Born: 23 January 1897, Cuttack

Nickname: Netaji

Height: 1.74 m

Education: University of Cambridge (1919–1921), Scottish Church College (1919), Presidency University, Fitzwilliam College, Stewart School, University of Calcutta, Ravenshaw Collegiate School

Children: Anita Bose Pfaff

Parents: Janakinath Bose, Prabhabati Bose

In the eyes of millions of his fellow Indians, Gandhi was the Mahatma (“Great Soul”). The unthinking adoration of the huge crowds that gathered to see him all along the route of his tours made them a severe ordeal; he could hardly work during the day or rest at night. “The woes of the Mahatmas,” he wrote, “are known only to the Mahatmas.” His fame spread worldwide during his lifetime and only increased after his death. The name Mahatma Gandhi is now one of the most universally recognized on earth.

Born: c.January 23, 1897 Odisha India

Notable Works: “The Indian Struggle

In April 1941 Bose arrived in Nazi Germany, where the leadership offered unexpected but equivocal sympathy for India's independence.^[34][35] German funds were employed to open a Free India Centre in Berlin. A 3,000-strong Free India Legion was recruited from among Indian POWs captured by Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps to serve under Bose.^[36][x] Although peripheral to their main goals, the Germans inconclusively considered a land invasion of India throughout 1941. By the spring of 1942, the German army was mired in Russia. Bose became keen to move to southeast Asia, where Japan had just won quick victories.^[38] Adolf Hitler during his only meeting with Bose in late May 1942 offered to arrange a submarine.^[39] During this time, Bose also became a father; his wife,^[9][y] or companion,^[40][z] Emilie Schenkl, gave birth to a baby girl.^[9][aa][34] Identifying strongly with the Axis powers, Bose boarded a German submarine in February 1943.^[41][42] Off Madagascar, he was transferred to a Japanese submarine from which he disembarked in Japanese-held Sumatra in May 1943.^[41]

With Japanese support, Bose revamped the Indian National Army (INA), which comprised Indian prisoners of war of the Indian Army who had been captured by the Japanese in the Battle of Singapore.^[43][44][45] A Provisional Government of Free India was declared on the Japanese-occupied Andaman and Nicobar Islands and nominally presided by Bose.^[46][2][ab] Although Bose was unusually driven and charismatic, the Japanese considered him to be militarily unskilled,^[ac]and his soldierly effort was short-lived. In late 1944 and early 1945, the Indian Army reversed the Japanese attack on India. Almost half the Japanese forces and the participating INA contingent were killed.^[ad][ae] The remaining INA was driven down the Malay Peninsula and surrendered with the recapture of Singapore. Bose chose to escape to Manchuria to seek a future in the Soviet Union which he believed to have turned anti-British. He died from third-degree burns received when his overloaded plane crashed in Japanese Taiwan on August 18, 1945.^[af] Some Indians did not believe that the crash had occurred,^[ag] expecting Bose to return to secure India's independence.^[ah][ai][aj]The Indian National Congress, the main instrument of Indian nationalism, praised Bose's patriotism but distanced itself from his tactics and ideology.^[ak][55] The British Raj, never seriously threatened by the INA,^[al][am]charged 300 INA officers with treason in the INA trials, but eventually backtracked in the face of opposition by the Congress,^[an] and a new mood in Britain for rapid decolonisation in India.^[ao][55][17] Bose's legacy is mixed. Among many in India, he is the muscular hero, his saga serving as a would-be counterpoise to the many actions of regeneration, negotiation, and reconciliation through which the independence of India was achieved over a quarter-century.^[ap][aq][ar] His collaborations with Japanese Fascism and Nazisim pose serious ethical dilemmas.^[as] His reluctance to publicly criticize the worst excesses of German anti-Semitism from 1938 onwards or to offer refuge in India to its victims, cannot be said to have arisen from a lack of awareness of the excesses.^[at][au][av]