Subhas Chandra Bose: A Biography

This work is a biography of Bose, the self-proclaimed Netaji, or "revered leader," who sought to bring down the British Raj by making alliances with Rome, Berlin, and Tokyo during World War II and by helping India thrive economically and politically as a free socialist nation. It details his political activities, including radio broadcasts in which he attempted to sway his countrymen with pro-Axis propaganda and predicted a bloody end to imperialism at the hands of Axis powers, and his commanding of two liberation armies, one under Nazi authority and the other under Tokyo's auspices, made up of rehabilitated and coerced prisoners of war. Bose is noted for having unified his country's multiethnic population and enlisting the support of Indians overseas, all the while incurring the wrath of the Allies, who crushed his armies and his hopes of transforming India into a socialist nation. A discussion of his mysterious death in a plane crash while en route to an unknown location in 1945 concludes the book.