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Home , Asaf Ali, Bhulabhai Desai, Jawaharlal Nehru, Rajendra Prasad, Rash Behari Bose, Subhas Chandra Bose

Subhas Chandra and the Alternative in Political scenarios after election

• The Congress victory in the 1937 election and the consequent formation of popular ministries changed the balance of power within the country vis-a-vis the colonial authorities.

• The growth of left-wing parties and ideas led to a growing militancy within the nationalist ranks.

• The stage seemed to be set for another resurgence of the nationalist movement.

• Just at this time, the Congress had to undergo a crisis at the top — an occurrence which plagued the Congress every few years. Way of the crisis within Congress

• Subhas Bose had been a unanimous choice as the President of the Congress in 1938.

• In 1939, he decided to stand again — this time as the spokesperson of militant politics and radical groups.

• Putting his candidature on 21 , Bose said that he represented the ‘new ideas, ideologies, problems and programmes’ that had emerged with ‘the progressive sharpening of the anti-imperialist struggle in India.’

• On 24 January, Sardar Patel, , J.B. Kripalani and four other members of the Congress Working Committee issued a counter statement, declaring that the talk of ideologies, programmes and policies was irrelevant in the elections of a Congress president

Result of the election

• With the blessings of Gandhiji, Sardar Patel, Rajendra Prasad, J.B. Kripalani other leaders put up Pattabhi Sitaramayya as a candidate for the post.

• Subhas Bose was elected on 29 January by 1580 votes against 1377.

• Gandhiji declared that Sitaramayya’s defeat was ‘more mine than his.’

Apex of the crisis • But the election of Bose resolved nothing, it only brought the brewing crisis to a head at the Tripuri session of the Congress.

• There were two major reasons for the crisis.

1. One was the line of propaganda adopted by Bose against Sardar Patel and the majority of the top Congress leadership whom he branded as rightists.

2. He openly accused them of working for a compromise with the Government on the question of federation, of having even drawn up a list of prospective central’ ministers

3. therefore of not wanting a leftist as the president of the Congress

• He had, therefore, appealed to Congressmen to vote for a leftist and ‘a genuine antifederationist.’ Bose vs Rightists Leaders • The Congress leaders, labelled as compromisers, resented such charges and branded them as a slander.

• They pointed out in a statement: ‘Subhas Babu has mentioned his opposition to the federation. This is shared by all the members of the Working Committee. It is the Congress policy.’

• After Subhas’s election, they felt that they could not work with a president who had publicly cast aspersions on their nationalist bonafides.

• Earlier, Gandhiji had issued a statement on 31 January saying: ‘I rejoice in this defeat’ because ‘Subhas Babu, instead of being President on the sufferance of those whom he calls rightists, is now President elected in a contested election. This enables him to choose a homogeneous cabinet and enforce his programme without let or hindrance.’ Bose vs Nehru • did not resign along with the twelve other Working Committee members

• He did not like the idea of confronting Bose publicly. But he did not agree with Bose either.

• Before the elections, he had said that in the election no principles or programmes were at stake.

• He had been unhappy with Bose’s aspersions on his colleagues.

• Nor did he agree that the fight was between the Left and the Right. • His letter to Subhas on 4 February 1939 would bear a long quotation:

‘I do not know who you consider a leftist and who a rightist. The way these words were used by you in your statements during the presidential contest seemed to imply that Gandhiji and those who are considered as his group in the Working Committee are the rightist leaders. Their opponents, whoever they might be, are the leftists. That seems to me an entirely wrong description. It seems to me that many of the so-called leftists are more right than the so-called rightists. Strong language and a capacity to criticize and attack the old Congress leadership is not a test of leftism in politics... I think the use of the words left and right has been generally wholly wrong and confusing. If, instead of these words we talked about policies it would be far better. What policies do you stand for? Anti-federation, well and good. I think that the great majority of the members of the Working Committee stand for that and it is not fair to hint at their weakness in this respect.’ • Differences of policy and tactics were involved in the underlying Bose-Gandhian debate.

• Subhas Bose believed that the Congress was strong enough to bunch an immediate struggle that the masses were ready for such struggle.

• He was convinced, as he wrote later, ‘that the country was internally more ripe for a revolution than ever before and that the coming international crisis would give India an opportunity for achieving her emancipation, which is rare in human .’

• He, therefore, argued in his presidential address at Tripuri for a programme of immediately giving the British Government a six-months ultimatum to grant the national demand for independence and of launching a mass movement if it failed to do so.’ • Gandhiji’s perceptions were very different.

• He, too, believed that another round for mass struggle was necessary to win freedom, for Indians were facing ‘an impossible situation.’

