RASH BEHARI BOSE (25 May, 1886 -- 21 January, 1945)

RASH BEHARI BOSE (25 May, 1886 -- 21 January, 1945)

Within hours we will be in hallowed time terrain, the birthday of one of India's greatest revolutionaries, Rash Behari Bose. The redoubtable revolutionary who almost unseated imperial Britain with his aborted Ghadar Revolution and along with Basanta Kumar Biswas actually unseated Viceroy Hardinge from his elephant seat on 23 December, 1912, eluded the grasp of the British police in the guise of P.N.Tagore and fled to Japan to organise a pan-Asian revolution against the British with his confidante and assistant A.M.Nair which culminated in his founding the Indian Independence League and the Indian National Army which he later handed over to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, was instrumental in raising resistance against the British colonial-imperial order across five decades of the 20th century, capitalising on the opportunity afforded for freedom by two World Wars in which Britain was engaged in a titanic tussle to maintain her own sovereignty. Such a great hero, almost peerless on many counts in the annals of Indian history, leave aside just the fight for freedom from British tyranny, has been honoured in Japan but not in his motherland India whose shores he had left in 1915 with the resolve to return one day with a force and free her but could never kiss her shores again as he passed away in January, 1945 just two years and a half before the motherland was mutilated on both sides by a murderous Muslim League in league with the perfidious British and a capitulating Congress. 

Rash Behari Bose today is fondly remembered in Japan by millions as the master chef from India, the Bose of Nakamuraya, but even the Japanese youth today are probably oblivious of his revolutionary background despite he having been accorded on that count the second highest civilian honour in imperial Japan, the Second Order of the Rising Sun. Rash Behari Bose was given state honours in Japan upon his death but, alas, not a significant monument has been raised in his honour in his motherland nor he been given any prominence in the national discourse! Such apathy to revolutionary greatness surely cannot raise India to the highest status she so eloquently aspires for these days. Let 'Vikasit Bhārat' be attained by honouring our highest heroes in the heroic way that they deserve. 

And to top it all, Rash Behari Bose, being in close commutation with Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, had joined the Hindu Mahasabha and even founded its branch centre in Japan which he presided over. His multifaceted personality with his almost magical skill at disguising himself to elude arrest and effect escape, along with his multidimensional achievements for Mother India ought to make our head go down in reverence as we fondly remember this peerless patriot, this surpassingly selfless soul. He was in every sense a true son of the soil, a valorous soldier of the soul of India, a Veerputra of Bhāratvarsha, a Mahāpurush in my humble estimation. Vande Mātaram! 

Written by Sugata Bose