His father’s name was Shri Janaki Nath Bose and his mother’s name was Shri Mati Prabhavati Dutt Bose. This family was a family of lawyers. He was in ninth place out of 14 children.
In January 1902, he was admitted to the Protestant European School (now called Stewart High School) in Cuttack. He studied in this school till 1909. Then he was admitted to Ravenshaw Collegiate School. In 1913, he secured second position in the matriculation examination. For higher education, he joined Presidency College. When he was 16 years old, he was very impressed by the teachings of Swami Vivekananda and Ramakrishna.
In those days, the British people in Calcutta used very bad language against Indians and insulted them. Here, an English professor named Auten used to speak bad words about Indians. One day Subhash Chandra Bose slapped him on the face in anger. As a result, he was expelled from the college. Then he joined the Scots Church College (Calcutta University) and passed B.A. Honours Philosophy in 1918. He went to England for higher education in 1919. There, he passed the Indian Civil Service (ICS) examination within 8 months. After independence, it was renamed as the Indian Administrative Services (IAS).
Subhash Chandra Bose’s family had connections with very big people. This is known from his IAS examination form. In his examination form, Lord Sinha of Raipur, who was the Under-Secretary of State of India and was the first Indian to work as a governor in a state, was mentioned. The second personality was Mr. Bhupinder Nath Basu, a wealthy solicitor of Calcutta who was a member of the Council of India in London.
He wanted to get admission in Cambridge University but his date had passed. He got admission in a college on 19 November 1919. He came fourth in the ICS. He wrote to his elder brother Sarat Chandra Bose that he did not want to work for the British and wanted to see India independent. He resigned from the job on 23 April 1921 and came to India.
