Sugata Bose's book on NetajiArthur J Pais

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.

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:

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?

You have a fine reputation as a historian for more than two and a half decades. What is the reason you took so long to write this book?

One reason was that, even though Netaji always said that his family was coterminous with his country, I was aware that by an accident of birth I was a member of the family. So I kept putting off writing his life. But there was another reason. I felt that I could only do justice to what I have described as the global odyssey of Subhas Chandra Bose after I had really gained mastery over global history, European history, Asian history and Indian Ocean history. I have told the life of Netaji as very much a part of world history in the first half of the

20th century. So I think it was only appropriate that after I had published my book A Hundred Horizons that I should do a full-fledged biography of Netaji.

I always knew that I could do a book when I was jointly editing the Collected Works of Netaji with my father Sisir Kumar Bose from 1992 onwards. But I wanted to do a very major and significant book. It was intuitive. I really felt that the time had come for me to write this book a few years ago. I could have done a book on Netaji many years ago, but this kind of a book is what I felt impelled to do and I really wrote it during my year of sabbatical leave in 2009-10.

This book has many layers. Deep scholarship and historical revelations apart, it also reads in part like a good thriller. Not to forget an emotional story.

There are certain chapters or sections of the book, which probably read like a thriller because Netaji's life was a thrilling adventure. As he prepared to resign from the Indian Civil Service in 1921, the response from the innermost corner of his heart that he heard was: "The way to your happiness lies in your dancing around with the surging waves of the ocean."

So when I was writing about his escape from India in January 1941 -- it was my father Sisir Kumar Bose who drove the car in which he left his home on Elgin Road in Calcutta -- or when I was describing the perilous 90-day submarine voyage between February and May of 1943, I simply had to do the research and tell the story well. What emerged then is, I hope, a gripping narrative. But there are other parts of the book, which are either more reflective or analytical, and in some parts there is a good bit of emotion.

What had you heard from your father about the 1941 escape and what more did you discover when you were researching this book?

I heard the story of the great escape from my father as a child. But while researching the book I also consulted fascinating British documents in London. The governor of Bengal, John Herbert, had thought he would deploy a "cat and mouse" policy in relation to Subhas Chandra Bose and re-arrest him as soon as he recovered his health following his hunger strike in prison. "If he resorts to hunger strike again,"

Herbert wrote to Viceroy Linlithgow, "the present cat and mouse policy will be continued, and its employment will serve both to render him innocuous and to make him realise that nothing is to be gained from a series of fasts."

The British files show there were at least 14 secret police agents keeping watch on Netaji; they were numbered AS95, C207, etc. Netaji told my father that they had to work out a foolproof escape plan. In the end, the British intelligence officers were left shame-faced and bewildered. Herbert was sharply rebuked by Linlithgow. One police officer named Janvrin realized that Bose would never "cease to strive his utmost to achieve what has been his life's aim -- the complete independence of India".

What did you get from your mother Krishna Bose for this book?

My mother had supported my father in preserving the best traditions of the freedom movement ever since he set up the Netaji Research Bureau in 1957. She accompanied my father on two important research trips through Europe in 1971 and across Asia in 1979. She wrote two books in Bengali based on what she found during these travels -- Itihaser Sandhane (In Search of History) and Charanarekha

Taba (In Your Footsteps). She is an authority on Netaji's overseas activities and her vast knowledge was of great help to me in writing my book.

Tell us a few important things about the submarine journey and the new things you came across about it during your research.

Netaji's sole Indian companion on the submarine voyage, Abid Hasan, used to visit and stay in our home as I was growing up. On one of his visits my parents and I taped a very detailed interview with him on his time with Netaji in Europe, on the perilous 90-day submarine voyage, and finally in Japan and Southeast Asia. On the submarine Netaji used to dictate speeches to Abid Hasan that he planned to deliver in Southeast Asia, including one to the women's regiment of his dreams. One day when they were up on the bridge of the vessel, Hasan asked Netaji to name the worst fate he might suffer. Netaji answered: "To be in exile."

