WI - Subhas Chandra Bose, Netaji of India?

I have seen it argued that if he had surrendered to the British in 1945, they would not have dared to execute him because that would lead to a violent popular uprising. It would make the reaction to the INA trials of OTL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_National_Army_trials look very mild indeed. It's not that Indians agreed with Bose's decision to align himself with the Axis; but even Gandhi, who had clashed with him on numerous occasions, called him a "patriot of patriots" even though "misguided." https://books.google.com/books?id=njdwCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT51 See Nirad C. Chaudhuri, Autobiography of an Unknown Indian:

"After the Japanese defeat in Burma all his hopes vanished. That seems to have destroyed all power of rational thinking in him. If he had been a calculating politician he would have surrendered to the British forces like his INA followers and put the British authorities in a most difficult position. Logically, and consistently with what the victorious Allied Powers were doing to German and Japanese politicians and commanders, they should have tried Subhas Bose for treason and at least kept him in prison. But in India that would have led to disturbances on a scale far wider and more violent than those brought about by the INA trials, and that could have ended only in a bloody British victory or an ignominious surrender for them, both equally barren politically. Or the British authorities could have set him free after his capture and left him unopposed in his political activities. That, too, would not have been much better than trying him, for it would have exposed to the world the double standard followed in punishing the Germans and the Japanese on the one hand and letting off their Indian collaborators.

"And in the disgrace, not only the British authorities in India but even the British Government at home would have become involved. If Bose had been captured, a decision regarding his fate would have had to be taken by the British Government in London instead of being left to the demoralized British administration in India. From such a decision, taken at such a level and concerning such a personage, there could have been no retreat. Neither concealment nor pretence would have been possible.

"The death of Subhas Bose saved the British authorities from having to face such a problem, and for this they should have been grateful to his irrationality..." https://books.google.com/books?id=TgWnS1r6x8IC&pg=PT904&lpg=PT904

Anyway, if the British don't dare to execute Subhas Chandra Bose, he will eventually be freed--if not by the British, by the Indian National Congress once it comes to power. And remember that even if he isn't liberated until 1947, he will only be 50 years old, and could be a powerful influence in the politics of independent India.
 
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Anyway, if the British don't dare to execute Subhas Chandra Bose, he will eventually be freed--if not by the British, by the Indian National Congress once it comes to power. And remember that even if he isn't liberated until 1947, he will only be 50 years old, and could be a powerful influence in the politics of independent India.
Would he have been influential enough to become President or Prime Minister by 1947-50?
 
Would he have been influential enough to become President or Prime Minister by 1947-50?
Most likely. In a poll conducted to choose the most popular freedom fighter a few years back Subhas Chandra Bose was much ahead of Mahatma Gandhi. I think Bose was at second spot close behind Bhagat Singh. Mahatma Gandhi was third and Nehru was at the sixth position behind Ambedkar and Sardar Patel.
 
Most likely. In a poll conducted to choose the most popular freedom fighter a few years back Subhas Chandra Bose was much ahead of Mahatma Gandhi. I think Bose was at second spot close behind Bhagat Singh. Mahatma Gandhi was third and Nehru was at the sixth position behind Ambedkar and Sardar Patel.

OTOH, it was easy enough for people in the Indian National Congress who had often been his opponents during his life to praise him to the skies after his death. So I don't know if his posthumous position as a revered national hero actually tells us how well he would do in Indian politics if he had lived.
 
Most likely. In a poll conducted to choose the most popular freedom fighter a few years back Subhas Chandra Bose was much ahead of Mahatma Gandhi. I think Bose was at second spot close behind Bhagat Singh. Mahatma Gandhi was third and Nehru was at the sixth position behind Ambedkar and Sardar Patel.
What would Bose's India look like in contrast to OTL's India?
 
Bose apparently favored a course of modernization along "Nazi-Communist lines" - how would this effect the way he governs India in the scenario he comes to power?
 
Or maybe the British authorities are not that naive.
Bose surrenders in the summer of 1945, they put him in jail and instruct a trial. Some of the Nuremberg trials of the secondary criminals ended as late as 1949. The British simply drag things along, and in July 1947 they reach a verdict, quickly send Bose to the gallows, and are done with him. This might cause some rioting in India, but it's difficult to see this as worse than what is already happening. And in a month, the British are out and the Indians and Pakistanis are killing each other by the hundreds of thousands, so they have other fish to fry and for the time being, they forget.
Later on, yes, he's more of a hero than in OTL, and you get 10-meter tall statues of Bose, but after all that's no significant change from the 5-meter tall ones of OTL.
 
