“Gandhism will land free India in a ditch — if free India is sought to be rebuilt on Gandhian, non-violent principles.”
The exile in Europe turned out to be a blessing in disguise for Subhas Chandra Bose. On one hand it gave him the opportunity to build his European network that would help him tremendously during World War II, while on the other, the distance from India helped him organise his thoughts and plan of action in a much more systematic manner than would have been possible had he been in India. His writings and speeches of this period clearly show that his opposition to Gandhian politics became even more pronounced.
“How long will you follow Mahatma Gandhi blindly?” he wrote to Satyendra Nath Majumdar, the editor of the Bengali daily Ananda Bazar Patrika, in October 1933. “I have no faith in the [Congress] Working Committee dominated by the satellites of Mahatma Gandhi,” he wrote again to Majumdar a year later.
He was deeply disturbed by the Gandhian policy of ‘don’t accept, don’t reject’ towards the Communal Award announced by the British government in August 1932 and scathing in his criticism of the Bengal Gandhians who had taken centre stage in his absence.
“I have no sympathy, whatsoever, for those erstwhile colleagues of mine who have dragged in Mahatma Gandhi once again into the politics of Bengal to strengthen their own position,” he wrote, adding that the “party of Dr BC Roy has done incalculable disservice to Bengal by supporting Mahatma Gandhi” on the communal question, which had severely curtailed the political space for the Hindus in Bengal.
The bluntest verdict on Gandhi, however, came through a public statement issued by Bose and Vithalbhai Patel on 9 May 1933, a day after Gandhi recommended the suspension of the Civil Disobedience movement in exchange for the government withdrawing the repressive ordinances and releasing political prisoners.
Not surprisingly, the Viceroy not only turned down Gandhi’s offer but also refused to meet him. In the signed statement issued from Vienna, Bose and Patel declared: “We are clearly of opinion that as a political leader Mahatma Gandhi has failed.” A journalist who was present while the statement was being drafted later recalled Bose telling him, “Gandhi is an old useless piece of furniture. He has done good service in his time, but he is an obstacle now.”
Gandhi, on the other hand, never put his trust in Bose. He was acutely aware that Bose would never surrender to him like Nehru despite holding different views. While selecting him to become the Congress president for 1938, Gandhi wrote to Vallabhbhai Patel, “I have observed that Subhas is not dependable. However, there is nobody who can be the President.”
Selection of Bose was more of a compulsion to fill in a gap temporarily, for Gandhi had already chosen Nehru as the leader of the next generation. His choice was most obvious when Gandhi sent a telegram welcoming Bose back from Europe just before the annual session at Haripura. The implications of the words he chose were unmistakable: Welcome home. God give you strength to bear the weight of Jawaharlal’s mantle.”
Before the year was out, Gandhi had already made up his mind that Bose had to be replaced by one of his more ‘dependable’ lieutenants. Putting the plan into action, however, became almost impossible once it became clear that Bose wanted a second term in order to be able to implement the programmes he had chalked out as the Congress president.
With none of Gandhi’s chosen stalwarts being ready for a contest against Bose, Pattabhi Sitaramayya was given the task of becoming the face of the Gandhian high command. For the first time, Gandhi was beaten in a direct contest within the Congress. Bose won the contest, but the Gandhian old guard was able to create a deadlock which compelled him to resign. Gandhi distanced himself from the thick of his followers’ machinations, trying to project a neutral image, but that hardly mattered as the game was being played in his name.
The differences between the two accentuated with the beginning of World War soon after Bose’s ouster. Bose formed his own party and toured the entire country, successfully building massive support for a more radical line of action to exploit the dire situation that the British were in. Gandhi, in contrast, chose the moment to slow down as he felt it was immoral to pressurise the British in their moment of crisis. Meeting Viceroy Linlithgow in Simla, Gandhi ‘became disconsolate’ and ‘broke down’ as he visualized the possible destruction of the British Parliament and the Westminster Abbey. His sympathies were with England and France, Gandhi informed the Viceroy. Bose, on the contrary, demanded an immediate transfer of power to Indians through a provisional national government.