I also found interesting German and Japanese documents. Netaji had written to the German foreign minister: "There is a certain amount of risk undoubtedly in this undertaking, but so is there in every undertaking. At the same time, I believe in my destiny and I therefore believe this endeavor will succeed." His transfer on a rubber raft in the Indian Ocean from a German to a Japanese submarine was a military feat unique in the annals of the Second World War. The Japanese submarine, I-29, in which he was taken to Sabang in Sumatra was later sunk by the Americans in July 1944.

What are some of the things that surprised you most about Netaji during your research and editing of his works?

Netaji is popularly regarded as the great warrior hero. I found while editing his collected works that he was a farsighted thinker with a philosophical bent of mind. He was writing about the future social and economic reconstruction of free India in his essays and speeches. He was also someone who was introspective, constantly

analyzing himself, particularly when he was in prison or in home internment. And I found he was dealing with his long years of imprisonment with a balance of stoicism and humor. He wrote beautiful letters to his sister-in-law about life in jail or and to his elder brother, Sarat Chandra Bose.

I found it fascinating that most of the letters to Bengali women were in Bengali and the letters to his brother (until his 1941 escape) were in English. I also found he was reading voraciously whenever he was in prison or exile (he went to prison 11 times and nearly 11 years of his life were spent in prison or exile) or in home internment, making copious notes on books he read. For example, I write about how he was fascinated by Irish history and literature, writing down in his Mandalay prison notebook beautiful poems by PH Pearse who was killed after the Easter Uprising against the British in 1916.

Pearse's lines about a rebel who came of 'the seed of the people that sorrow' must have seemed especially poignant to Netaji:I say to my people that they are holy,That they are august despite their chains,That they are greater than those thatHold them, and stronger and purer...

He also had a notebook in which he transcribed his favourite songs, several of them composed by Rabindranath Tagore.

We are marking the birth anniversary of Tagore. What kind of relationship did he have with Netaji?

Even before Tagore won the Nobel Prize in 1913, the 15-year old Subhas wrote to his elder brother Sara "how indifferent Bengal had been in showering laurels upon him" while foreigners "extolled him as the greatest poet the world has produced". In 1921 Subhas traveled back from England to India on the

same ship with Rabindranath and discussed Gandhi's movement of non-cooperation. Nearly two decades later, Tagore provided solid support to Subhas Chandra Bose during his conflict with the Gandhian high command of the Indian National Congress in 1939.

Rabindranath hailed Subhas Chandra as "Deshnayak" ("Leader of the Country") in January 1939. He confessed that he had felt "misgivings" in the uncertain dawn of Subhas Chandra's "Political Sadhana (quest)". But now that he was revealed in the "pure light of midday sun", there was no room for any doubt. "When misfortune from all directions swarms to attack the living spirit of the nation," Tagore declared, "its anguished cry calls forth from its own being the liberator to its rescue." "I may not join him in the fight that is to come," the 78-year-old poet wrote. "I can only bless him and take my leave knowing that he has made his country's burden of sorrow his own, that his final reward is fast coming as his country's freedom."

We seem to know more about Gandhi and Nehru as writers and correspondents than Subhas Chandra Bose.

Yes, even though Netaji wrote quite as much in prison in the form of letters and he wrote his two major books while in exile in Europe between 1933 and 1937, The Indian Struggle was written by him in 1934 when he was in European exile and I have shown in my book how well it was received by the British press and the European literati. A few British reviewers obviously had difficulty with the point of view he was expressing, though they admired his clarity of vision. When you think of his unfinished autobiography An Indian Pilgrim, he wrote 10 chapters in 10 days while he was in Badgarstein in Austria in December of 1937 and I think it is a beautiful, analytical and introspective autobiography.

There is only historian, as far as I know, and a great one at that, Ranajit Guha, who actually appreciated how beautiful that incomplete autobiography is and even in comparison to Nehru's really great autobiography. I do have a lot to say comparing Subhas Chandra Bose and Jawaharlal Nehru. They were very good friends in the late 1920s and the 1930s. What I do also point out in the book is that Subhas's discovery of India took place very early in his life when he was a teenager, while Nehru's discovery of India took place when he was much older once he found himself among the peasants of Uttar Pradesh at the time of the Non-Cooperation Movement.

