After a perilous ninety-day submarine voyage, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose arrived in Southeast Asia on 6 May 1943 to lead the Indian independence movement. ‘Only when the blood of freedom loving Indians begins to flow’, he declared in one of his broadcasts in June 1943, ‘will India attain her freedom’. In his last message, on 15 August 1945, he urged faith in India’s destiny and expressed confidence that ‘India shall be free and before long’.

Volume 12 of Netaji’s Collected Works brings together all his speeches and writings as leader of the Azad Hind movement from June 1943 to August 1945. His stirring speeches in Singapore, Malaya, and Burma electrified massive audiences of civilians and soldiers, united Indians of all religions, and inspired them to join the march towards Delhi.

Sisir Kumar Bose (1920–2000) founded the Netaji Research Bureau in 1957 and was its guiding spirit until his death in 2000. A participant in the Indian freedom struggle, he was imprisoned by the British in the Lahore Fort, Red Fort and Lyallpur Jail. In the post-independence period he played a key role in preserving the best traditions of the anti-colonial movement and making possible the writing of its history.