Subhas Chandra Bose: the paradox of a revolutionary’s theory and praxis

On August 18, 1945, a plane carrying Subhas Chandra Bose crashed over Taihoku in Taiwan. With it, the systematic attempt to create a “higher synthesis” between the spiritual wisdom of the East and the material dynamism of the West also disappeared. Bose was neither a dreamer content with abstract philosophy nor a crude pragmatist indifferent to moral questions. As he put it, he refused to accept “what he could not live, what could not be implemented.”

This work examines his intellectual journey from absolute idealism to a dialectical understanding of reality and its impact on his political doctrine and revolutionary practice.