RASH BEHARI BOSE
Rash Behari Bose, the only revolutionary whose activities spanned both the World Wars, who could never be apprehended by the British and sentenced, and whose genius in donning disguise helped him elude the clutches of the British intelligence from right under their nose to escape to distant Japan where he struggled on with his revolutionary campaign to end British imperialism. His association there with the Nakamuraya Bakery, his invention of the Bose Indian curry, his wedlock with Toshiko Soma, his life in hiding as he evaded arrest by the Japanese police for anti-British activities in India are now the stuff of legend.
Bose had bombed Hardinge, remember, had plotted the Ghadar armed uprising in the British Indian Army and then disappeared in 1915 from the Indian shores disguised as the poet's relative, P. N. Tagore. This formidable foe of the British in an altered world scenario then teamed up with the Japanese to oust British imperialism from Asia. He consistently laboured to move the Japanese authorities to realise their own strategic interest in investing in India's independence. Bose, well-versed in the Japanese language and culture, was now well-known throughout Japan for the Indian section of the Nakamuraya Bakery where he had opened his own restaurant serving his special Indian curries. He was now Bose of Nakamuraya. From afar he watched keenly the proceedings of the Congress at home and kept up correspondence with the Indian revolutionaries. Likewise, in Japan he wrote in newspapers and periodicals about the Indian independence cause and solicited support for it. The patriotic Japanese respected him for his nationalistic fervour and offered him all help.
Bose had access to the highest echelons of the Japanese political hierarchy and could thus build up with the help of A.M.Nair the future structure of the Indian Independence League that was to launch the final offensive against the British in the tumultuous days of the Second World War. The occasion arose and in 1943 the veteran of revolutionary activity in two World Wars handed over the reins of the Indian Independence League to the younger Subhas Chandra Bose in Singapore and helped him organise the Indian National Army II to launch India's final war of liberation.
In early 1945 India's heroic revolutionary breathed his last, months before the capitulation of the Axis Powers. Soon after his death his son, Masahide, died in the Battle of Okinawa. His wife, Toshiko, had long before left him for her heavenly abode and only his daughter, Tetsuko, survived to recount her experiences with her father. His great dream of dying in his free motherland was never fulfilled as he gave up his body in his chosen habitat, Japan. The Japanese royalty gave him a fitting tribute by sending his corpse in the royal carriage. Even in life imperial Japan had conferred on Bose its highest civilian honour for anyone outside the fold of the royal family, the Second Order of Merit of the Rising Sun. While Japan honoured the hero, the Government of independent India never gave any recognition to this liberator of our motherland.
Written by Sugata Bose
Rash Behari Bose, the only revolutionary whose activities spanned both the World Wars, who could never be apprehended by the British and sentenced, and whose genius in donning disguise helped him elude the clutches of the British intelligence from right under their nose to escape to distant Japan where he struggled on with his revolutionary campaign to end British imperialism. His association there with the Nakamuraya Bakery, his invention of the Bose Indian curry, his wedlock with Toshiko Soma, his life in hiding as he evaded arrest by the Japanese police for anti-British activities in India are now the stuff of legend.
Bose had bombed Hardinge, remember, had plotted the Ghadar armed uprising in the British Indian Army and then disappeared in 1915 from the Indian shores disguised as the poet's relative, P. N. Tagore. This formidable foe of the British in an altered world scenario then teamed up with the Japanese to oust British imperialism from Asia. He consistently laboured to move the Japanese authorities to realise their own strategic interest in investing in India's independence. Bose, well-versed in the Japanese language and culture, was now well-known throughout Japan for the Indian section of the Nakamuraya Bakery where he had opened his own restaurant serving his special Indian curries. He was now Bose of Nakamuraya. From afar he watched keenly the proceedings of the Congress at home and kept up correspondence with the Indian revolutionaries. Likewise, in Japan he wrote in newspapers and periodicals about the Indian independence cause and solicited support for it. The patriotic Japanese respected him for his nationalistic fervour and offered him all help.
Bose had access to the highest echelons of the Japanese political hierarchy and could thus build up with the help of A.M.Nair the future structure of the Indian Independence League that was to launch the final offensive against the British in the tumultuous days of the Second World War. The occasion arose and in 1943 the veteran of revolutionary activity in two World Wars handed over the reins of the Indian Independence League to the younger Subhas Chandra Bose in Singapore and helped him organise the Indian National Army II to launch India's final war of liberation.
In early 1945 India's heroic revolutionary breathed his last, months before the capitulation of the Axis Powers. Soon after his death his son, Masahide, died in the Battle of Okinawa. His wife, Toshiko, had long before left him for her heavenly abode and only his daughter, Tetsuko, survived to recount her experiences with her father. His great dream of dying in his free motherland was never fulfilled as he gave up his body in his chosen habitat, Japan. The Japanese royalty gave him a fitting tribute by sending his corpse in the royal carriage. Even in life imperial Japan had conferred on Bose its highest civilian honour for anyone outside the fold of the royal family, the Second Order of Merit of the Rising Sun. While Japan honoured the hero, the Government of independent India never gave any recognition to this liberator of our motherland.
Written by Sugata Bose
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