Looking back into family history: Sugata Bose

Despite his close relation with legendary freedom fighter Subhas Chandra Bose (Netaji), author and historian Sugata Bose insists that he wrote his latest book His Majesty’s Opponent — which explores the public and private life of Netaji — as a historian and not as a family member. 

“I wrote this book as a historian not as a family member, and not as a Bengali for sure. After all, I had never seen Netaji,” says Sugata. “Also, I have always been told by my father that his uncle said that his family and country were coterminus. And that I should never get any privilege based on the accident of birth in the same family,” he adds.

Sugata says that he grew up like any other Indian and he always looked up at Netaji as a historical, public figure. And while we may think it was expected of him to write a book on Netaji, Sugata explains that the fact that he belonged to Netaji’s family made him rather more hesitant. “If there was any hesitation in my writing this book till now, that has got to do with the fact that I wanted to distance myself from my subject,” he says.

Sugata, who is the Gardiner Professor of Oceanic History and Affairs at Harvard University, was always much fascinated by Netaji since childhood. And he admits that his inclination towards history was in a way propelled by the fact that he belonged to Netaji’s family. He took charge of the Netaji Research Bureau in Calcutta after his father’s demise.

Sugata has authored several books on the economic, social and political history of modern South Asia. His past works include Peasant Labour and Colonial Capital (1993), Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy (1998, 2004, 2011, with Ayesha Jalal) and his much-acclaimed work, A Hundred Horizons: The Indian Ocean in the Age of Global Empire (2006).

“For anyone else to write this book, that person would have had to spend so much time doing the research, but since I had already done the research I thought why not I write the book myself,” jokes the writer. And perhaps that is why it did not take him long to write the book. “The actual writing of His Majesty’s Oppnent was done very fast... during a year of sabbatical from Havard.” It is also the first book by Sugata, which was written by him while he was in