Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose must be conferred the title of Rashtranayak (national hero) lickety split. Unfortunately, Article 18 (1) of the Indian Constitution does not permit any titles to individuals, except when in an academic or military context. That is why Mahatma Gandhi has never officially been `Father of the Nation' and lamentably, Netaji cannot be conferred the title of Rashtranayak.

If there was ever an Indian hero in the modern times, it has to unequivocally be Netaji. After facing sustained opposition from the pro-Gandhi factions of the Congress within the party and severe restrictions from the British Raj that culminated in his house arrest in Kolkata, Netaji took a flight of imagination and vision, and escaped in a most idiosyncratic manner to mobilise Indians abroad towards an armed struggle against the Britishers, to unshackle India from their hold.

On 21 October 1943, he established the Azad Hind Government with Japanese support in Singapore, with its jurisdiction being primarily over the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, even as it later struggled to make inroads into the North-East of India. The provisional government commanded a sizeable army comprising of Indian POWs (Prisoners of War) captured by the Japanese during the Malayan campaign in Singapore, and had diplomatic relations with various countries, including Germany, Italy, Croatia, Thailand, Japan, Burma, Second Philippine Republic and Manchukuo.

If significant expanse and populace under jurisdiction coupled with international recognition were to be the barometer for the legitimacy of a government, Netaji was indeed the first Prime Minister of free (and, might I add, undivided) India. Technically, however, it took another couple of years for the official Indian Independence Act [1947 c. 30 (10 & 11. Geo. 6.)] to be signed and for India to have its much-cited `tryst with destiny'. 

One often wonders how the country may have evolved, particularly in its infancy, had Netaji been at the helm of matters. Some say that he would have established a socialist authoritarian state, as he said he sought to do for about two decades to even out India's social and political problems before democracy could be installed, while others feel that Partition would never have taken place with Netaji as the national leader. Given that it was interestingly Bose who had placed Nehru as the chairman of the National Planning Committee (NPC) after Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore had intervened to convince a reluctant Nehru with the words

“there were only two modernists in the High Command—you and Subhas Babu”

Ref: Letter from Anil Kumar Chanda to Jawaharlal Nehru (1938).

it seems likely that his would have been the planned economy that Nehru established post-independence. Whether India would have lost the War of 1962 with China is anyone's guess. I, for one, do believe that Netaji would have prioritised realpolitik and pragmatism over the utopian positivism that the Panchsheel framework seem to present to a belligerent China, which had just annexed Tibet. What people, however, seldom know and realise is that Mahatma Gandhi was hardly the only prominent leader of the later stages of the Independence movement to have a strong Dharmic mooring and alignment.

While Netaji was fairly against the activities of Veer Savarkar and the Hindu Mahasabha, given the famous criticism by the All India Forward Bloc of Veer Savarkar's speech in December 1939 against the A. K. Fazlul Haq government of Bengal (back in the day, rather pretentiously, the British Raj had instituted the office of `Prime Minister of Bengal', an office that Haq first occupied on 1 April 1937), he was a devout Hindu and believed in Dharmic ideas and principles. Not many know that Netaji always carried a copy of the Srimad Bhagavad Gita with him!

From a young age, Netaji was quite influenced by the teachings and lives of Sri Ramakrishna Paramhansa and Swami Vivekananda. This is evident in his words

"How shall I express in words my indebtedness to Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda? It is under their sacred influence that my life got first awakened. Like Nivedita I also regard Ramakrishna and Vivekananda as two aspects of one indivisible personality. If Swamiji had been alive today, he would have been my My guru, that is to say, I would have accepted him as my Master."

Ref: A Patriot Monk Swami Vivekananda by Santa Kumara

Netaji was spiritual and ever-committed to Dharmic ideals throughout his life. He found in Sri Ramakrishna Paramhansa's teaching on the oneness and unity of all religions an inspiration for the diversity he later encouraged in his Azad Hind Fauj. Just like Sri Ramakrishna Paramhansa, Netaji was an ardent follower of Ma Kali and kept a pictorial representation of the deity in his pocket. He believed that Swami Vivekananda preached the purest form of Hinduism, in which caste and creed had no relevance and bearing at all. Netaji highlighted the role Swamiji played in inspiring nationalism and encapsulating the very spirit of India in his writings, saying

"The foundation of the present freedom movement owes its origin to Swamiji’s message. If India is to be free, it cannot be a land specially of Hinduism or of Islam—it must be one united land of different religious communities inspired by the ideal of nationalism. (And for that) Indians must accept whole-heartedly the gospel of harmony of religions, which is the gospel of Ramakrishna-Vivekananda"

While Netaji was a student in Presidency College in 1913, he even considered joining the Ramakrishna Mission as a sanyasi. To that end, he met Swami Brahmananda, a direct disciple of Sri Ramakrishna Paramhansa and the then-president of the Order. It is said that the apparently prescient Swamiji told Netaji that he was not meant to be a sanyasi. If the theories of Netaji having survived the plane crash in 1945 and returning to India as a seer named Gumnami Baba are to be taken seriously, his childhood ambition may have had an avenue of expression!

This close association with the Ramakrishna Mission continued for years after. As per the reminiscences of Swami Shankarananda of the Ramakrishna Math, Swami Abhedananda, a direct disciple of Sri Ramakrishna, wanted to meet Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose in 1939.

