Today is Rash Bihari Bose's punya tithi. Let me tell you the story of his life. A tale of failure upon failure. But also a tale of infinite bravery, of patriotism, of determination against all odds, an obsession of a lifetime and yes a tale of victory ! 1/25
#RashBehariBose
#RashBehariBose
What did Basu want ? Ever since childhood its the only thing he has wanted and it was freedom for India. His first failure came at age 12 when he applied to join the British army and was rejected. Even at the very young age the strategy to India's freedom was clear to him. 2/25
Learn the strengths and weaknesses of the British army and destroy them though an armed revolt! But no matter how hard and how many times he tried, he never could get into the British army. 3/25
The closest he came was to get a job at Fort William as a helping staff, but there too he got dismissed soon, since he couldn't bear the humiliations the British would hurl on the Indians. And Basu was not a man who would take it quietly. 4/25
Having lost all routes into joining the army, Rasu did something better, he joined a research institute in Dehradun as an assistant chemist. Chemicals are useful to revolutionaries.
Now made his plans, to strike at the heart of the British empire
Now made his plans, to strike at the heart of the British empire
With perfect planning Basu setoff to attack the highest seat of power in India. The Viceroy during his victory parade in Delhi !. Chemicals make bombs you see and Basu hurled his creation at the gigantic elephant of the Viceroy! 6/25
Failure! The bomb only killed the bodyguard, the viceroy survived with few injuries. But it was a matter of great shame to the British. Now the British officers were fearful as ever. An invisible ghost haunted them and seemed to appear explosively out of nowhere. 7/25
All the British intellience, spies and traitors couldn't trace, who this mastermind was or what he looked like. Rasu you see was a master of disguise, his alibis were perfect and his attitude never betrayed his secret intentions. 8/25
Next he setoff to Assassinate Lord Gordon in Lahore, but failed again. Rasu never gave up, he became a key member of the Ghadar movement. Setting up bomb factories and making plans for a Asia wide revolt that would send the British packing ! 9/25
Failure !. The Ghadar movement failed completely, traitors leaked the carefully laid out plans to the British and all key members were arrested, tortured and killed. The revolt was killed off even before it started and completely forgotten. 10/25
Forgotten by everyone except the British, everything seemed to point towards one man of with connections that spread from Lahore to Rangoon. A mastermind that no one ever claimed to have seen but was known to everyone. 11/25
A master of planning, strategy, intelligence and bomb making! Who was this man ? It must be a Bengali, for where else could such revolutionary zeal come from ? Suspicion was mounting on an innocent looking British loyalist who worked as an Assistant chemist in Dehradun. 12/25
Poof! he's gone. Disguised as a Brahman Sanyasi, Basu had a again vanished, No trace of him. but he was now the most wanted man in the British empire. His dreams were challenged, only failure on all fronts. 13/25
The noose was now tightening around him, most of his friends from the innermost circle too were now in the grasp of the British police. No one left but him! Perhaps the tale ends here ? No! Tagore had won the Nobel prize. Nobel prize? how does that help ? 14/25
There was to be a gathering for tagore in Japan. MotiLal Roy managed to get Rasu disguised as a relative of Tagore to go the next ship to Japan. The British got a tip off ! They combed the ship with sketches of Rasu in hand. 15/25
But how could they suspect that a man in the first class compartment mingling heartily with the British elite was the indeed the most wanted man of the British empire ? 16/25
Japan! Victory? No ! Far from it. Rasu managed to go to Japan but the Britishers now had him cornered ! The British got an extradition imposed on him by the Japanese government for his immediate arrest. Basu had no where to run. 17/25
Basu had no where to run, but miraculously help came in the form of unknown people. People that he would become family with for the rest of his life. The soul stirring story of the Indian revolutionary had found admirers in a far off land 18/25
Mitsuru Toyama who believed in Asia for Asians . He rescued Rasu from the jaws of death and put him in hiding with a family that ran a bakery; the Soma family. Rasu had again escaped from the British net 19/25
Rasu never gives up, the first chance he got to breathe the free air , he was at it again.
His life's mission. in Japan he got in touch with the German embassy and managed to get a consignment of ammunition smuggled to India via land route. 20/25
His life's mission. in Japan he got in touch with the German embassy and managed to get a consignment of ammunition smuggled to India via land route. 20/25
The consignment was tracked and confiscated by the British, not a single weapon reached the revolutionaries of India. Like I said Rasu's life was a string of failures and anyone else would have given up. 21/25
But not him !. He bided his time and used up all his energy to create the INA and the Indian Independence League. His dream of an armed revolt against the British was finally within grasp. 22/25
But his health was failing (due to TB) and he knew his days were numbered so he was on the lookout for a successor. He had already dismissed Mohan Singh from the INA; having gotten a whiff of his ineptitude. Rasu was tired, now he dreamed again. 23/25
Who would be this man, who would make his lifelong dream come true ? Cometh the hour, cometh the man. The baton had been handed off to Netaji who would finally manage to shake off the curse of the British empire on India 24/25
Whenever faced with failure and difficulty, remember the insiprational life of Rasu. The man who never gave up, no matter what the odds. Never gave up his dream, never gave up his duty. My salutations to Rash Behari Bose. A tale of victory 🙏25/25
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