Netaji A Pictorial Biography Edited by:Sisir Kumar Bose Birendra Nath Sinha

A fascinating array of nearly one thousand pictures supported by contemporary documentary material tell the story of India’s greatest revolutionary since 1857 and the only soldier statesman of world class born
In this subcontinent in contemporary times.The viewer and reader of this volume have the rare opportunity to study at close quarters and in all stages of his life the man who stands out in all distinctiveness in modern Indian history. This is no mere album. It is a safa in pictures of a totally dedicated life of matchless personal charm,of courage, heroism and sacrificial patriot
Ism, of a kind of leadership and statesman-ship that India has not seen either during her freedom struggle or in the three decades after independence. Legends are short and direct. There is a narrative running through the book, in relatively more detail at important turning points in Netaji’s life, to give the reader a good understanding of Netaji’s total personality, his political philosophy,
his world-view and the image of India he
set out to build.Altogether, this is a unique standing addition to literature on Netaji and and out-the story of the Indian Liberation movement in that particular aspect which has either been suppressed or overlooked.In the history of India’s struggle for freedom, one man stands out in all distinctiveness and as a class by himself. In physique and mental constitution, in manner and life style, in ideology and in action packed with drama and daring unmatched in contemporary annals, Subhas Chandra Bose is in his total personality a unique phenomenon of twentieth century India. A study of his life and work through pictures is thus of unusual interest, bringing out in clear outline the shape and form of a
life of ceaseless activity and totally dedicated to the cause of India’s liberation.The story of Subhas Chandra Bose needs to be told and understood in the context of the long march of the Indian people to independence from 1857 to 1947.In 1897 marked the mid-point of that crusade. With the Renaissance behind him, he His birth grew up in harmony with the evolution of India’s national movement, responding
and reacting to it positively since his early childhood. Even as a schoolboy in a
foreign missionary school, he found the milieu foreign to his nature and was thus
already a rebel at heart. In the course of his school and college career, he was in
turn a pure humanitarian, a Paribrajaka and social reformer in the manner and spnrit of Vivekananda, and finally a political activist. When Bose graduated in 1919 and set out for England to qualify for the Indian Civil Service, he already had a formed personality and his sense of mission was not in doubt. That overpowering sense of mission – India’s salvation from political, economic, social and spiritual slavery -rendered all other pursuits of life and career purely incidental. That mission admitted
of no retreat. Therefore, when in the early twenties Subhas Chandra Bose called
his countrymen to his side, there was promise of nothing more than privation,
sacrifice, forced marches and death.
Bose’s acceptance of Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das as his political Guru was a surrender to a man who was similarly and totally dedicated to the cause of India’s deliverance.