Notes on Subash Chandra Bose’s Speech – ‘Give Me Blood and I Will

Give You Freedom’

The speech was delivered by Subash Chandra Bose in 1944 to the Indian National Army in Burma. The
speech contains the iconic line, “give me blood and I will give you freedom”, which became one of the
most iconic lines of the Indian Freedom Struggle. Slogans such as this played an essential part in the
independence struggle. From ‘Jai Hind’ to ‘Swaraj is my birth-right and I shall have it’ these
motivated the common masses to mobilize and instilled in them a pro-independence sentiment.

Vocabulary:

Yoke - a wooden crosspiece that is fastened over the necks of two animals and attached to the
plough or cart that they are to pull (in this context, a heavy weight or burden which keeps
them tied down)

Nippon – Japan (Nippon or Nihon is the name used to refer to Japan by its citizens, and
Japan is how it is referred to by the rest of the world)

Gird up your loins - prepare oneself for something difficult or challenging

Summary:

Para 1: Subash Chandra Bose begins by addressing the gathered audience, who are Indians
located in East Asia and members of the Indian National Army, as friends and thereby
highlighting their shared goal for freedom from a foreign rule for their motherland. He
highlights that as Britain is engaged in the World War II, the time was right to act upon in
order to liberate India as Britain had suffered defeat in several other fronts as well. He notes
that this makes the fight for freedom easier than it was five years ago and calls it a “god given
opportunity” which comes once in a hundred years. And he remarks that it is because that the
time is right that they should all work together and fight for the liberation of India from the
British.

Para 2: He underlines how sure he is that they will achieve victory because it is not just the
three million in East Asia who will be fighting for freedom, but the entire nation with its
millions of citizens will be working towards freeing India from the colonial rule. They are all
ready to suffer and sacrifice as much as needed so that we can achieve liberty.

Para 3: Subash Chandra Bose had a confrontational approach to the struggle for freedom and
goes on to explain how the country had been mostly disarmed, or unable to have enough
access to weapons, since the Revolt of 1857. He advocates the need to have an armed force in
order to wage the war of independence against a colonial power such as the British. He notes
that due to the help provided by the Japanese, I has been possible for them to build an army
and the advantage of them being outside the borders of India was that the differences based
on which the British tried to divide the Indians within India did not affect them.

Para 4,5,6: He says that its due to the combination of all these favourable circumstances the
success of their struggle seems almost certain. The only thing that is demanded of them I is to
pay the price of liberty. The ‘total mobilisation’ programme had demanded three major things
to aid in the freedom struggle – men, money and material. He says that they have been
successful in recruiting several parts of east Asia. However, he does say that more money and
materials are required and the issue of supplies and transportation have yet to be resolved
satisfactorily. They need more recruits so that administration and reconstruction work can
also be carried out effectively.

Para 7 & 8: At this point, he emphasises the fact that their base of this war for freedom was
Burma and it is a war in every sense of the word, not just between two armies. The
importance of this war had been understood by Bose and that is why he states that the
planning for this war was planned and carried out for over a year. He demands that since he
and his colleagues on the War Committee of the Cabinet wished to devote their whole
attention to the fighting front- and to the revolution inside India, he wanted complete
reassurance that the work at the base would go on without any interruption even in the
absence of the leaders.

Para 9 – Bose recollects how the promise he had made a year ago had been fulfilled by him –
he has demanded total mobilization of recruits, money, material and in return he had
guaranteed a ‘second front’ , a base to continue operations. Having fulfilled this pledge he
now states that they have completed the first phase of their campaign. He proudly notes how
the victorious troops, fighting alongside the Japanese have pushed back the enemies and are
continuing to fight bravely.

Para 10 to 13 - He asks them to prepare for what lies ahead. He demanded men, money and
materials - which he says he received in plenty, however with this alone one cannot win a
war. He boosts their morale and instils a sense of purpose in the audience by stating that what
is most needed is a driven and motivated army who can continue to inspire brave and heroic
deeds. He underlines that there is a long fight ahead of them and they should be prepared to
even lay down their lives for their country. He calls it the “the desire to face a martyr’s
death”, so that the path to freedom may be paved with the martyr’s blood. He ends the speech
with the iconic slogan, calling for their sacrifice in return for freedom - Give me blood and I
promise you freedom.