Recently two of our freedom fighters have been much in the news. Netaji Subhas Chandra Boseand Babasaheb Ambedkar. This is a refreshing change from the usual Mahatma Gandhi andJawaharlal Nehru which we keep hearing non-stop. Even have most of the government schemesnamed after these two leaders.

Gandhi launched his Satyagraha and then we had the Purna Swaraj declaration in 1930 and theQuit India movement in 1942. What was the effect? It hardly created a ripple for the BritishEmpire and Winston Churchill (British Prime Minister from 1940-45) has gone on record manytimes saying that he would never ever give Independence to India.

India was the crown jewel and many officials had made it clear that they would never leaveIndia. They were happy with Gandhis non-violence and happy to make him an icon withoutgiving him any concrete assurances of Independence.

However the Bose affair did leave them quite rattled. The Indian National Army was no smallunit and boasted of more than 40,000 soldiers. They were adept in guerrilla warfare and anyempire is always wary of such a threat.

They took part in battles in India and Burma and when they were defeated, the British heaved ahuge sigh of relief. However they decided to totally crush the INA and that backfired bigtime. Inthe 1945 Red Fort trials, INA officers like Major General Shah Nawaz Khan, Colonel PremSahgal and Colonel Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon were court-martialled.

Despite Gandhi being in charge of Indias freedom struggle and Bose going missing, there was agreat wave of sympathy in India for the INA officers. This culminated in the infamous BombayMutiny.

Sailors from the Royal Indian Navy in Bombay went on strike in February 1946 protesting theINA trials. To make matters worse, the mutiny spread to Calcutta and Karachi. In all more than20,000 sailors from close to 80 ships participated in the mutiny.

The British panicked and used the British Royal Navy to counter-attack leaving 7 dead. Howeverthis scarred the psyche of the British Empire and they knew that there was no way in which theycould take on the combined might of the Indian defence forces if all of them decided to revolt.

The popular ground report was that the British could no longer hold on to India and ClementAttlee (who had succeeded Churchill as PM) concurred.

While the INA trials finally concluded in May 1946, the British decided to make a run for it. Infact they were just out of India in 14 months. This sudden capitulation took everyone by surprisebut followers of Bose always maintained that it was because of him.

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Yes Bose, not Gandhi, gave us freedom!