A copy of the resignation letter of Subhas Chandra Bose, popularly known as "Netaji", or "leader", from the Indian Civil Service (ICS) is going viral on social media.
Senior Indian Forest Service (IFS) officer Parveen Kaswan took to Twitter to share a copy of Bose's resignation letter. He wrote, “On April 22, 1921, Subhash Bose resigned from Indian Civil Service to participate in Freedom struggle. For a greater cause. He was 24 years old then. His original resignation letter from service. Tribute on his birth anniversary."
Dated April 22, 1921, Netaji addressed the letter to Edwin Montagu, the secretary of state. In the letter, he wrote, “I desire to have my name removed from the list of probationers in the Indian Civil Service."
Netaji also said that once his resignation is accepted, he will return the allowance of 100 pounds to the India Office.
Subhas Chandra Bose was a contemporary of Mahatma Gandhi but broke with the pacifist icon and sought alliances with Nazi Germany and Japan to overthrow the British Raj during World War II.
His courtship of fascist powers made Bose a controversial figure elsewhere but he remains widely revered at home for his role in India's independence struggle -- and the subject of conspiracy theories over his untimely death.
With World War II raging, Bose escaped British surveillance to travel from India to Germany in 1941, later sailing in a submarine back to Asia to group surrendered Indian army troops into the rebel Indian National Army.
He was killed when a Japanese bomber in which he was travelling crashed in Taiwan at the close of the war in 1945.
But many people at the time thought the crash had been faked to help Bose go underground, as he was wanted as a war criminal by British authorities.
