Subhas Chandra Bose

Born Jan. 23, 1897, in Cuttack, Orissa; died Aug. 18, 1945, in Taiwan. Figure of the Indian national liberation movement.

In 1924–25, Bose was a member of the Swarajist Party. In 1928, together with J. Nehru, he was the leader of the “left” in the Indian National Congress. In 1939 he founded the petit bourgeois party of the Forward bloc. Believing that any opponent of England was an ally in the Indian national struggle, Bose sought aid in Germany and Japan. In 1941 he fled to Germany, and in 1942 in Japanese-occupied Burma he became the leader of the so-called Free India government; from Indian prisoners of war he created the Indian National Army, which fought against England on the side of Japan. Bose perished in an airplane crash.