RASH BEHARI, AVADH BEHARI AND BASANTA BISWAS
The photo shows Avadh Behari and the Hardinge Attack on 23 Dec, 1912, masterminded by Rash Behari Bose. Basanta Kumar Biswas threw the bomb at the Viceroy on elephant back but some say that it was actually thrown by Rash Behari himself. In the melee the revolutionaries escaped. Basanta Biswas was later apprehended by the British police when he went home, after a year remaining underground, to perform his just deceased father's last rites. He was hanged at Ambala Central Jail in 1915. Avadh Behari was likewise hanged and so were two other revolutionaries, Amir Chand and Balmukund. However, Rash Behari could not be touched as he rushed back to Dehra Dun that very night of the Hardinge Attack and attended office as usual. Later he even organised a meeting to condemn the dastardly attack on the Viceroy to allay all suspicion.
Rash Behari Bose now joined Bagha Jatin and the Ghadarites to attempt overthrowing the British from India through insurrection in the British Indian Army. When the attempts failed in the zero hour, Bose disguised himself as P.N. Tagore and escaped by ship to Japan where he was hounded by the Japanese police in compliance with British request, Britain being then an ally of Japan. Constantly changing residence, a total of eleven times, with his Japanese wife, he eventually managed to stabilise his position in Japanese society once international relations had taken a shift with Imperial Japan no longer remaining an ally of the British. The Japanese were now his friends.
Rash Behari became famous in Japan not only as Indian revolutionary leader but, courtesy his marital alliance, as the owner of a restaurant where he served his own invented Indian dishes. However, his revolutionary zeal kept him working on the minds of the Japanese authorities to garner support for India's revolutionary cause against the British colonists. He persuaded the highest echelons of Imperial Japan to side with India's revolutionary freedom struggle in a common cause of driving the British away from their marauding presence in Asia. Finally, in 1942 he managed to establish the Indian Independence League and, thereafter, with the help of the Japanese and Col. Mohan Singh, he established the Indian National Army from British Indian prisoners of war, both of whose reins he handed over to Subhas Chandra Bose in 1943.
Rash Behari was nominated Supreme Adviser to the Provisional Government of Free India that was set up by Netaji on 21 Oct, 1943. He continued to be the mentor of Subhas Chandra Bose and remained his great inspiration in the liberation struggle of the INA.
In 1945, at the premature age of only 59, Rash Behari passed away, months before the end of the Second World War. His only son was martyred in the Battle of Okinawa against the Allies. He was survived by his daughter but in the absence of any worthwhile recognition of her father's colossal contribution to India's freedom struggle by the Government of independent India, she chose to make Japan her permanent home to our eternal shame.
There is a pertinent point that is now being made to highlight the attitudinal difference to patriots between India and Japan. Even during his lifetime Rash Behari Bose was honoured by Emperor Hirohito with Japan's highest civilian award, the Second Order of Merit of the Rising Sun. When Rash Behari Bose died months before the end of World War II, at the behest of the Japanese Emperor his body was carried in the Imperial Coach that was otherwise exclusively reserved for members of the royal family. Now compare what we have done to the memory of this greatest of Indian revolutionaries but for whose life and works we would certainly have not won our freedom when we did. And consider as well what we as common citizens are doing to perpetuate his memory and the memory of the countless martyrs to freedom.
Written by Sugata Bose
The photo shows Avadh Behari and the Hardinge Attack on 23 Dec, 1912, masterminded by Rash Behari Bose. Basanta Kumar Biswas threw the bomb at the Viceroy on elephant back but some say that it was actually thrown by Rash Behari himself. In the melee the revolutionaries escaped. Basanta Biswas was later apprehended by the British police when he went home, after a year remaining underground, to perform his just deceased father's last rites. He was hanged at Ambala Central Jail in 1915. Avadh Behari was likewise hanged and so were two other revolutionaries, Amir Chand and Balmukund. However, Rash Behari could not be touched as he rushed back to Dehra Dun that very night of the Hardinge Attack and attended office as usual. Later he even organised a meeting to condemn the dastardly attack on the Viceroy to allay all suspicion.
Rash Behari Bose now joined Bagha Jatin and the Ghadarites to attempt overthrowing the British from India through insurrection in the British Indian Army. When the attempts failed in the zero hour, Bose disguised himself as P.N. Tagore and escaped by ship to Japan where he was hounded by the Japanese police in compliance with British request, Britain being then an ally of Japan. Constantly changing residence, a total of eleven times, with his Japanese wife, he eventually managed to stabilise his position in Japanese society once international relations had taken a shift with Imperial Japan no longer remaining an ally of the British. The Japanese were now his friends.
Rash Behari became famous in Japan not only as Indian revolutionary leader but, courtesy his marital alliance, as the owner of a restaurant where he served his own invented Indian dishes. However, his revolutionary zeal kept him working on the minds of the Japanese authorities to garner support for India's revolutionary cause against the British colonists. He persuaded the highest echelons of Imperial Japan to side with India's revolutionary freedom struggle in a common cause of driving the British away from their marauding presence in Asia. Finally, in 1942 he managed to establish the Indian Independence League and, thereafter, with the help of the Japanese and Col. Mohan Singh, he established the Indian National Army from British Indian prisoners of war, both of whose reins he handed over to Subhas Chandra Bose in 1943.
Rash Behari was nominated Supreme Adviser to the Provisional Government of Free India that was set up by Netaji on 21 Oct, 1943. He continued to be the mentor of Subhas Chandra Bose and remained his great inspiration in the liberation struggle of the INA.
In 1945, at the premature age of only 59, Rash Behari passed away, months before the end of the Second World War. His only son was martyred in the Battle of Okinawa against the Allies. He was survived by his daughter but in the absence of any worthwhile recognition of her father's colossal contribution to India's freedom struggle by the Government of independent India, she chose to make Japan her permanent home to our eternal shame.
There is a pertinent point that is now being made to highlight the attitudinal difference to patriots between India and Japan. Even during his lifetime Rash Behari Bose was honoured by Emperor Hirohito with Japan's highest civilian award, the Second Order of Merit of the Rising Sun. When Rash Behari Bose died months before the end of World War II, at the behest of the Japanese Emperor his body was carried in the Imperial Coach that was otherwise exclusively reserved for members of the royal family. Now compare what we have done to the memory of this greatest of Indian revolutionaries but for whose life and works we would certainly have not won our freedom when we did. And consider as well what we as common citizens are doing to perpetuate his memory and the memory of the countless martyrs to freedom.
Written by Sugata Bose
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