Before Subhas Chandra Bose ever led the INA, he had to escape British-controlled India entirely. His journey to seek Axis support took him halfway around the world in disguise.
Must Know
A Night-Time Getaway
- StoryOn the night of 17 January 1941, Bose slipped past the British guards watching his own house in Calcutta. A car drove him to Gomoh railway station, far from prying eyes.
- DetailTo cross overland into Afghanistan, he dressed as a Pathan and called himself “Ziauddin,” a travelling insurance agent. A local guide, Bhagat Ram Talwar, led him across the border.
- ResultThe disguise worked. Bose reached Kabul without being caught, the first big step of an escape that would carry him across three continents.
A Second Disguise, for Europe
- InsteadIn Kabul, “Ziauddin” was retired. Bose needed a new identity for the next leg, through Soviet and European territory, so he became “Count Orlando Mazzotta,” travelling on an Italian passport.
- DetailUnder this new name, he crossed into the Soviet Union, took a train to Moscow, then continued on to Rome, and finally reached Berlin in early April 1941.
- WhyTwo different disguises for two very different legs of the journey shows just how carefully planned this escape really was, not a single lucky dash but a whole chain of false identities.
Meeting Hitler
- StoryBose finally met Adolf Hitler in Berlin, in late May 1942, hoping to win real military backing for India’s freedom struggle.
- InsteadHitler turned him down. He offered no meaningful military support for an invasion of India. What he did offer was smaller, but still useful: a submarine to carry Bose onward to East Asia.
- So whatThe meeting that was supposed to be Bose’s big breakthrough turned into something else entirely: a ride to his next chapter, in Japan.
Good to Know
A Voice From Berlin
- MechanismWhile in Germany, Bose did not just wait around for military help. He started Azad Hind Radio in Berlin in 1942, broadcasting nationalist messages back to listeners in India.
- DetailRadio let him speak directly to Indians, even from thousands of kilometres away, keeping his voice and his cause alive while he searched for real backing.
A Swap in the Middle of the Ocean
- StoryThe submarine Hitler arranged was a German U-boat, U-180. Bose boarded it in 1943 for the long, cramped journey east.
- DetailOn 28 April 1943, somewhere near Madagascar, something extraordinary happened. Bose was moved, underwater, from the German submarine onto a Japanese submarine, the I-29.
- WhyThis was the only time in the whole of World War II that a civilian was transferred between submarines belonging to two different navies. It shows exactly how far Germany and Japan were willing to cooperate to get Bose where he needed to go.
✅ Test Yourself
Work through a 5-question chain across Bose’s disguises, his meeting with Hitler, and his submarine journey, then keep practising with a random Modern History question.
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The Guide Who Was Secretly Five Spies
- StoryBose trusted his guide, Bhagat Ram Talwar, completely for the Afghanistan crossing. What Bose did not know is almost unbelievable.
- DetailTalwar was secretly working as a spy for five different countries at once: Germany, Japan, the Soviet Union, Italy, and British India. British intelligence even had a code name for him: Silver.
- So whatEven one of history’s most daring escapes had a strange, hidden layer underneath it. The man guiding Bose to freedom was quietly reporting to nearly everyone else at the same time.
A Debated Legacy
- InsteadBose’s willingness to seek support from Nazi Germany remains one of the more debated parts of his legacy. It raises an uncomfortable question: allying with a regime responsible for immense atrocities, purely out of anti-British strategic calculation, separate from any endorsement of Nazi ideology itself.
- ResultThe full arc of his journey stretched far beyond India’s own borders. It ran from Calcutta to Kabul in disguise, then Kabul to Berlin, a meeting with Hitler, and finally a submarine crossing to Japan. Few individual stories from the freedom struggle travelled this far.
PYQ / Exam Angle
CDS II 2018: Radio From Berlin
- QuestionCDS asked which country Bose started Azad Hind Radio in. Answer: Germany.
- WhyThe other three options are all real countries with some link to Bose’s own story elsewhere, which is exactly the trap. Azad Hind Radio specifically was a Berlin project, launched during his 1941-43 stay in Germany, before the submarine journey took him on to Japan.
- LinkSource: CDS (II) 2018, General Knowledge (see Q95).
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