Your children might know about lot of Indian freedom
fighters, some genuine and many fake, from school text books. You should inform
your children about Rash Behari Bose. Many Indians especially Hindus might not
be even aware about Rash Behari Bose.
We Hindus are entering a difficult phase .... it is time for us to teach our children about inspiring men and women who fought against all odds to save the nation. Story of these men have been subdued and etched out of history... It is time for us to remind our children about these unsung heroes....
Who Is Rashi Behari Bose? A True patriot, real freedom fighter
and the father of the Indian National Army.
On December 23, 1912, an explosion rocked Delhi
just as Lord Hardinge, the British viceroy of India, entered the new capital on
the back of an elephant. The mastermind of the attack was Rash Behari Bose, a
26-year-old Bengali revolutionary. The attack did not kill Lord Hardinge but it
send out a strong message to the British that there are Indians who are not weaklings
and was ready to overthrow the British colonial rule.
Bose was born in a village in northeastern Bengal in 1886
and grew up amid the severe famines that struck India during British rule. He
nurtured hatred for the foreign rule which plundered the wealth of his nation
through divide and rule policy.
With a bounty on his head, Bose managed to flee India in
1915 to Japan, where he became a significant activist, reportedly introduced
one of the country's most popular curries and laid the foundations for the
Indian National Army.
CNN Writes
Today, the names of prominent Indian freedom fighters such as Mohandas Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru have found their place in world history, but few have heard of Rash Behari Bose.
Read the complete article on Rash Behari Bose here on CNN International …. Share it…. Discuss
with your friends… tell it to your children … discuss it on the dinner table.
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Rash Behari Bose Timeline (taken from CNN article titled The Indian revolutionary who fought to overthrow British rule while living in Japan)
- Bose was born in a village in northeastern Bengal in 1886.
- Saw thousands die due to famine at the same period British were plundering the wealth of the nation.
- After leaving school, he made unsuccessful attempts to join the Indian Army before landing a clerk's job with the Forest Research Institute at Dehradun.
- With the Forest Research Institute he was able to travel around India and used the opportunity to secretly forge anti-colonial revolutionary networks without any suspicion.
- Bose was still in his teens in 1905 when the British partitioned Bengal into two new provinces, supposedly for administrative reasons, though it appeared to be split along religious lines.
- Like other Bengali Hindu nationalists, Bose was incensed.
- Bengal had been a key location for India's anti-British opposition and Bengali Hindus saw the partition as a way for the British to weaken their power base. The move was largely supported by Muslims.
- December 23, 1912 he masterminds the attack on Lord Hardinge.
- Failed Lahore plot of February 21, 1915. Bose along with other patriots had planned to start a rebellion on the lines of the uprising of 1857.
- With the authorities on his heels and a bounty on his head, Bose decided he was no longer safe in India.
- Disguising himself as a relative of the poet and Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore, Bose set sail for Japan from the Port of Kolkata on May 12, 1915.
- Bose discreetly met with Sun Yat-sen, the head of the revolutionary army of China in Japan.
- In Japan Bose stayed at Nakamuraya Salon owned by Aizo and Kokko Soma. He later married their elder daughter Toshiko.
- He married Toshiko in 1918. The couple had two children.
- Toshiko died from pneumonia in 1925. She was 27 years old.
- Bose threw himself into the independence movement to overcome his grief.
- He established and ran numerous associations such as the Indo-Japanese Friends Society and a hostel called "Villa Asians" for Asian students studying in Tokyo, which he managed until 1941.
- He published widely on India's past, promoted ties between India and Japan.
- Fearful of his influence on a younger generation of Indians, the colonial British government made it difficult for Indian students to travel to Japan in the 1930s.
- In 1931, Bose organized the first Indian Independence League in Japan, which aimed to attain the "independence of India by all possible means. The league became bigger, and Bose became leader of the movement throughout East Asia.
- In 1933, Bose received funding to publish a journal called "The New Asia," which was distributed in English and Japanese.
- In 1938, after Bose published "Indo no sakebi" (India's cry) - which strongly denounced British rule in India.
- In June 1942, Bose chaired the Indian Independence Conference in Bangkok, sponsored by Japan. There, he was appointed to lead the Indian National Army (INA) and the tens of thousands of Indian prisoners to fight alongside the Japanese. They planned to conquer the British in India.
- Rash Behari Bose laid the foundations of the Indian Independence League and the Indian National Army.
- His health did not permit him to lead the army. It was taken over by Subhash Chandra Bose.
- Rash Behari Bose died in 1945.
- In Japan, his legacy is immortalized in a well-loved curry dish at Nakamuraya, which Behari Bose is said to have popularized during his decades-long struggle for Indian independence.
- The sole aim of this unknown warrior was freedom of India. He remains one of India's unsung freedom fighters.