday, Jul 15, 2011, 17:00 IST By Shreya Badola | Place: Mumbai | Agency: DNA | |||||
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By Shreya Badola | Place: Mumbai | Agency: DNA
Despite his close relation with legendary freedom fighter Subhas Chandra Bose (Netaji), author and historian Sugata Bose insists that he wrote his latest book His Majesty's Opponent — which explores the public and private life of Netaji — as a historian and not as a family member.
"I wrote this book as a historian not as a family member, and not as a Bengali for sure. After all, I had never seen Netaji," says Sugata. "Also, I have always been told by my father that his uncle said that his family and country were coterminus. And that I should never get any privilege based on the accident of birth in the same family," he adds.
Sugata says that he grew up like any other Indian and he always looked up at Netaji as a historical, public figure. And while we may think it was expected of him to write a book on Netaji, Sugata explains that the fact that he belonged to Netaji's family made him rather more hesitant. "If there was any hesitation in my writing this book till now, that has got to do with the fact that I wanted to distance myself from my subject," he says.
Sugata, who is the Gardiner Professor of Oceanic History and Affairs at Harvard University, was always much fascinated by Netaji since childhood. And he admits that his inclination towards history was in a way propelled by the fact that he belonged to Netaji's family. He took charge of the Netaji Research Bureau in Calcutta after his father's demise.
Sugata has authored several books on the economic, social and political history of modern South Asia. His past works include Peasant Labour and Colonial Capital (1993), Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy (1998, 2004, 2011, with Ayesha Jalal) and his much-acclaimed work, A Hundred Horizons: The Indian Ocean in the Age of Global Empire (2006).
"For anyone else to write this book, that person would have had to spend so much time doing the research, but since I had already done the research I thought why not I write the book myself," jokes the writer. And perhaps that is why it did not take him long to write the book. "The actual writing of His Majesty's Oppnent was done very fast... during a year of sabbatical from Havard." It is also the first book by Sugata, which was written by him while he was in
http://www.dnaindia.com/entertainment/report_looking-back-into-family-history-sugata-bose_1566034
Book Aims to Repair Freedom Fighter's Image
By Tom Wright
A new biography of Indian nationalist hero Subhas Chandra Bose could help resuscitate the leader's troubled reputation outside of India.
- Courtesy Harvard University Press
- A new biography of Subhas Chandra Bose could help resuscitate the leader's troubled reputation outside India.
Mr. Bose sided with Imperial Japan and the Nazis during World War Two in a move of realpolitik aimed at securing backing for his Indian National Army and its war for an independent India.
Long a member of the pantheon of Indian nationalist heroes, Mr. Bose is held in mild contempt in the West for his dalliance with totalitarian powers. In Japan, he is still hugely admired, and his ashes are believed to be housed in Tokyo's Renjoki temple.
Harvard professor Sugata Bose, who is the grandson of the nationalist leader's brother, sets out to correct this one-sided view.
The book, "His Majesty's Opponent," aims to be the definitive biography of a man who, as the author writes, devoted "his life to ensuring the sun did finally set on the British Empire."
Mr. Bose's life is an action-packed thriller tailor-made for biographical treatment. The author has purposely aimed the book at a global audience who might know Indian independence icons like Jawaharlal Nehru, the nation's first prime minister or Mahatma Gandhi but not be acquainted with a man whom Indians know as "Netaji," or Respected Leader.
Mr. Bose, the Harvard professor, wrote the book at Netaji's old family house on Elgin Street in Kolkata.
The home is now a museum to Mr. Bose, which charts his life. Parked outside is the car in which he escaped British house arrest in 1941, the beginning of an odyssey which would take him all over the world.
Mr. Bose was born at the close of the 19th Century in Orissa but grew up in Kolkata. Twice elected president of the Indian National Congress in 1938 and 1939, he later clashed with Gandhi because, unlike the Mahatma, he backed violent efforts to oust the British from India.
After fleeing house arrest he found his way to Moscow and then Berlin, where he met Hitler and married a Austrian woman.
He travelled by German and Japanese submarines to Singapore, where on Oct. 21, 1943, he proclaimed the formation of the Provisional Government of Azad Hind ("Free India").