• But, he believed, the time was not yet ripe for an ultimatum because neither the Congress nor the masses were yet ready for struggle.

• Making his position clear in an interview on 5 May 1939, Gandhiji declared:

‘He (Subhas Bose) holds that we possess enough resources for a fight. I am totally opposed to his views. Today we possess no resources for a fight. . . There is no limit to communal strife. . . We do not have the same hold among the peasants of as we used to... If today I am asked to start the “Dandi March,” I have not the courage to do so. How can we do anything without the workers and peasants? The country belongs only to them. I am not equipped to issue an ultimatum to the Government. The country would only be exposed to ridicule.” Bose’s Misjudgment • The internal strife reached its climax at the Tripuri session of the Congress, held from 8 to 12 March 1939.

• Bose had completely misjudged his support and the meaning of his majority in the presidential election.

• Congressmen had voted for him for diverse reasons, and above all because he stood for militant politics, and not because they wanted to have him as the of the national movement.

• They were not willing to reject Gandhiji’s leadership or that of other older leaders who decided to bring this home to Subhas.

• moved a resolution at Tripuri expressing lull confidence in the old Working Committee, reiterating full faith in Gandhiji’s leadership of the movement and the Congress policies of the previous twenty years, and asking Subhas to nominate his Working Committee ‘in accordance with the wishes of Gandhiji.’

• The resolution was passed by a big majority, but Gandhiji did not approve of the resolution and refused to impose a Working Committee on Subhas • Subhas Bose refused to take up the challenge.

• He had placed himself in an impossible situation.

• He knew that he could not lead the organization on his own, but he was also not willing to accept the leadership of the majority.

• To place the best construction on his policy, he wanted Gandhiji to be the leader of the coming struggle but he wanted Gandhiji to follow the strategy and tactics laid down by him and the left-wing parties and groups.

• Gandhiji, on the other hand, would either lead the Congress on the basis of his own strategy and style of politics or surrender the position of the leader.

• Bose could see no other way out but to resign from the presidentship.

• Nehru tried to mediate between the two sides and persuade Bose not to resign, while asking Gandhiji and the older leaders to be more accommodative.

• But Bose would not resign from his position.

• On the one hand, he insisted that the Working Committee should be representative of the new radical trends and groups which had elected him,

• on the other, he would not nominate his own Working Committee. He preferred to press his resignation.

• This led to the election of Rajendra Prasad in his place. • Bose could also not get the support of the Congress Socialists and the Communists at Tripuri or after for they were not willing to divide the national movement and felt that its unity must be preserved at all costs.

• Explaining its position, the CPI declared after Tripuri that the interests of the anti-imperialist struggle demanded not the exclusive leadership of one wing but a united leadership under the guidance of Gandhiji. Formation of Forward Bloc • Subsequently, on 3 May 1939 , Subhas Bose and his followers formed the Forward Bloc as a new party within the Congress.

• When he gave a call for an All-India protest on 9 July against an AICC resolution, the Working Committee took disciplinary action against him, removing him from the presidentship of the Provincial Congress Committee and debarring him from holding any Congress office for three years. Formation of INA and

• War time period and Congress posture

• Visions of Subhas Bose- Indians were losing a rare opportunity - they must take advantage of the empire’s weakest moment

• Hesitation of Congress to initiate a mass movement against the Raj – right-wing leaders who were out of touch with the new forces and new elements

• Subhas travelled alone across India to stir a movement but did not get much enthusiastic response Some attempts of Subhas Bose and its results • Subhas formed a link with the Muslim League and decided to launch a civil disobedience movement to destroy the Holwell monument

• Subhas was arrested by the British on July 1940 under the Defence of India act

• He was then released unconditionally, but kept under constant surveillance.

• In the meanwhile, war progressed in Europe, and Bose believed that was going to win.

• Although he did not like their totalitarianism or racism, he began to nurture the idea that the cause of Indian independence could be furthered with the help of the and started exploring various possibilities.

• Finally, in the midnight of 16-17 he fled from his Elgin Road residence in Calcutta incognito as an upcountry Muslim.

• He travelled to and then through Russia on an Italian passport; by the end of March he reached . • Subhas Bose met Goebbels and Hitler in Berlin, but did not receive much help from them.

• He was allowed to start his Radio and was handed over the Indian POWs() captured in North Africa to start an , but nothing beyond that.

• Particularly, he could not get an Axis declaration in favour of Indian independence, and after German reverses at Stalingrad, that became even more difficult. • A new stage of action was being prepared for him in Southeast Asia, where the Japanese were taking real interest in the cause of Indian independence.

• India originally did not figure in the Japanese policy of Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere, under which the Japanese proposed to help Asians gain independence from Western .

