Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday unveiled a statue of an independence hero who is revered for taking up arms against Britain but controversial for his collaboration with Nazi Germany’s war machine.

Subhas Chandra Bose was a charismatic and popular contemporary of Mahatma Gandhi, but broke with the pacifist leader to forge alliances with Germany and Japan during World War II when he was attempting to overthrow the colonial regime in India.

He made propaganda programs from Berlin encouraging Indians to fight alongside the Axis powers – on one occasion he met Adolf Hitler – and raised an anti-British legion from captured Indian POWs before boarding a U-boat to Japan sailed.

The statue of “Netaji” – or “Leader,” as Bose is commonly known – was erected near the India Gate war memorial in New Delhi, replacing a statue of Britain’s King George V that was torn down nearly half a century ago .

It is part of a lengthy and costly renovation of the capital’s administrative district, coinciding with this year’s 75th anniversary of independence.

“Today we are leaving the past behind,” Modi said at Thursday’s inauguration ceremony.

“The country today placed Netaji’s statue in the same place, giving a boost to modern, independent and confident India,” he added.

Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) espouses a muscular Hindu nationalism that champions historical figures who resisted outside influence and domination.

The BJP has hailed Bose as an anti-colonial hero while downplaying the influence of Gandhi and first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, two men whose legacies are closely linked to India’s main opposition party.

Modi opened a museum dedicated to Bose in Delhi’s UNESCO-listed Red Fort in 2019, calling him the “great hero of independence” earlier that year.

Bose’s courtship of fascist power has tarnished his image elsewhere, but he remains revered at home for his role in the struggle for independence – and the subject of conspiracy theories for his untimely death.

He was killed when the Japanese bomber he was traveling in crashed in Taiwan at the end of the war in 1945.

But many Indians at the time thought the crash had been faked to help Bose go underground as he was wanted by British authorities as a war criminal.

In the decades that followed, many insisted that Bose was still alive, and several alternative theories flourished to explain his whereabouts, including capture and imprisonment in a Soviet gulag, or an anonymous return to India for a quiet life.