So the similarities and differences between the two young radicals and left-leaning leaders form an important theme in the book. I was hugely and very pleasantly surprised as a historian when, in 1993, my grand aunt Emilie (Subhas Chandra Bose's wife whom he secretly married in Austria) made available some 165 letters written by Subhas to her. The last major biography of Netaji was published in 1990. Brothers Against the Raj by Leonard Gordon is a very good book but unfortunately he did not have access to the correspondence between Subhas and Emilie.

While a lot has been said about Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose's 1941 escape from British India and his perilous 90-day submarine voyage, his marriage continues to remain a secret. In the second part of his four-part interview to Arthur Pais, biographer Sugata Bose talks about Netaji's love story.

It was in 1993 that a historian handed over to the author some 165 letters written by Subhas Chandra Bose to his wife Emilie, whom he secretly married in Austria. This came as a

huge and pleasant surprise to Sugata Bose, he admits. "The last major biography of Netaji was published in 1990. Brothers Against the Raj by Leonard Gordon is a very good book but unfortunately he did not have access to the correspondence between Netaji and Emilie," the author said.

Tell us about the letters.

We all knew about the relationship and the marriage when we were growing up but the fact that there were so many letters was something of a surprise. I jointly edited these letters with my father and the book was published in 1994. When we went to see my grand aunt Emilie and her daughter, my aunt Anita, in Augsburg, Germany, and gave her the book, we had a little celebration in 1994. She said she was celebrating the 60th anniversary of her first meeting with Subhas Chandra Bose in 1934, but then she suddenly said, you know there are three letters I did not give you last year, and particularly one. Then she turned to my mother and said, "This is for you. It is a love letter." And it was the most beautiful letter.

The romantic, deeply emotional side of Subhas Chandra Bose, and the kind of lyricism reflected in the letter that he was writing to the woman he loved, was I think a surprise even for me even though I knew about the depth of their

relationship. It also underscored the personal sacrifice that both of them made because of Netaji's first love -- his country. He was constantly having to leave Emilie and go back to India in 1936 and then again in January 1938. And then, when you think of it, their daughter Anita was born on November 29, 1942 and on February 8 the next year, he was embarking on his submarine voyage. After 1943, he never saw his wife or daughter again because he had gone to Southeast Asia to fight his final battle for India's freedom.

Why was his marriage a secret?

Emilie, who had worked as a secretary to Netaji in Austria, got married to him in December 1937. They chose to keep it a secret. In fact, it was when I was putting together their correspondence that I asked her despite the obvious anguish -- Why did you decide to keep it a secret? She said that it would have caused unnecessary "upheaval". She never fully explained; but I think she felt that he was completely absorbed by India's freedom struggle. Everyone around him expected him to be almost single-mindedly devoted to that struggle for freedom and she thought that it was sufficient that he was making a private commitment to her, which he could

redeem only once India was free. She once said that he was about to become the president of the Indian National Congress and there was work to be done and so on.

Again, one could have many different interpretations. With hindsight, on one hand, I could say that maybe it wouldn't have been as much of an upheaval as they had thought. On the other hand, India's freedom was this man's mission and they both agreed to keep mum on the relationship. We also have to give them their right of choice to do what they wanted.

When did people learn about their marriage?

Those who were around them between 1941 and 1943 knew about the marriage because they were staying together at their Sophienstrasse home in Berlin. Then of course Netaji wrote a letter to his older brother Sarat Chandra Bose. Those who were very close to him in Southeast Asia also knew about the marriage. The family at large and the rest of the country came to know about it when the letter was in fact sent to Sarat Chandra Bose. He eventually went to meet Emilie with his wife Bivabati, his son, my father Sisir Kumar Bose and his two sisters (my aunts). They welcomed Emilie into the family. She then went Vienna in 1948. From then on, of course, the

family kept in touch.

Emilie brought up Anita all by herself in Vienna. They had a very hard time in 1945. But Emilie was a woman of enormous dignity. She had an independent spirit and she would not ask for help. She was very knowledgeable when it came to India; she never visited India but she knew everything about India. I had seen her and my aunt Anita as small child. I met them first when I was about three years old in 1959 and then my aunt Anita came to India in 1960. She stayed with us. I used to meet them very frequently when I was a student at Cambridge University in the late '70s and early '80s. That's when I talked at length with my grand aunt. Emilie remained completely devoted to Subhas throughout her life. Even in absentia he really dominated her life. She brought up my aunt, Anita, who became an economist and statistician in the field of economics of health.

