I would say it was a man called Subhas Chandra Bose. Like there are two schools of thought here as to who should be considered the hero of India’s independence, and two very different men with vastly different approaches… One was Mahatma Gandhi, the other Bose.
He is the intense looking fellow with the sailor’s cap and the glasses. The elderly fellow who looks like the logo of Pringle’s Chips or the Monopoly Man minus hat, is of course Gandhi. Gandhi was all about ‘non violent resistance’, and ‘turning the other cheek’. Bose was all about open, all-out defiance of colonial rule. He was also about taking up arms. And even cool with forming ‘deals with the devil’ — an unholy alliance with Germany, or Imperial Japan… anything to get out the Brits.
They’re like the Ying and Yang, the little devil and the little angel fighting on a cartoon character’s shoulders for dominance. Gandhi would tell a woman about to get raped to “just be quiet and take it”, whereas Bose would tell her to carry a knife and stab the molester on the spot. Gandhi would always go along with whatever his family decided for him, marry who they picked for him… whereas Bose, a man ahead of his time, married a German lady instead of a pre-selected Indian girl next door. I am fascinated by how utterly different they were… and how one became famous around the globe while the other faded into near-total obscurity.
As we all know, it’s Gandhi’s approach that ended up winning. Eventually. Bose didn’t ‘win’ nor did his more pragmatic, anything-goes approach… but to many people in his country, he was a hero for his brass balls and all-out defiance. Love him or hate him, but he was a legend… and he was shamefully forgotten in much of the world.
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