Qissa Subhash Bose

About the Speaker

Vikas Rathee is Assistant Professor of History, Central University of Punjab, Bhatinda. He earned his PhD from the University of Arizonain 2015 for his thesis titled 'Narratives of the 1658 War of Succession for the Mughal Throne, 1658-1707'.

Abstract

The Qissa Subhash Chandra Bose (henceforth QSBC) is a ragni (song) popular in present-day Haryana, Delhi, Western Uttar Pradesh and North-Eastern Rajasthan. It was prepared for oralperformance by a certain Mehr Singh, a sepoy in the British Indian Army and then in the pro-Japanese Indian National Army in the South East Asian theatre of World War II. The exact text of QSBC continued to evolve after the conclusion of War throwing methodological challenges regarding the usage of a ‘live’ oral text as a source for reconstructing history. QSBC tells about conceptualizations of the nation hailing from particular cultural formations of South-East Punjab and middle and upper caste Hindu sepoys of the Indian armies. It tells about the composition of the nationalist pantheon, and about inter-community relations. Finally, it tells us about the place ofsoldierly life and soldierly masculinity – closely tied to the normative masculinities of communities that were recruited – in these understandings of nation and nationalism.