Ultimately, the army he raised — made up largely of Indian soldiers in the British army who had been captured by the Japanese — was unsuccessful. They were beaten in Manipur by British and American forces, and had to retreat.
Mr. Bose died in a plane crash in Taiwan, never living to see an independent India (There are some who dispute this and his death is shrouded in mystery.)
But his legacy was long lasting. His actions helped to spark naval rebellions against the British in Mumbai and Karachi in the aftermath of the war. The threat of armed rebellion surely pushed the British to draw the curtain on their Indian empire more quickly than they otherwise would have.
Mr. Bose also was the first to call Gandhi, with whom he had many disagreements, the "Father of the Nation." And he coined the phrase "Jai Hind," ("Long Live India") now so popular in everyday Indian speech.
You can follow Mr. Wright on Twitter @TomWrightAsia.
http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2011/07/11/new-book-aims-to-repair-freedom-fighters-image/
| A life & legacy revealed - IT IS DYNAMIC AND MAKES YOU REFLECT: AMARTYA Sen unveils 'exciting' book on Netaji | ||
| A STAFF REPORTER | ||
A Nobel laureate from Bengal, a noted historian and the grandnephew of one of Bengal's greatest heroes, and Bengal's modern agent of change — the Town Hall stage on Friday evening was a pride-of-Bengal freeze frame. "It's a very exciting person's life history. There's enormous new material for even those who know a good deal about Netaji and it reads like a really exciting piece of history that is dynamic and makes you reflect," was how Amartya Sen summed up His Majesty's Opponent: Subhas Chandra Bose and India's Struggle Against Empire at the Town Hall. That makes Sugata Bose's book on his granduncle, published by Penguin India, a must read. Something that Mamata Banerjee must have quickly realised, seated between Sen and Bose on the dais. For, she wasted no time in flipping through the first copy of His Majesty's Opponent unveiled by the economist-philosopher and handed over to her with a smile. Unveiling over, the grandson of Acharya Kshiti Mohan Sen and the grandnephew of Subhas Chandra Bose settled down for a discussion on the life and legacy of Netaji. "This is a book of considerable depth and gravity. Subhas Chandra Bose was an inspirational figure who also had to court many controversies through various stages of his life, in his pursuit of India's independence or in establishing international alliances that were questioned at that time. The book had to address various complexities and I couldn't think of anyone else other than Sugata Bose who could have done justice to it," said Sen in his introduction before going on to prod the Harvard history professor on some interesting insights into the book's celebrated subject. After a collage of black-and-white video footage from Netaji's INA days, his address to his "countrymen" and his travels around the world, was screened, the author clarified: "Those were images of Subhas Chandra Bose as a warrior statesman but there were other facets to his personality." The gathering got glimpses of some of those facets as the author read out passages from his 325-pager. The discussion on Netaji between Sen and Bose then veered towards the other Bengali icon: Rabindranath Tagore. When Santiniketan's most famous son today — named Amartya by Tagore — raised questions about the tensions and concerns between Tagore and Netaji, Bose clarified: "Netaji understood that Tagore was a patriot who loved his land and did not want India to imitate the nationalism of the West." http://www.telegraphindia.com/1110709/jsp/calcutta/story_14215624.jsp The last action hero A Harvard historian produces the definitive biography of India's maverick military hero Soutik Biswas |
What has been lost in the process, as Sugata Bose writes in this magisterial biography of the man, was a "genuine understanding of who he was as a human being and of his place in history". On both accounts, the Harvard historian does a splendid job.
