An Alternative Look At Subhash Chandra Bose

For quite sometime, I have been somewhat skeptical about Subhash Chandra Bose's role in the freedom movement. I am not completely aware of the entire history of his activities; but what I know tends to bring on a general feeling of skepticism.

Mr.Bose was definetely a courageous, enterprising and highly capable individual. However, it seems to me that his enthusiasm for liberating India from the british carried him away a bit too far; so much so that he made quite too many bad decisions.

Having escaped from India (or rather british India), he made it all the way to Berlin in 1941. He met Hitler and asked/requested his support for driving the british from India. Hitler, had some interesting observations on India and Indians, which isnt all too flattering...but I'll write about that someother time. Now, 1941 was the year during which Hitlers' Nazi regime was at the peak of its power, having conquered almost all of Europe as well as North Africa. Hitler, probably eyeing access to Britain's prized asian colony, promised his support for Bose's plans.

Consider now, if those plans succeeded, perhaps the Union Jack (the british flag) would have come down from Red Fort and the more diabolical Nazi swastika flag would have gone up the mast. Knowing Hitlers reputation quite well, it surely seems to me that we were better off doing business with the british than with the germans.

Happily, because of a lot of reasons these plans did not work. But the ever enterprising Bose now made a submarine trip to Japan. Now Japan during the times of the second world war under their Hirohito was also a terrible ally to have! Bose had more luck with the Japanese. They actually came all the way to the north-east. But we got lucky, the war ended after the atomic weapons were dropped on Japan.

There is a lot of confusion about what happened to Bose after the war. They say he disappeared under mysterious circumstances. There are ofcourse a lot of other theories. I am begining to think that all the mystery about his disappearance is a story that has been put out.
Bose's actions, if they had succeeded, would have caused great harm to our country.

I know this seems a little to simplistic a treatment of the subject. I hope to follow up on this, adding historical detail as well as links to places where more information may be found.

Opinion on the mystery sorrounding Bose can be found here.