Eternal India Encyclopedia
Sabha) from 1952-58, Vice - Chancellor of Vishwabharati University (1956-58) and was appointed National Professor in 1958.
had climbed to the top rung of his profession by the time Subhas was born. Bose spent his formative years at the Protestant European school and the Ravenshaw Collegiate School in Cuttack. He stumbled on the works of Swami Vivekananda in a friend's house and went on to learn about Ramakrishna. He wrote later: "Ramakrishna's example of renunciation and purity entailed a battle which raged with all the forces of the lower self. And Vivekananda's ideal brought me into conflict with the existing family and social order. I was weak, the fight was a long- drawn one in which success was not easy to obtain, hence tension and unhappiness with occasional fits of depression." He sat for the matriculation examination in 1913 and was ranked second. His parents decided to send him to Calcutta for higher studies in the belief that the atmosphere there would help him to round off his eccentricities. He entered the Presidency College in 1913, passed the intermediate examination and entered the B.A course in Philosophy. He was rusticated over the Oaten incident in which Professor Oaten was beaten up for manhandling a student, although he was only an eyewitness to the incident and had not taken any active part in the beating. He went to Cuttack for a year and returned to Calcutta securing admission in the Scottish Church College in 1917. He passed the B.A. in 1919 and was placed second in the order of merit. He was sent by his father to England in 1919 to study for the I.C.S. He passed the ICS in 1920 but resigned a year later without signing the covenant and left England for India in 1921. He became a disciple of C.R. Das who formed the Swaraj Party with Motilal Nehru. The party won the municipal elections in Calcutta in 1924 and Bose became the Chief Executive officer of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation. Fearing a wave of revolutionary activities after the murder of an European, the Government arrested Bose and other Swarajist leaders. He was sent to Mandalay Jail in Burma where he was till 1927 when he was transferred to Almora Jail in Uttar Pradesh. He was released on May 16, 1927 because of serious illness. Later that year he became a member of the Congress Working Committee. He was chosen Mayor of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation in 1930. Arrested in 1932, he was released on medical grounds and went to Europe for medical treatment. In 1938 he presided over the Congress session at Haripura in Gujarat. Bose decided to stand for a second term but Gandhi did not want,Bose to be president again. The name of Pattabhi Sitaramayya was proposed. He was acceptable to Gandhi
and most members of the Working Committee. But Bose refused to withdraw. He was re-elected after a bitter contest and presided over the Tripuri session in March 1939. But it was a pyrrhic victory as Bose found that he could not form the new working committee without the consent of Gandhi. He resigned in April 1939. Within three days of his resignation, Bose announced the formation of a new party, Forward Bloc, within the Congress. He was expelled from the Congress for a period of three years. World War II had broken out in September 1939. In July 1940 Bose began an agitation for the demolition of all monuments of political servitude which militated against national consciousness with particular reference to the Holwell Monument in Calcutta. He was arrested under the Defence of India rules and taken to the Presidency Jail. He began a hunger strike which forced the authorities to release him on December 5, 1940. He sent a letter to Gandhi requesting him to give a call to launch a campaign against the British. He hoped that the Congress would launch such a campaign in which he could take part. In January 1941 he set out from Calcutta disguised as a Muslim, reached Peshawar and then Kabul. He reached Berlin via Moscow in March 1941. He established the Azad Hind Radio and made broadcasts to India. In July 1943 he arrived in Singapore via Tokyo and assumed the leadership of the Indian National Army. In October 1943 the Provisional Government of Free India was proclaimed with Bose becoming Head of State and Prime Minister. The INA took part in the Japanese offensive in the Imphal - Kohima sector. On March 18,1944 the INA captured Tidum, crossed the Burmese frontier and set foot on Indian soil. However, the tide of war turned and the Japanese withdrawal began in June 1944. Bose was killed when his plane crashed in Formosa (Taiwan) on August 18, 1945. His last words spoken to Colonel Habibur Rahman who survived the plane crash were : "Habib, my end is coming very soon. I have fought all my life for my country's freedom. Go and tell my countrymen to continue to fight for India's freedom. India will be free, and before long."
Morarji Desai (1896-)
Morarji Desai was born on February 29, 1896 in village Bhadeli, near Bulsar in the Surat district of Gujarat. His father was a schoolteacher. He had his primary education in his village and secondary education in Bulsar. After graduation from the Wilson College in Bombay, he entered the Bombay- provincial civil service in 1918 and served in various capacities for 12 years. In response to the call of Mahatma Gandhi to government servants to give up their jobs, Moraiji resigned his post as Deputy Collector in 1930 and joined the Civil Disobedience Movement. In 1937 he was elected to the Bombay Legislative Assembly and was Minister for Revenue and Forests in the first Congress Government (1937-39). In 1946 he was again elected to the Bombay Legislative Assembly and served as Home and Revenue Minister from 1946 to 1952. After the first General Election in 1952 he became the Chief Minister of Bombay and continued in that capacity till states' reorganisation in 1956. His administration in Bombay state was known for its efficiency and integrity. He joined the Union Cabinet as Minister for Industry and Commerce in 1956. In 1958 he took over the portfolio of Finance. After the General Elections in 1962 he again became the Union Minister for Finance in Nehru's Cabinet but resigned in August 1963 under the Kamaraj Plan. He was Chairman of the Administrative Reforms Commission during 1966-67. Desai joined the Indira Gandhi Cabinet in 1967 as Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister. He resigned in July 1969 following differences with Indira Gandhi. After the split in the Congress he became the Chairman of the Opposition Congress Party in Parliament. In March 1977 Morarji Desai was sworn in as the Prime Minister of India after the Janata Party, formed by the merger of the Congress(O), Bharatiya Lok Dal and Socialist Party, and its allies, won the General Elections. He resigned in 1979 after the Janata Party lost its majority in the Lok Sabha. A believer in naturopathy Moraiji Desai is known for his spartan way of living.
Zakir Husain (1897-1969)
Zakir Husain was born in Hyderabad to where his father, Fida Husain Khan, migrated from Qaimganj in western Uttar Pradesh. His ancestors were Pathans. He had his early • education at a residential school in Etawah, before going to the M.A.O. college at Aligarh
Subhas Chandra Bose (1897-1945)
He was born in Cuttack as the sixth son and ninth child of Janaki Nath and Prabhavati Bose. His father was a successful lawyer who
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