Note: Bose calls Netaji's association with Hitler a 'pact with a devil'. Keystone/Getty Images
Bose etches a vivid portrait of Netaji as a protean nationalist of fierce integrity and conviction. At home, he espoused a brand of muscular and secular nationalism, went to British prisons 11 times and was even derided by his opponents as a Bolshevik propagandist. Abroad, the radical leader effortlessly morphed into a global statesman of sorts, trying to forge friendship between Indian and European countries to counter anti-Indian British propaganda. He later raised an army of Indian prisoners of war in exile and allied with the Axis powers to take on the British. He also excelled as a mass politician, and was elected twice to the presidency of the Indian National Congress.Netaji was a rousing orator and read voraciously, from philosophy to history and anthropology; he became a specialist of sorts of Irish history and literature. He was also a rare modernist, who believed in a strong, industrialized India free from caste and communalism. Netaji was also exceedingly brave and took enormous risks—hoodwinking the police to escape from India in the middle of the night, embarking on a rough and dangerous submarine voyage from Europe to Asia and boarding a dodgy Japanese bomber to try and reach a new battlefield. He turned into what the writer describes as an uncompromising, though not uncritical, anti-imperialist, decrying both the racism of Nazi Germany and the brute militarism of Japan, but allying with them to free India from British rule.
At the risk of sounding banal, it is almost tempting to describe him as a flawed Renaissance man.
The biographer—a grandson of Netaji's brother, Sarat—displays considerable acuity in examining the icon's complex love-hate relationship with Gandhi. It was a fascinating association between a wily saint and a robust warrior, a rebellious son and a stodgy patriarch. Netaji sometimes found a "deplorable lack of clarity" in Gandhi's political strategy, regretting that the saint's struggle was neither militant nor diplomatic enough. In the Congress, where he was elected twice and eventually "outwitted and outmaneuvered" by Gandhi, he fell out with his mentor over Congress participation in coalition governments in Muslim-majority provinces.
But did Netaji's single-minded obsession with Indian independence end up tarnishing his legacy? Bose calls Netaji's association with Hitler a "pact with a devil", and a "terrible price for freedom". His silence on the ghastly atrocities of Nazis and fascists remains inexplicable. "By going to Germany because it happened to be at war with Britain, he ensured that his reputation would long be tarred by the opprobrium that was due to the Nazis," writes Bose.
But Netaji was also a prescient man. He believed most Indians would never find communism appealing because of its "lack of sympathy with nationalism ... and (its) antireligious and atheistic elements". He understood Indians well—"India is a strange land," he wrote to his Austrian wife, Emile, in 1939, "where people are loved not because they have power, but because they give up power".
His Majesty's Opponent: Allen Lane/Penguin, 388 pages, Rs. 699.
So was Netaji eventually a tragic hero, who lost his way and died in exile after a doomed military effort to drive the British out of India? Bose insists that the leader's tireless wartime activities—despite the military debacle suffered by the Indian National Army (INA)—hastened India's independence and undermined further colonial conquests. Netaji's admirers, the author writes, believe that if he had been alive India would not have been partitioned along religious lines. But then you have to remember that his much lauded multi-faith army was raised in foreign lands. It was possibly easier to do that, far away from the growing religious tensions at home which eventually led to the dismembering of India.Bose writes that Netaji would have been generous towards minorities and worked resolutely towards an equal power-sharing arrangement in independent India. But one could reasonably argue that he could have been outwitted again by the right-wing, hardline sections within the Congress. Did he put too much faith in the cohesiveness of Congress while trying to steer it to a more radical, militant position (the leftists wanted to break away, and there were socialist factions that were unwilling to shed their identities)? Was he naive to believe that a strongly cultural multi-faith nationalism would be good enough to make all communities live peacefully in an intensely fractured society?
On the other hand, his critics believe he could have easily turned into a dictator, citing his alliances with totalitarian regimes opposed to Britain. Netaji, writes Bose, did speak on three occasions supporting a period of authoritarian rule after independence to speed up socio-economic reform. Bose doubts whether the leader would have turned authoritarian—the "streak of self-abnegation", he writes "was stronger in his character than that of self-assertion".
Today Netaji has been appropriated by all, from the Hindu right wing for his military heroism and a misreading of his robust nationalism, to muddled Communists who did a volte face and now regard him as a patriot. Idealism may be infra dig today, but India's stormiest petrel remains an enduring hero, and a reminder of the times when leaders dared to dream and walked the talk.
Soutik Biswas is the India editor of BBC News online.
