CHANDRA BOSE

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 64, Issue 4557, 8 April 1942, Page 7

CHANDRA BOSE

INDIAN FIFTH COLUMNIST REMOVED BY DEATH If the report, received by way of the Lyons radio station, of the death of Chandra Bose should be correct, then in an aeroplane accident somewhere along the Japanese coast, the man whom the Axis Powers had been grooming for the role of Quisling in India has met a sudden death. Bose had held high office in the Indian Congress organisation and had become the recognised leader of the revolutionary section. In 1940 he was imprisoned for subversive activities, but was released on the ground of illhealth at the end of the year. Then he disappeared and was next heard of in Germany, where it was announced that he had thrown in his lot with the Axis leaders. They used him to broadcast to the people of India, assuring them of the freedom and prosperity they would enjoy under the new order. His transference in some way to Japan must have been made in the hope that, from Burma or Malaya, he might have been able to contact some of his extremist friends in India. Bose had a following among the younger and » less responsible elements in the Congress. What he might have done, had he ever again reached India, can only be a matter of conjecture, but his death will more directly concern the enemies of the Indian Empire than those who are seeking to strengthen its position in the face of danger.