My aunt married and took her married last name Pfaff. Her husband, my uncle Martin, for quite a few years, was a Social Democratic Party member of parliament in Germany. Sometimes, when my mother was chairperson of the parliamentary standing committee on external affairs in India, she would hold meetings with her German counterparts and there would be my uncle Martin on the other side, the German side. Both Aunt Anita and Uncle Martin were professors at Augsburg University for many, many years and live in Augsburg now. In fact, I have driven from Cambridge on the road along the Rhine Valley to visit my aunt and then driven from Augsburg to Vienna to visit my grand aunt. This was until the early 1980s. When my grand aunt Emilie grew older she moved from Vienna and lived with my aunt Anita. So, in the last decade of her life she lived in Augsburg. She passed away in 1996.

How much does Anita know of her father?

Anita has no memories of her father. What she knows of her father is, of course, what her mother had told her to begin with. Later, she read everything that her father wrote, and works on her father. I think, like everyone in South Asia and like everyone who knows Subhas Chandra Bose, she admires her father greatly. But I know that she missed a father figure in her life.

When my father was training in medicine (this was after the end of the war in the late '40s), he was, for about six months, in Vienna. They developed a very special bond. So, for the first time when she was about seven or eight years old, and my father was in Vienna, there was an older male member of the

family. Aunt Anita and my father kept in touch until my father passed away just over 10 years ago.

What did Anita call your father?

You know, in those days, she, in very European fashion, called my father by his first name, Sisir. In her early letters she addressed him as my dear brother Sisir. It is only after she grew up that she referred to my father as Lal-da or Lal-dada, which is what all the other younger siblings called him. You know, I traveled everywhere for this book -- to Kolkata, Delhi, London, Singapore, Tokyo, Berlin and so on. But of all the trips that I took, as part of the field research for this book, the most fascinating one was when I traveled with my mother Krishna, my younger brother Sumantra (who is professor of international and comparative politics at the London School of Economics), my aunt Anita and my uncle Martin.

I drove from their home in Augsburg towards Salzburg in Austria and then we turned towards Badgastein. While writing this book, I felt the need to visit Badgastein because so many of the letters of Subhas and Emilie referred to that mountain town. It was their favorite hill resort. And, we actually found the Kurhaus where they used to stay. We went and had coffee at Grunerbaum where they used to go and have coffee.

You were asking what my aunt Anita remembers. This is not something I found in letters. But, you know my grand aunt had told her that they used to go for very long walks from the Kurhaus where they were staying to Grunerbaum for coffee. It was quite a long distance to walk. We were able to drive to the same place and have

coffee. Badgastein is a beautiful idyllic place. I can understand why Netaji found the magic mountains around Badgastain so enchanting. There are also thermal hot springs there. I met my aunt Anita in December last year. I had gone to give a lecture in Cologne and made a flying visit to see her in Augsburg.

In 1941, at the height of the Second World War, Subhas Chandra Bose went to Germany to seek Adolf Hitler's help in organizing an Indian army to fight their common enemy, England. In the third

part of his four-part interview to Arthur Pais, biographer Sugata Bose talks about Netaji’s time in Europe.

Let us talk about Netaji in Europe, and his outlook towards people of different religious and ethnic backgrounds.

In the 1940s, Subhas Chandra Bose gave up his earlier inhibitions about meat and other food restrictions and so on, but remained essentially the same man in terms of his values. His biggest achievement in public life was to bring about the unity all of the religious communities of India: Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and Christians. Mahatma Gandhi also brought about unity among Hindus and Muslims; but Subhas actually believed in the possibility of what he described as cultural intimacy among the different religious communities of India.

That is why he was very keen that the members of different religious communities should learn more about the religious faiths and practices of other communities; and on ceremonial occasions take part in the celebrations. He felt that on Muslim festivals, Muslims may actually invite Hindus and vice versa.

