“Give me blood, and I will give you freedom.”
—Subhas Chandra Bose, 4 July 1944, Rangoon
On the fog-choked night of 17 January 1941, a small Austin 16 rolled silently out of 38/2 Elgin Road, Calcutta. Inside sat a clean-shaven man in a brown sherwani, turban pulled low, eyes burning with the kind of resolve that topples empires.
Behind him, a decoy—disguised with pillow-stuffed paunch—snored in his bed. By the time the British discovered the ruse, Subhas Chandra Bose had already slipped into Afghanistan disguised as a deaf-mute Pathan, his passport stamped Count Orlando Mazzotta.
This is the story of what happened next: how a fugitive built the Indian National Army (INA), marched it 3,000 km through jungle and monsoon, and nearly broke the Raj at Imphal–Kohima in 1944.
🚗 Part I: The Great Escape
Bose had been under 24-hour surveillance. Letters steamed open, phone tapped, visitors photographed. Yet he and his 21-year-old nephew Sisir Kumar Bose choreographed an escape so bold it reads like fiction:
- Midnight: Elgin Road → Gomoh Station, forged permit in hand.
- Dawn: Train north, new name: Muhammad Ziauddin.
- March: 26-hour trek through the Khyber, guided by Pashtuns.
- Exile: 40 days in Kabul, surviving on bread and tea, while Gestapo and NKVD argued over who would smuggle him out.
By March 1941, he was in Berlin—Hitler’s reluctant ally. The Führer sneered that Indians were “half-apes,” but still bankrolled Bose’s dream. Tokyo, he said, was where the real war lay.
⚔️ Part II: Birth of the Azad Hind Fauj
The INA had first stirred in December 1941 under Captain Mohan Singh, who rallied Indian POWs in Singapore. But Singh clashed with his Japanese patrons.
Then, in June 1943, Bose arrived—after a 90-day submarine odyssey from Kiel to Sumatra. Tokyo gave him a stage; he gave the movement fire:
“We shall not ask for freedom. We shall take it.”
What followed:
- 85,000 volunteers enlisted—dockworkers, rubber tappers, captured sepoys.
- The Rani of Jhansi Regiment, Asia’s first all-female combat unit, formed under Dr. Lakshmi Sehgal.
- On 4 July 1943, Rash Behari Bose ceded leadership in Singapore. Bose thundered his immortal call:
“Tum mujhe khoon do, main tumhe azadi doonga.”
🌧️ Part III: The Road to Imphal–Kohima
Operation U-Go
By 1944, Japan was stretched thin. Still, it gambled on an invasion of India:
- 15 March: 35,000 Japanese + 7,000 INA troops cross the Chindwin River.
- Target: Imphal & Kohima—the “Stalingrad of the East.”
- Goal: spark mass defections in the British-Indian Army.
The High-Water Mark
- 8 March: INA’s Gandhi Brigade hoists the tricolor at Moirel, Manipur—the first time since 1857 that an Indian flag flew on Indian soil.
- April: The Azad Brigade nearly seizes Kohima’s Deputy Commissioner’s bungalow.
- May: Bose addresses troops at Rangoon’s Shwedagon Pagoda, promising Delhi in 30 days.
Collapse in the Rain
Then came the monsoon—and the RAF.
- Supply lines shredded. Men ate leaves; horses were butchered.
- Disease ravaged. One field hospital lost 600 men in 72 hours.
- June–July: Mountbatten counter-attacked. Imphal became a graveyard. INA left 6,500 dead.
What if? Had Imphal fallen, British India might have exploded in mutiny. Instead, the dream retreated with the jungle rains.
⚖️ Part IV: Aftermath — Defeat That Lit the Fuse
The Red Fort Trials
In November 1945, the British charged three INA officers—Prem Kumar Sehgal (Hindu), Shah Nawaz Khan (Muslim), Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon (Sikh)—with treason. Instead, India saw martyrs.
- Calcutta: 100,000 marched behind an empty hearse labeled Netaji.
- Bombay Naval Mutiny, Feb 1946: 20,000 sailors raised the INA’s “Jai Hind” flag on HMIS Talwar.
- March 1946: Viceroy Wavell cabled London: “The Indian Army can no longer be relied upon.”
Within 18 months, the Raj collapsed.
Echoes
Netaji never saw the tricolor rise in Delhi. On 18 August 1945, his Japanese bomber crashed in Taipei. But his gamble—to weaponize World War II for India’s freedom—worked in ways he never foresaw.
The INA’s bullets missed. Its example did not.
“Wars,” Bose wrote, “are won in the minds of those who dare to believe victory is possible.”
In that sense, Netaji never truly lost.