Or maybe the British authorities are not that naive.
Bose surrenders in the summer of 1945, they put him in jail and instruct a trial. Some of the Nuremberg trials of the secondary criminals ended as late as 1949. The British simply drag things along, and in July 1947 they reach a verdict, quickly send Bose to the gallows, and are done with him. This might cause some rioting in India, but it's difficult to see this as worse than what is already happening. And in a month, the British are out and the Indians and Pakistanis are killing each other by the hundreds of thousands, so they have other fish to fry and for the time being, they forget.
Later on, yes, he's more of a hero than in OTL, and you get 10-meter tall statues of Bose, but after all that's no significant change from the 5-meter tall ones of OTL.
And why would Britain do that?Putting him in gallows would turn India against the west, India may end up becoming a real soviet ally. Indian
People too arent naive they may guess this intention of British and begin rioting immediately after arrest. OTL Indian navy and af mutinated during said trials, instead they will appeal to him and play divide and rule tactics with him to keep India and soviet union apart.
Bose will need to build a alliance of anti capitalist parties who want to nationalize companies to defeat congress. If manages to bring such parties together,he would be able to navigate anti corporate sentiment and Nehru's passive political behavior to win elections. Bose's greatest challenge would be to keep power and prevent a "reformed" congress revival. To do so one has to end bureaucratic corruption inherited from colonialist era to actually implement socialism He will succeed in this, as indian bureaucracy is basically forming up post independence. Bose will be regarded as father of nation in ITTL. India will be basically a communist democracy which would see soviet style mass industrialization. Under Bose India would see land reform and a different quota system which would be devoid casteism along with modern leftist and progressive policies such as free college, full employment.
 
Or maybe the British authorities are not that naive.
Bose surrenders in the summer of 1945, they put him in jail and instruct a trial. Some of the Nuremberg trials of the secondary criminals ended as late as 1949. The British simply drag things along, and in July 1947 they reach a verdict, quickly send Bose to the gallows, and are done with him. This might cause some rioting in India, but it's difficult to see this as worse than what is already happening. And in a month, the British are out and the Indians and Pakistanis are killing each other by the hundreds of thousands, so they have other fish to fry and for the time being, they forget.
Later on, yes, he's more of a hero than in OTL, and you get 10-meter tall statues of Bose, but after all that's no significant change from the 5-meter tall ones of OTL.

The problem is that the INC is almost certain to demand the liberation (or at least a guarantee of no death sentence--which amounts to eventual liberation) of Subhas Chandra Bose as a precondition of talks with the British. (Whatever some of its leaders may privately feel about him, he is too popular for the INC not to be insistent on this. ) In theory of course it's possible for the British to ignore what the INC (which had been shown to have the overwhelming support of non-Muslim Indians) wanted and just decide to do everything on its own without consulting Indians but I do not see that as remotely politically possible for a British government (especially a Labour government) in 1945-7.
 
And why would Britain do that?Putting him in gallows would turn India against the west,

Nah. As it was, there wasn't much love for the West in India, and adding a drop in an ocean doesn't make a difference. On the up side, the guy was actually guilty so hanging him wouldn't be a bad thing.
 
The problem is that the INC is almost certain to demand the liberation (or at least a guarantee of no death sentence--which amounts to eventual liberation) of Subhas Chandra Bose as a precondition of talks with the British.

Talks which in OTL were extremely fruitful in the 1945-47 period?
 
Talks which in OTL were extremely fruitful in the 1945-47 period?

But I still doubt that the British are going to give up on the possibility of a negotiated settlement in advance and risk enormous anti-British violence just for the sake of executing Subhas Chandra Bose. After all, in OTL a lesser reaction than such an execution was likely to bring caused them to commute the sentences in the first INA trial. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_National_Army_trials

Now if Churchill had won in 1945, it might have been different...
 
But I still doubt that the British are going to give up on the possibility of a negotiated settlement in advance and risk enormous anti-British violence just for the sake of executing Subhas Chandra Bose.

Indeed. That's why I wrote they might well keep the issue on the back burner until a month before leaving India.

After all, in OTL a lesser reaction than such an execution was likely to bring caused them to commute the sentences in the first INA trial. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_National_Army_trials

Sure, in late 1945, early 1946. At the time, the negotiations you mentioned upthread still had some importance.
 
I've been thinking, could Bose be somehow used as another tool by the British to control India's independence? Could they end up entrusting Bose with dominance over northeastern India (united Bengal and Assam, basically) as an independent "Brahmaputra republic" of sorts with secular aspirations, rhetorically opposed to the "religious cronyist" politics of India and Pakistan? Or was Bose too committed to Akand Bharat to accept a deal like this?
 
Or... the British could put Bose in the custody of a force of Indian Army veterans who had fought the Japanese. Bose hangs himself in his cell or is shot trying to escape - with no British personnel anywhere nearby.

(Quartered Safe Out Here, George Macdonald Fraser's memoir of service in the Burma theatre, suggests that JIFs were... unpopular with Indian Army troops, I would further suggest that the leader of all JIFs would be even more so.)

Or the British could arrange for a demonstration by Indian Army veterans against Bose, or perhaps the widows and orphans of men KIA against the Japanese.

Of course, neither of these courses might have been successful. The reaction to the JIF trial shows a rapid change of Indian sentiment; such Indian Army veterans or dependents might have been condemned as traitors to India.
 
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