Bose was made to pay for his insubordination to the Gandhian leadership. In August 1939 he was disqualified from being the president of the Bengal Provincial Congress Committee and barred from being a member of any elective Congress committee for three years. Gandhi himself drafted the resolution passed by the Congress Working Committee virtually expelling Bose from the party. Neither was the government ready to take the risk of letting Bose organise a mass movement with his radical programme. Thrown into prison in July 1940, Bose hoodwinked the formidable British intelligence network in January 1941 to reach Germany in April.
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad found that Gandhi “admired the courage and resourcefulness Subhas Bose had displayed in making his escape from India” which “unconsciously coloured his view about the whole war situation” and “was also one of the factors which clouded the discussions during the Cripps Mission.”
From Europe, Bose minutely observed the developments within India and gave his analysis of the evolving situation through regular radio broadcasts. As far as Gandhi was concerned, Bose feared that he might compromise with the British in settling for something less than complete freedom, as in dominion status. Therefore, although he gave the call to provide all out support to Gandhi’s Quit India movement, he had words of caution too. He argued that since “non-violent civil disobedience cannot secure the expulsion of the Britisher from India,” Gandhi had to “think of a compromise with Britain.” He advised his followers that when the non-violent movement slackened, they must be prepared to wage an organised armed struggle.
This being a summary of the political relation between Bose and Gandhi, it indeed appears puzzling that even after such intense differences and suffering at the hand of Gandhi and his group of acolytes Bose could put aside all sense of grievance and bitterness in addressing Gandhi as “Father of our nation.” This apparently contradictory phenomenon can be explained by three important factors.
The first factor was Bose’s sense of historical context. Despite his serious differences with Gandhi, he never lost sight of Gandhi’s role in India’s freedom struggle. This is clear from those of his speeches and writings where he took a long and analytical view of India’s struggle. One of the earliest such occasions was his presidential address at the Indian Political Conference held in London in June 1933. Bose had already declared that Gandhi had failed as a political leader. In the speech, however, he had no hesitation in admitting that there “can be no doubt that in 1920 when political India was looking forward to a more militant plan of action — Mahatma Gandhi was the one man who could stand up as the undisputed spokesman of the people and lead them on from victory to victory”.
Bose dedicated a full chapter in his The Indian Struggle, written in the next year on the role of Gandhi in Indian history, analysing the reasons for his rise as a political leader, his popularity as well as his failure. Gandhi’s simple lifestyle and his ability to communicate with the masses in simple language which they could relate to, brought him closer to them. “Wherever he may go, even the poorest of the poor feels that he is a product of the Indian soil—bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh.”
On the politics of Gandhi, he wrote: “The success of the Mahatma has been due to the failure of constitutionalism on the one side and armed revolution on the other…In 1920 India stood at the crossroads. Constitutionalism was dead; armed revolution was sheer madness…The country was groping for a new method and looking for a new leader. Then there sprang up India’s man of destiny—Mahatma Gandhi—who had been biding his time all these years and quietly preparing himself for the great task ahead of him…”
He continues, “The Indian National Congress of today is largely his creation. The Congress Constitution is his handiwork. From a talking body he has converted the Congress into a living and fighting organisation…But how could he achieve so much within this short period? By his single-hearted devotion, his relentless will and his indefatigable labour. Moreover, the time was auspicious and his policy prudent. Though he appeared as a dynamic force, he was not too revolutionary for the majority of his countrymen. If he had been so, he would have frightened them, instead of inspiring them; repelled them, instead of drawing them. His policy was one of unification. He wanted to unite the Hindu and Moslem; the high caste and the low caste; the capitalist and the labourer; the landlord and the peasant.”
Bose then posed the question: “With such purity of character and with such an unprecedented following, why has the Mahatma failed to liberate India?” The reasons were clear to him: “He has failed because the strength of a leader depends not on the largeness—but on the character—of one’s following. With a much smaller following, other leaders have been able to liberate their country…He has failed, because…he has not understood the character of his opponents. The logic of the Mahatma is not the logic which appeals to John Bull. He has failed, because his policy of putting all his cards on the table will not do…in a political fight, the art of diplomacy cannot be dispensed with…He has failed, because the false unity of interests that are inherently opposed is not a source of strength but a source of weakness in political warfare…Last but not least, the Mahatma has failed, because he had to play a dual role in one person—the role of the leader of an enslaved people and that of a world-teacher, who has a new doctrine to preach. It is this duality which has made him at once the irreconcilable foe of the Englishman, according to Mr Winston Churchill, and the best policeman of the Englishman according to Miss Ellen Wilkinson.”
