Subhas Bose was arrested again on 2 July 1940; he had just returned after meeting Rabindranath Tagore. The Battle of Britain was raging and the outcome was far from certain. The colonial authorities were not taking chances with a man who could sway a large segment of the population. However, they could not hold him down for too long. In November, Subhas swore on the Goddess Kali that he would fast unto death unless he was released.
The viceroy soon realized that this was no empty threat and, as the case of Jatin Das had demonstrated, force-feeding often did not work. The last thing he needed was a leader of Subhas Bose’s stature dying in custody. Thus, Bose was released on 5 December and allowed to go home to Calcutta. A frail Subhas was taken to 38/2 Elgin Road and lodged in his late father’s bedroom on the middle floor. It is a large and airy room that visitors can still see. At that time, the room had Janaki Bose’s large four-poster bed, a smaller cot, a painting of Goddess Kali, a tiger-skin rug for meditation, a low table with books (including the Bhagawad Gita) and some family photographs. Several members of the extended family occupied rooms in the rest of the house.
Outside the house, the government had deployed a large number of policemen in plain clothes to keep watch, and all his correspondence was intercepted and monitored by the post office; intelligence reports suggest that the British even knew about his meal menu. Subhas had no intention of spending the war stuck in limbo. The fluid geopolitical situation provided an opportunity that was too good to be wasted, but he knew he would immediately be re-arrested if he did anything within India. He needed to find way to get out of the country.
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So he approached his nephew, Sisir, and took him into confidence. In mid-December, the Forward Bloc’s provincial head for the North West Frontier Province, Akbar Shah, visited Calcutta. Sisir accompanied him to Wachel Molla’s department store and purchased some baggy salwar trousers and a black fez cap. He also purchased a suitcase, toiletries, a bed roll and so on. Finally, he went to a printing shop and ordered visiting cards that read: ‘Mohd. Ziauddin, B.A., LL.B., Travelling Inspector, The Empire of India Life Assurance Co. Ltd., Permanent Address: Civil Lines, Jubblepore.’
From his window, Subhas could observe the policemen assigned to keep watch. During the day, they walked around, but at night they huddled in blankets around a charpoy at the crossing of Elgin Road and Woodburn Park Road (this is in front of what is now a popular bookstore). By 16 January 1941, Subhas was ready to execute his plan. He announced to his family and friends that he was going into religious seclusion for a while, as he wanted to spend time meditating. Since everyone knew of his religious disposition, it came as no surprise. At 1.35 a.m. the plan was put into motion. Subhas transformed into Mohammad Ziauddin in a long coat, baggy salwars and a black fez. Sisir and another nephew quietly carried the luggage to Sisir’s car—a Wanderer BLA 7169. The car went out of the gate, took a right and then another right into a narrow lane named Allenby Road to avoid the huddled policemen at the crossing further ahead. Sisir next took a left onto Lansdowne Road (now named Sarat Bose Road after his father) before he breathed a sigh of relief. They had escaped the immediate cordon.
The authorities did not seem to have noticed anything—the duo travelled unimpeded until they reached the home of a relative near Dhanbad by 8.30 a.m. After a brief period of rest, Subhas was dropped off at Gomoh railway station, where he boarded the Delhi–Kalka Mail. Still disguised as Ziauddin, he next boarded the Frontier Mail from Delhi to Peshawar, where he was met by Akbar Shah on 19 January. He was taken to the Taj Mahal Hotel.
The staff must have been impressed by their scholarly and devout guest, for they specially provided him a room with a prayer rug! The next stage of the journey into Afghanistan needed a new disguise. Subhas was now transformed into a deaf and mute Pathan, who was going on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Adda Sharif to cure him of his affliction (the pretence of being deaf and mute was necessary as Subhas did not know Pashto). He was accompanied by Bhagat Ram Talwar, a local communist, disguised as a relative named Rahmat Khan.
Meanwhile, back in Calcutta, the police and most of the Bose household continued to be oblivious to the escape. Food was dutifully taken into the seclusion room but was eaten by the two nephews and a niece. It was only on 26 January that the disappearance was discovered by the cooks, who raised an alarm, and it immediately led to a sensation. The viceroy was furious when he heard the news and the press reports turned the Bengal provincial authorities into a laughing stock. By this time, Subhas and Bhagat Ram had crossed into Afghanistan. He had pulled off one of the most audacious escapes in Indian history—perhaps matching that of Shivaji from the clutches of Aurangzeb.
This excerpt from Sanjeev Sanyal’s ‘Revolutionaries: The Other Story of How India Won its Freedom,’ has been published with permission from HarperCollins India.