Subhas Chandra Bose was one of the first leaders of the country to stress on overseas citizenship rights, academicians including Netaji’s grandnephew Professor Sugata Bose said here on Friday on the occasion of his 119th birth anniversary.
While delivering a lecture on ‘Bay of Bengal and its cultural connections’ at the Netaji Research Bureau, Harvard University historian Sunil Amrith said that Netaji provided the people of Indian Diaspora working in South East Asia including the Malay Peninsula in 1940’s the idea of “future citizenship”.
“It was a bold experiment in citizenship,” Professor Amrith said, emphasising on Netaji’s impact in the region, which went beyond the setting up of the Indian National Army.
The Indian in South East Asia at that time consisted of Indians from all parts of the country, but the majority were Tamil speakers, he added.
Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose had on October 21, 1943, announced proclamation of the Provisional Government of Azad Hind.
“You can see how farsighted it was, because only now more than 50 years after independence, we have started thinking in terms of overseas citizenship rights,” Professor Bose added.
He pointed out that 2,00,000 people signed their oaths of allegiance to the Provincial Government.
