On the other hand, Bose was focussed on stimulating a post-war internal Indian upsurge against the British Raj. Subhas was convinced that India's partition was inevitable if the British Parliament were allowed to "transfer power" under an act of the British Parliament.

(Gandhiji in 1946-47 had the same fear. He wanted the British to leave India and allow Indians themselves to find a solution to the Muslim League's demand for partition along religious lines).

Bose's aim in 1945 was not just to escape the British pursuit. He had foreknowledge of Japan's decision to capitulate.


In the spring of 1945, he had wanted personally to lead a military challenge against the superior forces of the Allies. He wanted to court death in this battle. Suicide was not the aim of this move. He thought that, after Aung San of Burma switched over to the victorious British side at the last moment, the INA needed to set an example of patriotic bravery in battle. He felt his own death in battlefield would stimulate a new phase in India's internal freedom struggle.
He was dissuaded from this course because two divisions of the INA were still intact and he thought of a new role for this patriotic Indian military force in the postwar situation.

Unlike other leaders of the Japan-occupied Southeast Asian countries, he, at one stage, thought of staying with INA troops in Singapore to await the arrival of the Mountbatten-led British Indian occupation force.

This course was abandoned on August 14, 1945, on the advice of the members of the Azad Hind government and other important officers of the INA.

On August 14, 1945, some information was brought to him from Thailand. This information led him to abandon the plan that the INA troops with Netaji as their head, should await the capture of Singapore by the British occupation force. There is no record of the information that caused the Azad Hind government to ask Netaji to fly to Tokyo for final consultations with the Japanese government. Is it likely that Netaji had been forewarned of the British preference for dealing with him "on the spot"?

Netaji had not rejected the idea of his being taken to India as a prisoner. Did he fear that he would not be taken to India as a British prisoner?

He knew of the existence of the Allies' spies and operatives in the INA and the Anglo-American forces and agents operating behind the Japanese lines. As the war drew to a close, important but vulnerable people changed sides. They acted on the Allies' directives.

The INA, too, had been penetrated by persons who were Allies' operatives. Even in Japan there were important people who wanted to please the victors. They were ready to pay the price the new masters demanded of them.

Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose knew that he was in a veritable snake pit. It is necessary to bear this fact in mind when the story of his death in an air crash on August 18, 1945 is read.