Rash Behari Bose
Rash Behari Bose (25 May 1886 – 21 January 1945) was an Indian-Bengali revolutionary who organized armed resistance against British colonial rule, notably masterminding the 1912 Delhi-Lahore Conspiracy that targeted Viceroy Lord Hardinge with a bomb attack and coordinating the 1915 Ghadar uprising to incite mutiny among Indian troops and civilians.[1][2] After evading capture and fleeing to Japan in 1915, he built alliances with Japanese nationalists, naturalized as a citizen in 1923, and established the Indian Independence League in Tokyo to rally expatriate support for India's freedom.[3][4] Bose convened the 1942 Tokyo Conference that revived the Indian National Army (INA) from earlier efforts, serving as its initial head before resigning in 1943 to cede leadership to Subhas Chandra Bose amid wartime exigencies.[3][5] His strategic pivot to Axis-aligned Japan reflected a pragmatic pursuit of anti-British leverage, though it drew postwar scrutiny for aligning with imperial expansionism rather than democratic ideals.[6] Despite this, Bose's groundwork in Japan facilitated the INA's mobilization of Indian POWs, amplifying pressures that contributed to Britain's eventual withdrawal from India.[7]