In the year 1930, Subhas Chandra Bose composed a long, handwritten letter to the revolutionary leader Barindra Kumar Ghosh, a younger brother of Shri Aurobindo. In it, he set out his belief in class struggle:
“During all these years we have meant and explained by freedom, political freedom alone; but henceforth we have to declare that we do not want to liberate people merely from political bondage. We want to liberate them from all forms of bondage. The struggle for Independence has as its aim the removal of the triple bondage of political, economic and social oppression. When all shackles are removed, we can proceed to build a new society on the basis of communism. This principal aim of our freedom struggle is to build a free and classless society.”
These words should come as no surprise. Over the three decades of his political life, Bose consistently expressed his faith in socialism, not of the Fabian or Gandhian brand, but based on Marxist theory.
The history is written, yet most Indians today learn what the media tells them. Bose is correctly described in the popular media as a Liberator of India, a patriot of patriots; a spiritual man though deadly secular, who put women’s empowerment into practice. Yet the corporate media has little to say on his political philosophy and economic thinking. Bose’s beliefs are also sidelined by political camps, whether the Congress, BJP or even the CPIs.
Yet much of what he articulated remains relevant today. He was apprehensive that nation-building after independence would be even more challenging than removing the British. “The British Empire is in any case doomed,” he said, “And the only question is as to what will happen to us when its final dissolution takes place.”
In his youth, Bose was influenced and inspired by Swami Vivekananda’s thoughts and preaching – on universalism, nationalism and social reform and service. Vivekananda had said: “I am a socialist, not because it is a perfect system, but because I believe that half a loaf is better than no bread.”
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In 1929, addressing the Midnapore Youth Conference, Bose voiced a demand for “full socialism”. “Economic disparity is to be removed and everybody, man and woman, is to be given equal opportunity for education and advancement in life,” he said there. “We must see that a sovereign state is established on a socialist basis.”
Again, in March of 1931, addressing the All-India Naojawan Bharat Shabha in Karachi, he said, “I want to see the establishment of a socialist republic in India”. Political emancipation had to go hand-in-hand with economic freedom. “The right to work and sufficient wages for sustenance must be ensured for all,” Bose said. “There will be no place in society for the idle, and everybody must enjoy equal opportunity. Above all, distribution of wealth and income must be equal and just for all. Hence, it is imperative that the state must be responsible for production as well as distribution.”
He clearly visualised India’s destiny as carrying forward revolutionary history. In 1933, at the Third Indian Political Conference in London, he tied each modern century to a singular, revolutionary contribution in thought. The 17th century had British constitutional democracy; the eighteenth century had French “liberty, equality and fraternity”.
Bose continued: “During the 19th Century, Germany made the most remarkable gift through her Marxian philosophy. During the 20th century, Russia had enriched the culture and civilisation of the world through her achievement in proletarian revolution … The next remarkable contribution to the culture and the civilisation of the world, India will be called upon to make.”
From this period, right until 1937, Bose was in prison or in virtual exile. On his return, at the Haripura Congress session in 1938, he advocated radical land reforms, abolishing landlordism, and rapid industrialisation under state ownership and control. The aim, he said, was “gradually socialising our entire agricultural and industrial system in the spheres of both production and distribution”.
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It was his Haripura address, that “eradication of poverty, illiteracy and disease can happen only along socialist lines”, which revealed the immediate ‘unity of purpose’ between Bose and the Communists. That year, 1938, marked the high-water mark of Bose-communist cooperation, mediated by the CPI leader Soli Batliwala. Both Netaji and the communists represented the militant trends in the anti-imperialist struggles; despite their differences, they maintained a mutually cooperative attitude except for brief spells.
He studied the functioning of the Soviet, German and Italian governments and identified overlaps between communism and fascism: Party rule, the supremacy of the state over the individual, and planned industrial reconstruction. But he noticed the special devil in Fascism. “The naked nature of aggressive nationalism practiced by the Fascists is to be condemned,” he told Rajani Palm Dutt, leader of the Communist Party of Great Britain, in January 1938. “It is anti-people, anti-democratic and anti-human.”
Soon after, Bose created the Forward Bloc – not to break away from the Congress but to consolidate Leftist forces within the Party, and win over the majority to their viewpoint. It was, he wrote, a “historical and dialectical necessity”.
His obstacle was the “Rightist Wing”, representing the big landlords and business houses within the Congress, who lived comfortably during the Raj, advocating negotiation and opposing full-fledged struggle against the British.
By mid-1940, Bose was presiding over the All India Forward Bloc conference at Nagpur, beneath a red flag – a colour he intentionally chose for his faction. His drive to have the national “soil prepared for the growth of a Marxist Party” was relentless. He had a plan for any progressive, radical and anti-imperial elements in the Congress “who might not be ready to join the Socialist or Communist Party”: they could be organised around a common minimum programme, in order to resist “the onslaught of the Right”.
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To make his plans come true, after the All India Anti-compromise Conference at Ramgarh, Bihar, in March 1940, Netaji consulted his comrades on seeking active help from the Soviet Union. Lala Shankarlal, president of the Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee and general secretary of the Forward Bloc, was sent clandestinely to Japan to reach an agreement with the Soviet Ambassador there.
On his return, Shankarlal conveyed the discussion with the Soviet Ambassador to Sarat Chandra Bose, who conveyed it to Netaji (who was then in jail, in connection with the removal of the Holwell monument). To come out from jail and finalise his plans to go to USSR, Netaji started a fast unto death. He was released from prison and put under house arrest.
How he then escaped from his Calcutta residence on that January 1941 night is now well-recorded history. The architects of his great escape were the banned and underground communists. Mian Akbar Shah, Achar Singh Cheena and Ram Kishen were sent to arrange for his visit to the USSR. S.A. Dange, in Deoli jail in Rajasthan, asked Bhagat Ram Talwar to help Bose across the border into Afghanistan.
By the summer of 1941, Germany was at war with Soviet Union – forcing Communists everywhere into an uneasy alliance with the British. Bose was disappointed in Moscow – and was passed on to the German Ambassador, who flew him to Berlin. His sphere of action changed from there on. But his resolve to make India a socialist country remained firm.
This article has been edited to correct misattributed quotes.
Sumeru Roy Chaudhury is an architect graduated from IIT, Kharagpur. He was the chief architect of the CPWD. He has studied the Netaji files and related documents in detail.