Actually, I found it very moving to write the small passage that I have on the construction of a memorial to the fallen heroes of Indian National Army. It was designed and built by Cyril John Stracey, an Anglo-Indian officer of the INA. Subhas Chandra Bose met him on August 15, 1945, and examined the designs for the memorial. He asked Stracey if the memorial could be completed before the British landed in Singapore. "Certainly, Sir," Stracey replied, and with a salute and 'Jai Hind' marched off to build the edifice in record time. It would bear the INA motto Itmad (Faith), Ittefaq (Unity), and Qurbani (Sacrifice).

Subhas was really a very broad-minded man. He himself had been deeply influenced by Vivekananda. He himself was a devotee of the Mother Goddess. But he never made a display of it. And in my book I have quoted SA Ayer, who said that Netaji never spoke his God, he lived Him. He married someone who was a Christian, a Catholic.

When he was going on his submarine voyage, the one companion he chose was a Muslim. When the INA Memorial had to be built, it was a Christian officer who was given the task. So, he was someone who was able to both respect and transcend religious differences. And, when he writes to Emilie in March 1936, he says that he has forgotten all these differences of Indian and European and what I love is really the woman in you, the soul in you.

When Shyam Benegal's film Netaji, the Forgotten Hero was released, some people did not like the title.

Shyam's initial idea was to call the film The Last Hero. Bose hasn't quite been forgotten. He became a legend. But I felt his actual life and work were sometimes genuinely forgotten. I wrote this book because I felt that the life was more fascinating than the legend. There was a little too much of myth-making around him and I felt that his actual life story narrated well would present the real Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose to a younger generation. The myth-making consisted of simply worshipping him as a warrior hero, leaving aside all of the other important facets of his life and personality.

But, to return to the question that you asked about the leftists and their attitude towards Bose and how they came to dislike

him for many decades. In fact, the Communists had more or less worked with him reasonably well even in the late 1930s, when they were trying to bring about left consolidation within the Indian National Congress. The communists in those days were operating under the label National Front. But then the communists decided overnight that the Imperialist War had been turned into a Peoples' War when Germany invaded the Soviet Union.

Once Netaji allied with the Japanese, he was denounced as a Japanese stooge by the then communists who took a very hard stand against him. I think they recognized over the decades that this man had such a great popular appeal that they undercut themselves if they continued to criticize him. And, I remember the first time that Jyoti Basu made a speech in January 1978 on his birthday and said the time had come for the left to reassess Subhas Chandra Bose.

Among those who really know what Netaji was all about from the letters that he wrote; it became clear that sitting in wartime Germany he was writing to the German foreign minister, criticizing in the strongest terms Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union. We have all the correspondence and the transcripts of the speeches he made criticizing Nazi Germany in the 1930s and the 1940s. So here was a man who had real courage to criticize Nazi policies while in Germany. His letters and speeches show that he never compromised on India's dignity and India's interests. So, once all this began to come out, the leftists had to accept the facts. And now with my book these facts will, hopefully, become even more widely known.

Did Bose spend sleepless nights thinking that in spite of his alliance with the Japanese, there could be a time when the Japanese would add India to its conquests?

What is fascinating is that just as he criticised Germany in the mid-1930s, he had in a letter to Kitty Kurti described the Japanese, way back in 1934, as "the British of the East". When Japan invaded mainland China in 1937, he was very critical of Japan, and as Congress president, he sent a medical mission to help the Chinese in the face of the Japanese invasion. He had hoped for Asian unity; for some sort of an Asian universalism to be realized and he felt dismayed two of these Asian powers -- Japan and China --

were falling victim to the same kind of nationalist rivalry that had torn apart Europe during World War I.

He admired Japan for its achievement until the early twentieth century. But he was opposed to this kind of nationalistic imperialism and the humiliation of another proud Asian country. Now, during Second World War, of course, he was taking advantage of the international war crisis. Again, he was able to do in Southeast Asia in a much bigger way what he had attempted to do in the first instance in Europe.

This was because there was a much larger number of Indian soldiers that had surrendered to the Japanese, and the Japanese had said that if you fight for India's freedom then you will not be prisoners of war, even though there were tensions between the Japanese and the Indians. And the other advantage of being in Southeast Asia was that there was much larger social base of civilian support, a much larger Indian expatriate community in Singapore, Malaya, Thailand, and Burma who rallied in very large numbers to the cause of India's freedom.

