LETTERS FROM A CELL

Subhas Chandra Bose
IN BURMESE PRISONS: Correspondence May 1923 - July 1926
edited by Sisir K. Bose

Subhas Chandra Bose’s exile in Burmese prisons from 1924 to 1927 witnessed the transformation of a lieutenant into a leader. During the non-cooperation movement and its aftermath he had wholeheartedly accepted Deshbandhu Chitta Ranjan Das as his political mentor. The apprenticeship was cut short by Deshbandhu’s death in June 1925. When Subhas received this terrible news as a prisoner in Mandalay, he felt “desolate with a sense of bereavement”, as he wrote to his friend Dilip Kumar Roy.

Netaji’s letters cover a very wide array of topics—art, music, literature, nature, education, folk culture, civic affairs, criminology, spirituality, and, of course, politics. He bore the rigours of prison life with a combination of stoicism and humour.

This volume is indispensable to an understanding of India’s greatest revolutionary leader and will interest all historians of modern India.

ISBN 81-7824-250-8 / Paperback / 380pp / 4 b/w photos / Rs 350/ Publishing end 2008

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