Despite the existence of large volume of books on Subhas Chandra Bose and on his personality, this book Subhas: The Nationalist is written for further study beginning from his early life to his thoughts on different topics and their far-sighted relevancy to present times. In this book an attempt is made to show the transformation from an administrator to a nationalist leader, a conservative nationalist leader to a radical leader.

Subhas Chandra Bose continues to be a well-known figure in India more than fifty years after his death, but in the West remains a shadowy figure unknown to many. He made headlines worldwide as the extremist leader of the Provisional Government of Free India after its establishment by the Axis powers during World War II and was viewed as sort of an Asian Hitler or Quisling, but when the Allies crushed Bose's Indian National army, the world seemed quickly to forget him. This work is a biography of Bose, the self-proclaimed Netaji, or "revered leader," who sought to bring down the British Raj by making alliances with Rome, Berlin, and Tokyo during World War II and by helping India thrive economically and politically as a free socialist nation. It details his political activities, including radio broadcasts in which he attempted to sway his countrymen with pro-Axis propaganda and predicted a bloody end to imperialism at the hands of Axis powers, and his commanding of two liberation armies, one under Nazi authority and the other under Tokyo's auspices, made up of rehabilitated and coerced prisoners of war. Bose is noted for having unified his country's multiethnic population and enlisting the support of Indians overseas, all the while incurring the wrath of the Allies, who crushed his armies and his hopes of transforming India into a socialist nation. A discussion of his mysterious death in a plane crash while en route to an unknown location in 1945 concludes the book.

History abounds with many heroes. The Indian freedom struggle had its own share of them. Subhas Chandra Bose fired the nation with patriotic fervour, very different in character to the non-violent approach preached by Gandhi. Truly an outsider to the movements of satyagraha and passive resistance that rapidly gained momentum, he made a valiant effort to galvanize the nation into action with evocative slogans such as – ‘Freedom is never given, it is taken' . . . 'Tum mujhe khoon do, main tumhe azadi doonga'. JAI HIND – India's national greeting ? was the salutation coined by him to arouse nationalistic passion among the Indians. In what was unthinkable then, Bose dared to ally with the Nazis and the Japanese, and raised an indigenous army called Azad Hind Fauj to challenge the military might of the British Empire. Why then has Subhas Chandra Bose been largely marginalized as a footnote in the history of India's independence? Perhaps the mythical legends that continue to shroud both his personal life and political happenstance hold some answers. The Lost Hero – a thoroughly researched biography of Subhas Bose – delves into the life and times of this great man, with the hope that he is granted a befitting place in the annals of Indian history.