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List of contents
List of tables
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Introduction.
1. Constraint and Tension in Middle-Class Leadership.
2. The Hindu-Muslim Question.
3. Ambivalence to the Working-Class Struggle
4. Bengal Provincial Congress: Operational Dilemma and Organisational Constraint
Conclusion
Appendix I: Biographical Sketches of Leading Political Activists
Appendix II: The Composition of the BPCC, 1939179
Appendix III-14: Point Election Manifesto of the KPP, Declared in the 1936 Dacca Session
Notes
Glossary
Selected Bibliography
Index
About the author
Bidyut Chakrabarti is Vice Chancellor of Visva-Bharati, India.
Summary
Subhas Chandra Bose is notorious in Britain - and famous in India - because he led the Indian National Army, which was armed by the Japanese to fight against the British in World War II. As a result, Indian studies of his part in the independence movement have tended to be hagiographic. This book takes a critical look at Bose’s political role before the INA episode, when in the 1920s and 1930s he represented radical and militant nationalism with the young Jawaharlal Nehru.
Subhas Chandra Bose was a prominent Bengali political leader. Twice president of the Indian National Congress, on the second occasion he was elected in preference to Gandhi’s own nominee. He successfully challenged Gandhi’s leadership at both the central and regional level. He provided a broad platform for all those who opposed Gandhi and Gandhism. In Bengal he succeeded for a time in securing an alliance between the communists and the Islamic Krishak Praja Party (KPP).
In this book the author examines the importance of Bose’s militancy in the nationalist movement, how middle class radicalism developed in Bengal, and why in the end its inherent contradictions doomed it to failure.
Foreword
An exploration of the importance of Subhas Chandra Bose's militancy in the Indian nationalist movement, the growth of middle class radicalism in Bengal and why its contradictions led it to failure.