He dealt with Gandhi’s contribution in greater detail in his broadcast from Bangkok on 2 October 1943, concluding that “No single man could have achieved more in one single lifetime under similar circumstances.” In July 1944, he explained in another broadcast: “There is no Indian, whether at home or abroad, who would not be happy if India’s freedom could be won through the method that you have advocated all your life and without shedding human blood. But things being what they are, I am convinced that if we do desire freedom we must be prepared to wade through blood.”
The second factor that explains Bose’s dual attitude to Gandhi is his mental makeup. He was not a person to hold a grudge or nurture bitterness against anyone even in the case of extreme differences. He had described this mentality in a letter to Gandhi while the bitterness surrounding his re-election as the Congress president was at its peak: “I am, temperamentally, not a vindictive person and I do not nurse grievances. In a way, I have the mentality of a boxer—that is, to shake hands smilingly when the boxing-bout is over and take the result in a sporting spirit.”
This large-hearted characteristic combined with his sense of historical context helped Bose maintain the deep personal respect for Gandhi, despite the tremendous ideological differences, so much so that he went ahead to explain all his activities in that broadcast of 6 July 1944. It was only after the explanation of his differences from Gandhi that he said, “Father of our nation: In this holy war for India’s liberation, we ask for your blessings and good wishes.”
The third factor that helped him to take a more detached view of Gandhi was the fact that his political career wasn’t dependent on the blessings of Gandhi, as was the case of most of his prominent political opponents. Therefore, he didn’t have to be duplicitous with himself in following the Gandhian bandwagon to protect self-interest even when he disagreed.
These factors, however, were never divorced from his sense of realism. Admiration didn’t cloud his judgement. This is best demonstrated by his letter to Rash Behari Bose written a few weeks before the Quit India movement.
“I do not underestimate his strength and influence, nor do I overestimate it,” he wrote to the senior Bose, adding: “Gandhi’s epoch in India’s history came to an end in 1939. He has imparted political consciousness to the Indian masses and he built up an All-India political organisation. But he stands pledged to non-violence and passive resistance. With such methods you can never expel the British from India and can never win independence. Therefore, Gandhi, while talking of independence, always keeps the door open for a compromise with the British…To strengthen Gandhi’s position by praising him too much, amounts to weakening our own following and committing political suicide. You may occasionally pay a compliment to Gandhi as a political manoeuvre, but you should always remember that Gandhi will never come over to your side.”
It was his considered view that “Mahatma Gandhi has rendered and will continue to render phenomenal service to his country. But India’s salvation will not be achieved under his leadership”.
The differences were too wide and too deep, not only over the methods of the struggle for freedom, but also over reconstruction of free India. His letters to his elder brother Sarat, written from prison in 1940 neatly sums up his ideological position vis-à-vis Gandhi and Gandhians: “This latest phase of Gandhism with its sanctimonious hypocrisy…is sickening to a degree. One is forced to wonder which is a greater menace to India’s political future — the British bureaucracy or the Gandhian hierarchy. Idealism that is devoid of Realism and whose only content is a frothy sentimentalism of a sanctimonious character can never be fruitful of results.”
Bose continued: “The more I think of Congress politics, the more convinced I feel that in future we should devote more energy and time to fighting the High Command. If power goes into the hands of such mean, vindictive and unscrupulous persons when Swaraj is won, what will happen to the country! If we don’t fight them now, we shall not be able to prevent power passing into their hands. Another reason why we should fight them now is that they have no idea of national reconstruction. Gandhism will land free India in a ditch—if free India is sought to be rebuilt on Gandhian, non-violent principles. India will then be offering a standing invitation to all predatory powers.”
The accolades to Gandhi actually speak more about Bose’s broad-mindedness than Gandhi himself or his politics and philosophy.
This is the concluding part of the two-part series.
Chandrachur Ghose is author of ‘Bose: The Untold Story of an Inconvenient Nationalist’, published by Penguin. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the stand of this publication.
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