Subhas Chandra Bose was in some ways allied to Japan but he was also asserting the independence of his movement. He had quite serious arguments with some lower-ranking Japanese officers who could be arrogant, but he felt, I think, that the Indian independence movement that he was leading was strong enough to take a stand against Japan if necessary. But the first task was to expel the British power from India. If you look at what happened in the Battle of Imphal, at first he had wanted the Japanese to let the British retreat because he was desperate to come into Assam and Bengal and he felt he would have a very large civilian uprising in his support.

But he persuaded himself when the Japanese besieged Imphal and that if Imphal fell, there would be again a very large number of Indian soldiers who he believed would come over to the side of the Indian National Army, which would enhance his strength not only against the British, but also vis-à-vis the Japanese. He felt the Japanese were not really in any position to have imperialist designs on India. He was a realist and he could see how far the Japanese were over-extended and in fact by the time he arrived in Southeast Asia, the Japanese were already losing in the Pacific. All that he needed was the war to last long enough for his Indian National Army to make a decisive breakthrough in India. And look at what happened in Burma.

Initially, Aung San came as one of the 30 heroes with the Japanese but in 1945 he turned against the Japanese. And then in 1946 he turned against the British again. So all of these Asian nationalists including Sukarno in Indonesia were all trying to advance their own country's freedom struggles, and their own country's interests by taking advantage of this international war crisis. Bose described the war as a conflict between old imperial powers and the new imperial powers. He had no illusions about the new imperial powers. He simply felt this conflict should be taken advantage of by the colonially oppressed people in their struggle for freedom.

In seeking this alliance, how much of anxiety did he go through?

I think he overlooked the sins of Britain's enemies because he was completely absorbed by the cause of India's freedom. One criticism of him that I have expressed in the book is that he always stood up to the Germans and Japanese when he felt Indian honor was at stake, but he sometimes put on blinkers when it came to the brutality of these powers against their victims. He was more concerned about the suffering of those people who, for long, had been under the British, French, Dutch or American imperial domination.

Perhaps he could not realistically do very much for the victims of German and Japanese oppression, even though one should also know that he made sure that the Indians and Burmese would never fight against each other even when Indians were continuing to fight against the British and the Burmese were turning against the Japanese. He also tried to keep the channels of communication open with the Chinese in Malaya who happened to be mostly against the Japanese

What I have tried to do in this book is to capture the greatness of the man. He was a very great man but he was also a human being who had his flaws and failures. And, I don't think acknowledging his failures takes away anything from the greatness of this man or the greatness of his vision of a world free of imperialist domination. We

should retain our critical faculties in assessing his life and work. I think he was the

kind of person who would have appreciated it. But we need not be overly cynical when we write about great figures in history. Sometimes scholars have a tendency towards that.

Subhas Chandra Bose needs to be judged by the same standards as one would judge Franklin D Roosevelt in this country. FDR went and met Stalin in November 1943 and had actually said to him, "It is good to meet you". Did FDR really believe that it was good to meet someone who was a totalitarian dictator who probably beats Hitler into second place as the biggest mass murderer of the 20th century? But from the perspective of the national interests of the United States, an alliance with the Soviet Union against Hitler was a strategic necessity. And FDR was the president of the United States of America, which was then the emerging superpower of the world.

And here was Subhas Chandra Bose, a prominent leader after Gandhi alongside Jawaharlal Nehru of a country trying to win freedom. And he felt he had to make certain strategic alliances to pursue the cause of India's freedom. Did Roosevelt make a big issue of the atrocities that Stalin was perpetrating which he knew of at that stage? All his writings, all his politics and his entire record suggest that if anything, in ideological terms Subhas Chandra Bose was a left-leaning socialist. He was not a communist but a socialist who talked about the ideology of samyavada, of equality based on harmony.

He wanted a form of socialism that was suited to Indian conditions. He did not want to copy or imitate some of the experiments in Russia. That he was completely opposed to the ideology of fascism becomes very clear if we study his life. Simply because he made an alliance with the Axis powers to fight for India's independence did not mean he shared their ideology. Stalin and Churchill were on two sides of the spectrum when it came to their ideological dispositions when they had an alliance against Nazi Germany. And for Subhas Chandra Bose, it was not a simple matter of 'the enemy's enemy is my friend'.

