Biography to tell hitherto untold stories of Netaji

NEW DELHI: A new biography of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose attempts to bring a fresh perspective on a host of issues, including his thoughts on independent India’s development, the problem of communalism, geopolitics, his own political ideology and how he negotiated with the political parties, revolutionary societies and the government.

“Bose: The Untold Story of An Inconvenient Nationalist”, authored by researcher and founder of pressure group Mission Netaji, Chandrachur Ghose, will be released in February by Penguin Random House India under its Viking imprint.

According to the publishers, the book is poised to open a window to many hitherto untold and unknown stories of Netaji coinciding with his 125th birth anniversary.

“The book throws light on Bose’s intense political activities around the revolutionary groups in Bengal, Punjab, Maharashtra and the United Provinces; his efforts to bridge the increasing communal divide and his influence among the splintered political landscape; his outlook on and relations with women; his plunge into the depths of spirituality; his penchant for covert operations; and his efforts to engineer a rebellion among the Indian armed forces,” a statement said.

One of the most sensitive issues that has prevented India’s political parties and successive governments from talking much about Bose is his joining the Axis camp during the second world war, it said.

“While Jawaharlal Nehru and other prominent Congress leaders publicly denounced the move, the Communist Party of India went on a prolonged vilification campaign.

“Sardar Patel issued instructions to Congress leaders to defend the INA soldiers without eulogising their leader. Vilified by the Western media and largely cold-shouldered by Indian official establishment and intelligentsia, the alternative political language of Bose has remained outside India’s mainstream political discourse,” the publishers said.

Ghose said Bose is among the most misunderstood icons of modern India because much information about his work and his ideas have either remained unutilised or inaccessible.

“The alternative which emanates from his thoughts and activities to the officially sponsored Gandhian-Nehruvian paradigm that has been used to define the India project has not received the attention that it deserves. Most importantly, the central role played by Bose and the Indian National Army in accelerating the end of the British Raj still remains officially unacknowledged,” he says.

Ghose says his book “demolishes the stereotyping of Bose as a brave warrior with an authoritarian streak, who was so consumed by the aim to free India that he didn’t pay much attention to the problem of reconstruction of free India”.

According to Premanka Goswami, executive editor at Penguin and the commissioning editor of the book, this new biography of Netaji opens a window to many complex aspects associated with him, which largely remains untold and therefore unknown for a long time. (PTI)