Subhas Chandra Bose had already resigned twice as president of the Indian National Congress over disagreements about how fast and how hard India should push for independence. Rather than staying and compromising, he chose the far riskier path — escaping British house arrest in Calcutta in 1941, disguised in a long coat and turban, and making an extraordinary overland journey through Afghanistan and into Europe.
From there he traveled by submarine, of all things, halfway across the world to Southeast Asia, to take command of the Indian National Army — soldiers, many of them former British Indian Army prisoners of war, who had chosen to fight for full independence instead.
In July 1943, addressing a massive rally in Burma, he delivered the line that would outlive him: he told his soldiers he wanted blood, and in exchange he promised he would give them freedom. It wasn't a metaphor to the men in that crowd — many of them would indeed give their lives in the campaigns that followed.
Bose's military campaign did not itself win independence, and his own end remains disputed history. But the fire he lit — that freedom was worth any personal cost — became one of the loudest rallying cries of the entire independence movement.