Write to lounge@livemint.com
His Majesty's Opponent
Subhas Chandra Bose and India's Struggle against Empire
Sugata Bose
The man whom Indian nationalists perceived as the "George Washington of India" and who was President of the Indian National Congress in 1938–1939 is a legendary figure. Called Netaji ("leader") by his countrymen, Subhas Chandra Bose struggled all his life to liberate his people from British rule and, in pursuit of that goal, raised and led the Indian National Army against Allied Forces during World War II. His patriotism, as Gandhi asserted, was second to none, but his actions aroused controversy in India and condemnation in the West.
Now, in a definitive biography of the revered Indian nationalist, Sugata Bose deftly explores a charismatic personality whose public and private life encapsulated the contradictions of world history in the first half of the twentieth century. He brilliantly evokes Netaji's formation in the intellectual milieu of Calcutta and Cambridge, probes his thoughts and relations during years of exile, and analyzes his ascent to the peak of nationalist politics. Amidst riveting accounts of imprisonment and travels, we glimpse the profundity of his struggle: to unite Hindu and Muslim, men and women, and diverse linguistic groups within a single independent Indian nation. Finally, an authoritative account of his untimely death in a plane crash will put to rest rumors about the fate of this "deathless hero."
This epic of a life larger than its legend is both intimate, based on family archives, and global in significance. His Majesty's Opponent establishes Bose among the giants of Indian and world history.
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674047549
His Majesty's Opponent: Subhas Chandra and India's Struggle Against Empire
(Harvard University Press, April 2011)
By Sugata Bose
If he had reached Delhi...
His Majesty's Opponent
By Sugata Bose
Allen Lane
Rs 699, 385 pages
Imagine if the troops of Azad Hind Fauj had marched into Delhi after running over the Anglo-American forces at Imphal and Kohima in 1945. Imagine if Subhas Chandra Bose, dressed in khaki, wearing round-rimmed glasses and a baton in hand, had reached Delhi as the head of the "Provisional Government of India " to unfurl the tricolour at Red Fort. Imagine if Netaji had become the first Prime Minister of India.
There were too many "ifs" in Bose's life. Probably that's why he still remains an enigma 66 years after his death in a plane crash. Or why India is still craving for a real leader. In the past six decades, numerous people have "seen" him: as Gumnami Baba on the ghats of Ayodhya; as an "unidentified man" who made a brief appearance at Mahatma Gandhi's funeral; and as a prisoner of war in a Russian gulag. Historians are yet to give a clear verdict on his politics. For the Indian right, Bose is just a nationalist military hero. The left hasn't made peace with him yet. And for the liberals, Bose is an untouchable for his dangerous liaisons with the Axis powers.
So, what was Bose like actually? In this brilliant biography of Netaji, Sugata Bose, professor of history at Harvard and grandnephew of the INA leader, puts all speculations to rest as he tracks the leader's life from his birth in Cuttack to death in Taiwan. The book, packed with interesting anecdotes about his struggles in India, love life in exile, proves beyond doubt that Bose was not an adventurer who jumped from one ideology to another in pursuit of personal glory. And it also dismisses all conspiracy theories about his "mysterious disappearance". But that's not the central idea of the book. It's a remarkable book because it shows Bose as a politician who had a plan — both for India's freedom as well as for the post-Independence scenario. And that's what led to his conflict with Gandhi and Congress ' rightwing represented by the likes of Vallabhbhai Patel and also with Nehru, who he considered his "elder brother". Bose collided with Gandhi because he thought the "premier nationalist party had no definite policy" and it "should depend, for its strength, influence and power on such movements as the labour movement, youth movement, peasant movement, women's movement, student's movement." For people like Patel, this was unacceptable.
Sugata Bose's book on Netaji reads in parts like a thriller
Sugata Bose, author of freedom-fighter Subhas Chandra Bose's biography His Majesty's Opponent, talks to Arthur J Pais about his grand uncle, one of the freedom movement's most intriguing figures. The first of a four-part interview.
Tomorrow: Emilie Shenkl's letters to Subhas Chandra Bose
A few pages into His Majesty's Opponent, and you may forget that this book is written is by a renowned Harvard University academic Sugata Bose. For here is a biography of one of the most intriguing and powerful men in 20th century India, Subhas Chandra Bose, written with energy and without sacrificing the historical details.
