On his death anniversary, we feel it’s the right time to say that he is the perfect youth icon for today’s generation. 

Bose’s appeal to youngsters will never fade away.

Bose appeals to Indians for all the right reasons: he is the one person who took to arms to bring down the mightiest empire in the world. The fact that he came close to overthrowing the British, if only the Japanese sweep through Asia had not been halted in Assam, makes it all the more poignant.

His decision to pick up arms, when everything else wasn’t working, was extremely courageous. 

Mahatma Gandhi called him the ‘patriot of patriots’ which is a high honour especially coming from someone who was opposed to his ideologies. This honor was not unwarranted as Bose really did commit fully to the cause of Indian Independence. There was no sacrifice that he didn’t make for his nation. To this day he is one of the most patriotic figures to inspire thousands of young men and women.

For the first time, we took the fight to the Britishers and we would have won had Japan not been weakened during that time. 

Netaji’s diplomacy strikes a cord with me because it was actually effective and didn’t take ages to work.

When Bose realized that the British would have to be pushed hard to leave India, he decided that his enemy’s enemy was his friend and visited Germany and Japan to get their support. This doesn’t necessarily mean that he condoned the Nazi ideology but rather that he was willing to use whatever aid he could get in order to bring freedom to India.

I prefer a Netaji over a Mahatma Gandhi/Pandit Nehru. That’s definitely my personal preference but I have some reasons for it.

Such is the privilege of those who die young: in our imaginations they remain forever young, uncorrupted, idealistic. On the other hand, the Nehru family did come to power once freedom was achieved and the public image of them isn’t that great at all. Netaji never got a chance to run the government so in our heads, he is still the perfect figure who never did anything wrong. That’s the kind of life I’d like to see more of. Maybe The Dark Knight was correct. Maybe you either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.

He had a brilliant mind, and he was a man of action as well as of thought. His words and action will keep inspiring us for generations to come. We couldn’t possible imagine a free India without your selfless contribution.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and not ScoopWhoop.