Today is birth anniversary of great revolutionary Rash Behari Bose. Rash Behari Bose was an Indian revolutionary leader against the British Raj. He was one of the key organisers of the Ghadar Mutiny and founded the First Indian National Army during World War 2 based on millitarization policy of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar.
He was interested in revolutionary activities from early on in his life, he left Bengal to shun the Alipore bomb case trials of (1908). At Dehradun he worked as a head clerk at the Forest Research Institute. There, through Amarendra Chatterjee of the Jugantar led by Jatin Mukherjee (Bagha Jatin), he secretly got involved with the revolutionaries of Bengal and he came across eminent revolutionary members of the Arya Samaj in the United Provinces (currently Uttar Pradesh) and the Punjab.
The Indian prisoners of war captured by the Japanese in the Malaya and Burma fronts were encouraged to join the Indian Independence League and become the soldiers of the Indian National Army (INA), formed on 1 September 1942 as the military wing of Rash Behari Bose’s Indian National League. He selected the flag for the Azad Hind movement and handed over the flag to Subhas Chandra Bose. But although he handed over the power, his organizational structure remained, and it was on the organizational spadework of Rash Behari Bose. Rash Behari Bose built the Indian National Army (also called ‘Azad Hind Fauj’). Prior to his death caused by tuberculosis, the Japanese Government honoured him with the Order of the Rising Sun (2nd grade).
On 26 December 1967, the Posts and Telegraphs Department of India issued a special postage stamp in honour of Rash Behari Bose. In the city of Kolkata, West Bengal, a street (Rash Behari Avenue) is named in his honour.
Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu pays tributes to the great revolutionary Rash Behari Bose on his Birth Anniversary; says Rash Behari Bose will always be remembered for his stellar role in propagating India’s freedom movement in foreign lands.
