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Early Life of Netaji

Early Life of Netaji

Bose was the ninth child of a family of 14 and the sixth son of Prabhavati Bose and Janakinath Bose. He was born on the 23rd of January 1897 in Cuttack, in the Orissa division of Bengal Province under British India. HE was born with the proverbial “silver spoon” surrounded by affluence, wealth and privilege. His father Janaki Nath Bose was a famous lawyer. It was his mother Prabhavati Devi who nurtured the traits of kindness, altruism, and empathy in him. A deeply religious person, her prayers and worships to the Goddess Durga and Kali would be interpreted with deeply engrossing stories from the Mahabharata and Ramayana and religious songs.. Groomed in the environment of quiet contemplation and purposeful reflection, Subhas imbibed a spirit of compassion, looking for situations in which to help people in distress. Equally strong were his skills of reason, logic and objectivity that helped shape his charismatic personality. His early influences included his headmaster, Beni Madhav Das, and the teachings of Swami Vivekananda and Ramakrishna Paramahamsa.

In 1916, Bose was expelled from Presidency College and banished from Calcutta University over an incident where students attacked English professor. However, in 1917 he was accepted in Scottish Church College, Calcutta, graduating with first class honours in philosophy in 1919. He entered Cambridge University on 9 September 1919 to study for the Indian Civil Service Examination, placing fourth after only eight months of study. Even so, Bose did not stay long in the civil service, resigning in 1921. His interest was elsewhere.






Netaji in Top Right Corner
Politics

Bose met with the Indian leaders, Mahatma Gandhi and Chittaranjan Das, and joined the Congress Party. Soon after, Bose and Das were arrested on Christmas day in 1921 for successfully organising a boycott against the Prince of Wales’s visit to India and were sentenced to six months’ imprisonment. Upon release, Bose took up flood relief work, editorial services for the publication “Forward” in Calcutta promoting the Swaraj Party.





In 1924, Bose was appointed Chief Executive Officer of the Calcutta Corporation. Bose was again detained in Mandalay, under the new Bengal Ordinance on 24 October 1924. He was released only two-and-a-half years later on the grounds of ill health, as he was suffering from tuberculosis. From 1928 to 1937, he remained in politics, and was arrested twice by British authorities. He was appointed President of the Indian Congress Party in 1938. However, the position was not held too long and eventually resigned on 28 April 1939. Bose was an advocate of armed resistance against British colonialism; he could not come to terms with the ideology of non-violent resistance that Gandhi advocated. Upon his resignation, he formed the All India Forward Bloc on 3 May 1939, a party within Congress.