Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose dedicated his life to the struggle to liberate his people from British rule. In pursuit of that goal he raised and led the Indian National Army against Allied Forces during World War II. This was a man whose patriotism was, as Mahatma Gandhi declared, second to none; nonetheless aspects of his life and death continue to be controversial both in India and abroad even today.
In this definitive biography, Professor Sugata Bose analyzes Netaji’s life and legacy, tracing the intellectual impact of his years in Calcutta and Cambridge, the ideas and relationships that influenced him during his time in exile, and his ascent to the peak of nationalist politics. Using previously unpublished family archives, this account not only documents Subhas Bose’s thoughts during his imprisonment and travels, but also illuminates the profundity of his struggle to unite the diversities of India—religious, economic, linguistic—into a single independent nation.
His Majesty’s Opponent is a magisterial study of a life larger than its legend. Both intimate and global in significance, it is the portrait of a man, whose public and private life encapsulated the contradictions of world history in the first half of the twentieth century.
About the Author
Sugata Bose is the Gardiner Professor of History at Harvard University.
Bose, who is Netaji’s brother Sarat Chandra Bose’s grandson, is joint editor with Dr Sisir Kumar Bose of the Collected Works of Netaji published by the Netaji Research Bureau and joint editor with Krishna Bose of Purabi: the East in its Feminine Gender. He has translated into English all the songs Tagore composed on his overseas voyages and recorded them on four CDs titled Visva Yatri Rabindranath.
Sugata Bose’s many books include Peasant Labour and Colonial Capital, Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy with Ayesha Jalal and A Hundred Horizons: the Indian Ocean in the Age of Global Empire.