Childhood &
Early life of Netaji
Netaji Subhash Chandra was born on January 23rd 1897 in
Cuttack (in present day Orissa) as the ninth child among fourteen, of Janakinath Bose and Prabhavati devi.
Rai Bahadur Jankinath Bose was a public lawyer by
profession. He was a public prosecutor in Cuttak and later became a
member of the Bengal Legislative Council.
The family of Subhash Chandra Bose was a large one
consisting of eight brothers and six sisters.
At school, he was always serious, reserved and did not
take much interest in sports. The sadhus and pilgrims visiting Puri, the
famous shrine near his place, fascinated him.
He was an intelligent kid and stood second in the School
examination and took admission in Presidency college, Calcutta.
An interesting episode came in this college in 1916. Here
he beat an English professor because of his racist attitude towards
Indians. As a result he was expelled from the college.
But his father refused to admit him to another college.
Over the course of time he got readmitted in the same University in
philosophy.
He passed with flying colours and achieved first class
Honours in philosophy.
Recognising his son's intellect, his father was
determined that Bose should become a high ranking Indian Civil Servicet
(ICS). So he sent him to England for further studies.
In
1920, Bose passed the Civil Service open examination and stood fourth
overall with the highest marks in English.
But by this time the Jalianwala Baug massacre had taken
place which had disturbed him greatly. Even though he passed the ICS, he was
not interested in serving the Britishers.
At this time Gandhiji had established himself as a leader
of the masses. Like many others Bose was also influenced by Gandhiji. So he
went to Gandhiji and offered himself to work for the Indian National
Congress. Gandhiji was not able to turn down this humble request and sent
him to Calcutta to work under Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das.
During the period 1921-25 he was mainly involved in the
activities around Calcutta and was arrested on numerous occasions.
In Dec 1921, Bose organised a boycott of the celebrations
to mark the Prince of Wales's visit to India. This led to his being
imprisoned.
Later he was again imprisoned along with Deshbandhu and
the two lived together in jail, where Bose served his leader humbly, even
cooking his food. From this time Bose considered Deshbandhu as his Guru.
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