VIEWPOINT
Romit Bagchi
With Subhas Chandra Bose being ‘humiliated’ inside the Congress for his defiance of the Gandhian hegemony, the anguished Rabindranath Tagore wrote to Mahatma Gandhi on March 29 1939, urging the latter to kindly intervene to end Bose’s ‘banishment’ post- his astounding election to the party’s presidentship for the Tripuri session in the teeth of stiff opposition from the staunch Gandhiites. Tagore did not mince his words. “At the last Congress session, some rude hands have deeply hurt Bengal with an ungracious persistence. Please apply without delay a balm to the wound with your own kind hands and prevent it from festering.” However, his passionate appeal failed to mellow Gandhi. Significantly, the title ‘Mahatma’ was given to him by Tagore himself. He wrote back, “I have your letter full of tenderness. The problem you set before me is difficult. I have made certain suggestions to Subhas. I see no other way out of the impasse.”
It was, of course, a tense and exciting time inside the Congress. Bose had thrown the gauntlet straight to Gandhi and his victory at Tripuri stunned all. Now, let us look back on what happened before and after the election.
Sensing the impending danger to his undisputed supremacy over the Congress with Bose remaining iron-willed to contest the presidential election for the second consecutive term, Gandhi proposed the name of Jawaharlal Nehru to take on Bose. Many of the chroniclers of that turbulent time’s history dubbed it a shrewd move aimed at driving a wedge between the two ideologically fellow travellers-Nehru and Bose. Nehru refused and named Maulana Azad instead. Not sure of his ground to confront Bose, Azad proposed the name of Pattabhi Sitaramyaya. This move intrigued many as Pattabhi was a lightweight behind the redoubtable Bose who had already emerged as the uncompromising anti-Gandhi face.
When Bose was seemingly bent on wresting control of the Congress from the Old Guard which, according to him, was vegetating when the world was staring at a grim crisis with the clouds of the Second World War hovering across, the true-blue Gandhiites led by Sardar Patel conceived a move to scuttle his plan. They insisted that as the presidential election had been a unanimous affair so far a contest was undesirable. While lending their full weight behind Sitaramyaya, they pressured Bose to withdraw. The historians said that this move had Gandhi’s full support.
Bose was exasperated. He said bluntly that Patel and other Gandhi acolytes were nastily conspiring against him. Nehru wrote to Bose, asking him to not doubt the bona fides of his colleagues. Gandhi supported none of the candidates but shrewdly remarked that anarchy was awaiting the country.
The election was held amidst this vitiated atmosphere and Bose defeated Sitaramyaya by 1580-1375 votes. Stunned, Gandhi famously said that it was more his defeat than Sitaramyaya’s. He further said he was happy with Bose’s victory and he was now free to form his own team and implement his policies. “After all, Subhas Babu is not an enemy of the country. He has suffered for it…Those who feel uncomfortable in being in the Congress may come out, not in a spirit of ill-will but with the deliberate purpose of rendering more effective service.” The historian Amalesh Tripathi wondered what could be a deadlier challenge couched in a gentle language.
A few days before the Tripuri Congress, Gandhi intriguingly went to Rajkot and got deeply involved in a dispute with the Princely States. As a prelude to the session, a Congress Working Committee meeting was slated at Wardha. Bose requested its deferment, citing his serious illness. Meanwhile, to mount pressure on Bose, 12 out of 15 CWC members, including Patel, Rajendra Prasad and Govind Ballabh Pant, resigned. Later, Nehru followed suit. In another move meant to coerce Bose into submission, Pant introduced a resolution at the CWC meeting, asking Bose to form the next CWC in accordance with Gandhi’s wishes, a move that amounted to an explicit expression of no-confidence in the newly elected president.
The open session at Tripuri was held on March 10, 1939. Burning with fever, Bose came. His speech was read by his elder brother Sarat Chandra Bose. The speech focused itself on issuing an ultimatum to the British government, stating that it must address the country’s demands in view of the deepening international crisis failing which there would be a full-blooded people’s movement to oust the government. The fuming Old Guard cast doubt on Bose’s illness which triggered an acrimonious uproar. To further push embattled Bose back to the wall, they got the Pant resolution approved. Bose’s wings were thus effectively clipped. Defeated and humiliated, he left Tripuri.
Later, Bose made repeated and desperate attempts to mend fences with Gandhi. Coming off his high horse, he put a proposal for a composite committee that would include his followers and members of the Old Guard. But Gandhi did not yield an inch.
Then the inevitable happened at the AICC session in Calcutta. Hemmed in by hostility, Bose offered to resign. He said it was not possible for him to form his team in accordance with the Pant resolution and he would feel uncomfortable in the team if the AICC formed it. Nehru requested him to not resign and proposed a compromise which Bose declined. Then, Sarojini Naidu (Chatterjee), who was chairing the session, asked Bose to clarify his offer to resign. Bose said it depended on the AICC’s decision about his composite team proposal. Naidu then accepted Bose’s resignation hastily without a vote and appointed Rajendra Prasad as the next president. All hell broke loose thereafter and the members of the Old Guard fled to escape the wrath of the mob comprising Bose’s followers. The final act came up a few days later when the new CWC expelled Bose, debarring him from any elected post for three years. Further, to rub salt into his wound, Prasad dissolved the Bengal Congress Committee, provoking Bose to an open rebellion. Gandhi commented sarcastically: “I could understand rebellion after secession.”
Now, with so many years having passed since then, a question comes up: had Bose been stuck back in the Congress, fighting like a Lone Wolf against a well-entrenched coterie comprising members of Gandhi’s magic circle, would we have got him as the Supreme Soldier, the supreme commander of INA who had hastened India’s freedom by striking terror in the British Imperialism’s mighty heart?
Now, let us see what happened in the final phase of his life. In April 1945, Bose’s birthday was celebrated in Rangoon by weighing him in gold, collected from among Indians, twice his weight. One called Habib of Rangoon donated all his landed property, cash and jewellery worth Rs one crore and thirty lakhs. What did he ask in return? A pair of Khaki shirts and shorts. Bose significantly wrote to John Thivi of Indian Independence League: “I am writing to you just before going to long journey via air route and who knows, some incident engulfs me …..” In his last order, he said: “Comrades…we have been overwhelmed by an undreamt-of crisis. You may perhaps feel that you have failed in your mission to liberate India. But let me tell you that this failure is only of a temporary nature. No setback and no defeat can undo your positive achievements of the past… There is no power on earth that can keep India enslaved. India shall be free before long.”
What happened thereafter remains shrouded in mystery and Bose remains a ‘Prince among the Patriots’, unsullied by ‘power and pelf’, purity incarnate, an eternal darling of the people across the subcontinent.