Netaji was an uncle of Sugata Bose's father, Sisir Kumar Bose, a distinguished pediatrician and a freedom-fighter. The Harvard historian does not hesitate to execute his duty as a historian.
For instance, he thoroughly examines Netaji's alliance with the military rulers of Japan and asks the question whether Netaji had embraced rightwing military ideology. He revisits the records that show that Netaji did indeed die in an accidental plane-crash.
And in the following interview, Professor Bose thinks over why many people refused to believe in the air-crash account and why some perpetuated the myth of a 'deathless hero' many decades after the plane-crash.
In parts the book, published by Harvard University Press, reads like a thriller, especially when dealing with Netaji's daring escapes from British clutches. There is a spirited account of a secret submarine escape, and riveting material on Netaji's complex political strategies.
But above everything else, the book offers an intimate portrait of Netaji not only as a revolutionary leader but also a loving husband, a man of letters, and an untiring believer in communal amity.
It is also a great account of a love story and the story of an Austrian wife who never remarried and brought up her daughter -- Netaji's only child -- single-handedly, despite having to endure many hardships.
The book also reveals how the Bose family reacted when they came to know of Bose's secret marriage.
Several academics including the Nobel laureate Amartya Sen have praised the book.
'Larger than life, more profoundly intriguing than the myths that surround him, Subhas Chandra Bose was India's greatest 'lost' leader,' writes Homi K Bhabha, Harvard professor, in a blurb. 'In a remarkable narrative that pairs political passion with historical precision, Sugata Bose has beautifully explored the character and charisma of the man, while providing an elegant and incisive account of one of the most important phases of the struggle for Indian independence.'
Sen muses: 'Subhas Chandra Bose was perhaps the most enigmatic of the great Indian leaders fighting for independence in the twentieth century. This wonderful book makes a major contribution to the understanding of the political, social and moral commitments of Netaji, the great leader, as he was called by his contemporaries.'
And New York University professor Arjun Appadurai applauds the biography, calling it 'remarkable.' It 'places Subhas Chandra Bose fully in the context of Indian and world history. It should be read by everyone interested in the end of the British Empire.'
This is the kind of book that you read in about two days and wonder, was it really 448 pages long?
The following interview was conducted mostly in the Harvard University office of Professor Bose, with a few follow-up questions answered through e-mail from Harvard and the city of London where Bose was giving a lecture.
Click NEXT to read further...
Image: The book cover
http://www.rediff.com/news/slide-show/slide-show-1-an-interview-with-netajis-grand-nephew/20110531.htm
His Majesty's Opponent--Book on Netaji released by Amartya Sen
Kolkata, Jul 8 : A definitive biography of one of India's greatest leaders Subhas Chandra Bose entitled- 'His Majesty's opponent: Subhas Chandra Bose and India's Struggle Against Empire' was released here today by noble laureate Amartya Sen at a glittering function in the presence of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and the author Sugata Bose.
Published by Penguin Books India the book on Netaji was an attempt to showcase the contribution of Netaji to the understanding of his commiment of political, social and moral affairs.
After releasing the book, Prof Sen said Netaji dedicated his life to the struggle to liberate his people from the British Raj. This was a man whose patriotism, as Mahatma Gandhi said, was second to none.
Prof Sen congratulating Dr Bose, the Gardiner Prof of History at Harvard University and Netaji's grand nephew, said in this definitive biography Prof Bose had analysed Netaji's life and legacy besides tracing the intellectual impact of his political life, his ideas and his relationship that influenced him during his time in exile.
Prof Amartya Sen said the account not only documented Netaji's thoughts during his imprisonment and travels but also tried to project his uncompromising struggle to unite into a single independent nation.
Though the Chief Minister was present on the dias she did not utter a single word and left the stage to both the eminent speakers.
Later, the author read out a number of chapters from his book illustrating Netaji's life in Mandille prison in Burma and his relationship with Jawaharlal Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore in diefferent fora.
In this connection Prof Amartya Sen raised a few questions which was answered by Mr Bose aptly.
--UNI
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