Upon meeting the dynamic leader, Swamiji embraced Netaji with great affection and blessed him, saying, "Be thou victorious." During his time in Singapore, Netaji had a special relation with the Ramakrishna Mission there, often meditating in the shrine late into the night and sharing a good rapport with Swami Bhaswarananda with whom he had many spiritual discussions. Swami Bhaswarananda was impressed with Netaji, saying that he had the grace of God and could move people with the force of his personality as well as the strength of his character. Netaji also donated to an orphanage run by the Ramakrishna Mission there and contributed towards the Tithi Puja celebrations of Ma Sarada Devi.

Back in the day, Netaji would accompany his father Janiki Nath Bose to Hindu mutts in Cuttack in present-day Odisha, particularly one set up by Jagatguru Srimad Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Goswami, the famous Gaudiya Vaishnava Hindu guru whose student Sri Abhay Charanaravinda Bhaktivedanta Swami (Srila Prabhupada) established the world-famous ISKCON, in Cuttack. His respect and recognition of Dharma being the cement that held the nation together is seen in the words

"Though geographically, ethnologically and historically India represents an endless diversity to any observer-there is none the less a fundamental unity underlying this diversity [...] The most important cementing factor has been the Hindu religion. North or South, East or West, wherever you may travel, you will find the same religious ideas, the same culture and the same tradition. All Hindus look upon India as the Holy Land." 

Ref: The Indian Struggle by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose

Netaji speaks of the spiritual dimension and the essence of his spirituality, evidently influenced by Vedanta and its conception of reality at its most fundamental, in the following words in his unfinished autobiography `An Indian Pilgrim'

"Reality, therefore, is Spirit, the essence of which is Love, gradually unfolding itself in an eternal play of conflicting forces and their solution" 

Ref: An Indian Pilgrim by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose

When Rabindranath Tagore welcomed him to Santiniketan in January 1939, Netaji responded to him in a memorable extempore response, wherein he expressed his gratitude to the litterateur and luminary for speaking on the inner poverty of individuals, which must be addressed and resolved for true emancipation of Indians. Speaking on this, Netaji emphasised how it was indispensable that we must spiritually actualise to be able to accomplish our goals as individuals, saying

“We are today no doubt working tirelessly to attain national freedom, but our ideal is greater. We want complete fulfillment in personal and national life. We desire that every man and woman of the country and the entire nation may in every respect realize Truth. In this quest, in this Sadhana, political freedom is only a means.”

One of the greatest attainments of Netaji on the spiritual and philosophical plane was his aversion to accept anything without reasoning and evidence, which is the quintessential experiential and truth-oriented approach of Vedanta and the Dharmic way of life.

At the practical level, just like Sri Aurobindo, Netaji believed that political freedom is not possible until one has social and economic freedom. This comprehensive emancipation was something that made him realise that simply unshackling the colonial yoke would truly bring India to the point of realising its potential and promise.

While Netaji was broadly spiritual in a Vedantic mould, he did not shy away from acknowledging and referring to a Saguna God, as is seen in his speech to establish the Azad Hind government,

"In the name of God, I take this sacred oath that to liberate India and the thirty-eight crores of my countrymen. I, Subhas Chandra Bose, will continue the sacred war of freedom till the last breath of my life."

For Netaji, the battle was as sacred and spiritual as it was political, and the emphasis always was to create a fundamental premise and foundation that comprised of key spiritual, social, philosophical, political and economic dimensions. In doing this, Netaji placed emphasis on the Upanishadic concept of Tyaga (त्याग) - sacrifice, and imbibed the ideal of renunciation for self-realisation and actualisation. At a very young age, he became determined to leave all else to work for his country, as seen in his words that he spoke in his youth

"I had a new ideal before me now, which had influenced my soul to effect my own salvation and to serve humanity by abandoning all worldly desires and breaking away from all undue restraints."

and when the time came for mass mobilisation, his call for sacrifice by all patriotic Indians was resonant with the ancient call of Dharmic seers and luminaries to use the power of sacrifice for betterment of mankind. What was even more commendable and reflective of Dharma at its most fundamental was the focus on pluralism and cosmopolitanism. Netaji always saw economic issues as cutting across communal divisions and barriers, and the movement towards political emancipation as being for all the children of land of Bharatvarsh, cutting across schools of thought and theism. That had always been the Indic way.

Netaji also extended the Dharmic idea of emancipation cutting across constructs of identities and ideologies. One of the main areas where he was vocal on this front was that of breaking asunder one societal encumbrance that had arisen from the corruption of previously spiritual categorisation - casteism.

Caste had divided Indian society in ways that had institutionalised discrimination and exploitation, and that the colonial powers had used for their selfish interests at the expense of the Indian cause. He also spoke for gender equality and parity, and this was best seen in the much-celebrated Rani Jhansi regiment, one of the first all-female regiments in a modern army, in the Azad Hind Fauj. After all, the fundamental spiritual way of looking at freedom and emancipation summarily is at variance with any forms of physicalist or societal segregation and discrimination.

In conclusion, I would like to highlight and celebrate a seldom seen aspect of Netaji: his Dharmic moorings and spirituality, which defined and guided his actions in service for the nation. His was the truly Dharmic way of inherent cosmopolitanism, universal brotherhood, emancipation and dignity of the individual, as well as the importance of sacrifice. If there was a Mahatma who synthesised a novel conception of politics and society from ancient Indic and Dharmic ideas coupled with modern frameworks in a seamless way, it has to be the brave son of Bengal who is undoubtedly our Rashtranayak: Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.

Jai Hind!

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