He had taken part in the nonviolent movements led by Mahatma Gandhi for two decades and he had seen that the masses were on the side of India's freedom but not one Indian soldier fighting for the British had come over to the side of the Indian freedom movement. They were still employed to put down the rebellions against the British Empire all across the globe. He really felt at a climactic movement of India's struggle for freedom the loyalty of these men in arms to the British King-Emperor had to be replaced by a new loyalty to the cause of India's Independence. And how could he do it unless he had access to these soldiers who happened to be held by the enemies of Britain?

In the last piece of this four-part interview to Arthur Pais, biographer Sugata Bose dispels rumors that Netaji is still alive.

You have had a few book readings. What have the audiences been like?

So far I have spoken on the book in the United States. I had book readings in and in Cambridge, United Kingdom. I have book events in Japan in late June and Singapore on July 5 and finally in India between July 10 and 25. I think the audiences in the US felt they were learning something new about Subhas Chandra Bose as a human being, and not just an unreal figure whom we worship in South Asia, but someone who could be understood, somebody for whom you can have a great deal of sympathy, someone whose choices of allies you might somewhat be troubled by but at the end of the day someone from whose book of life there is something valuable to be learned.

The revolutionary Bhagat Singh was a leftist and atheist. But over the years he has been appropriated by religious Sikhs as well as the Hindu right. Could you share the thought about the communists and the Hindu right appropriating Netaji?

I think Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose should not be allowed to be appropriated for the wrong reasons. And that is why I think it is important to be knowledgeable about his life. We talked about the communists. While to some extent, there has been a genuine change of heart, there is also an element of political expediency in the re-evaluation. About the Hindu right, they will laud his military heroism but completely ignore all that he did for Hindu-Muslim unity and the deep concern and commitment that he had for minority rights.

He was one man who was implicitly trusted by the minorities in India. And if the Hindu right ignores that aspect of Netaji's politics, and simply puts him on a pedestal as a military hero, that is not doing justice to the man and that is not the right kind of lesson that we ought to be drawing from his life. So, difficult questions need to be posed to those who appropriate him. And he should be kept above party politics.

Why did the myth that Netaji never died in the air crash persist for many decades?

The mass psychological phenomenon of an initial refusal to accept Netaji's death in the early decades after independence, and the hope that he would one day return as the deliverer of his country was perfectly understandable. People missed a selfless and unifying leader.

Who were the people who sought to exploit the myth?

The popular sentiment about Netaji came to be exploited by a handful of people and fringe political parties. The self-selected group that typically came forward to depose before judicial commissions on the question of his death did not represent the vast populace that celebrated the life and work of India's leader.

What kind of the investigation did your own father undertake, and what convinced him of Netaji's death in the air crash?

He went through all the documentary evidence available, including the testimony of the survivors of the air crash, the medical personnel who attended on Netaji and the interpreter who was brought to translate what he was saying. My father visited Taiwan in 1965 and went to the airfield, the hospital and the crematorium cross-checking eye-witness accounts with the actual geography of the place.

The same year in Tokyo he met the Buddhist priest, the elder the Reverend Mochizuki, who accepted Netaji's mortal remains at the Renkoji temple. After conducting prayers for a whole day, the Rev opened the urn so that my father could see the mortal remains. He told my father that he had opened the urn only once before -- for Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru -- during his visit in the late 1950s.

While growing up, did you have any doubts about Netaji's death?? What convinced you that he had indeed died in the air crash?

I was always more interested in Netaji's life and work than in fruitless controversies over his death. The basis for my conclusion is a close study of the historical evidence, especially the testimony of a broad range of eye-witnesses.

What can the young generation of Indians take from Netaji's life, and from your vivid and mesmerising account?

They can find inspiration in and become heirs to Netaji's life immortal. As Netaji had said, "In this mortal world, everything perishes and will perish, but ideas, ideals and dreams do not." Through his life of suffering and sacrifice, he has bequeathed his ideas, ideals and dreams to the next generation. As for my narrative of his life, I hope it will reveal to readers what he was like as a human being, and the major role he played as a beacon of freedom in twentieth-century world history.