I had to bite my tongue the other day. Someone posted a photo of him on Facebook with the tag 'this is how a lion walks'. I so wanted to point out that he also flew about as well as a lion...
The INA, Bose, Azad Hind... etc. Brace for incoming Internet strangeness. One of those subjects. There's quite a bit on here regarding them IIRC, but also doubtless as much we had to flush. Sure the Beeb did a little rash of programmes on them years ago, Was quite good. A more recent potted Bose biog: BBC Radio 4 - Incarnations: India in 50 Lives, Subhas Chandra Bose: A Touch of the Abnormal
The Indian Army in WW2 was entirely volunteer and was the largest volunteer army of the war and most probably the largest volunteer army there has ever been which suggests that Bose had little chance of success. One of the consultants assigned to me in the 1980s was the daughter of one of one of Bose's lieutenants and she was amazed that I had already heard of the "Springing Tigers". Attempts to subvert the Indian sepoys date back to WW1 but apart from causing Sir John French to wet his pants achieved little. They were reminiscent of Napoleonic and Wilhelmine attempts to recruit from Irish POWs and the Axis continued the tradition. However even with nationalism waxing there was still an element of "stay close to nurse for fear of meeting something worse" (see Hilaire Belloc). The British Empire may not have been loved but a German or Japanese one was seen as worse
The History Hour - Hitler's Indian ally: Subhas Chandra Bose - BBC Sounds Released On: 15 Jan 2022 Available for over a year The Indian independence campaigner, Subhas Chandra Bose, sided with Hitler's axis powers in World War Two to try to free his country from British rule. We'll hear from his great-niece about why she thinks that if he had lived he could have changed the course of India's history. We'll also hear from Dr Shruti Kapila of Cambridge University about why India's current government is celebrating Bose. Plus a nuclear scientist tells us about his role in a secret project to make safe vast swathes of nuclear-contaminated land in post-Soviet Kazakhstan - as well as preventing nuclear material from falling into the wrong hands. Also, the reckless actions which led to the sinking of the Costa Concordia cruise ship, the first woman to have silicone breast implants and Malick Sidibé, the Malian photographer whose work altered people's perceptions about 1960s Africa. Photo: Subhas Chandra Bose giving a speech in Nazi Germany in 1942.
Re. Rash Behari Bose https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rash_Behari_Bose "Rash Behari Bose ; 25 May 1886 – 21 January 1945) was an Indian revolutionary leader against the British Raj. He was one of the key organisers of the Ghadar Mutiny and founded the First Indian National Army during World War 2, handing it over as the Indian National Army to Subhas Chandra Bose later."