• But by 1940 Japan had developed an India policy and the following year sent Major Fuziwara to Southeast Asia to contact expatriate Indians who were organising themselves into the Indian Independence Leagues under the leadership of men like Pritam Singh.

• Then in December 1941, Captain , a young officer of the Regiment of the British who had surrendered to the Japanese in the jungles of Malaya, agreed to cooperate with Fuziwara to raise an Indian army with POWs to march alongside the Japanese to liberate India

• In June 1942, a united Indian Independence League, representing all Indians in Southeast.

• Asia, was born as a civilian political body having controlling authority over the army.

• To chair this body, , a veteran Bengali revolutionary then living in Japan, was flown in.

• By September, the INA was formally in existence.

• But its relationship with the Japanese was still far from satisfactory, as "Japanese duplicity" now became more than apparent.

• General Tojo, the Japanese prime minister, made a declaration in the Diet supporting Indian independence.

• But beyond that, the Japanese were only prepared to treat INA as a subsidiary force, rather than an allied army.

• As Mohan Singh insisted on autonomy and allied status, he was removed from command and put under arrest.

• Rash Behari Bose tried to hold the banner for some time, but he was then too aged for the task.

• By the beginning of 1943 the first INA experiment virtually collapsed.

• As Mohan Singh had often mentioned to the Japanese, the INA movement needed a new leader and outside India only one person could provide that leadership, and that was Subhas Chandra Bose.

• The Japanese now seriously considered the proposition and negotiated with the Germans to bring him to Asia.

• At last, after a long and arduous submarine voyage, in May 1943 Bose arrived in Southeast Asia and immediately took control of the situation, with Japanese assurance of help and equal treatment. • In October, he established a of Free India, which was immediately recognised by Japan and later by eight other governments, including Germany and Fascist Italy.

• And he became the supreme commander of its army, the Azad Hind Fauj (Free India Army) or the , which recruited around forty thousand men by 1945 and had a women's regiment named after the legendary of 1857 fame

• The Provisional Government declared war on Great Britain and its chief ambition was to march-as an allied army with the Japanese-through Burma to {in ) and then to Assam, where the Indian people were expected to join them in an open rebellion to liberate their mother-country. • • But the ill-fated Imphal campaign, which was finally launched on 8 March 1944 by Japan's Southern Army accompanied by two INA regiments, ended in a disaster.

• The reasons were many, as enumerates them:

1. the lack of air power 2. breakdown in the chain of command 3. disruption of the supply line 4. the strength of Allied offensive 5. finally for the INA, lack of cooperation from the Japanese.

• • The retreat was even more devastating, finally ending the dream of liberating India through military campaign.

• But Bose still remained optimistic, thought of regrouping, and after Japanese surrender, contemplated seeking help from Soviet Russia.

• The Japanese agreed to provide him transport up to Manchuria from where he could travel to Russia.

• But on his way, on 18 at Taihoku airport in , he died in an air crash, which many Indians still believe never happened

• But if INA's military campaign was over after a last valiant engagement at Mount Popa in Burma, its political impact on India was yet to unfold itself.

• After their surrender, the twenty thousand INA soldiers were interrogated and transported back to India.

• Those who appeared to have been persuaded or misled by Japanese or INA propaganda- classified as "Whites" and "Greys"-were either released or rehabilitated in the army.

• But a few of them at least-the most committed and categorised as "Blacks"-were to be court martialled.

• Not to try them would be to give indication of weakness; and to tolerate 'treason, would be to put the loyalty of the Indian army at risk.

• So altogether ten trials took place, and in the first and most celebrated one at in , three officers-P.K. Sahgal, G.S. Dhillon and Shah Nawaz Khan-were charged of treason, murder and abetment of murder. • The trial would take place in public, as this was expected to reveal the horrors that these INA men had perpetrated and that, the government hoped, would swerve public opinion against them.

• But as the events subsequently unfolded, the government, it seemed, had completely miscalculated the political fallout of the INA trials.

• As the press censorship was lifted after the war, the details of the INA campaign were revealed every day before the Indian public and these officers appeared as patriots of the highest order-not by any means traitors-and the demand for discontinuing the trials grew stronger by the day.

• The Congress leaders, many of them just released after long incarceration since the Quit India days, could hardly ignore this issue that so profoundly touched popular emotions. • The election was round the corner and the INA trials could be an excellent issue.

• Subhas Bose might have been a renegade leader who had challenged the authority of the Congress leadership and their principles.

• But in death he was a martyred patriot whose memory could be an ideal tool for political mobilisation.

• So the AICC meeting in September 1945 decided to defend the accused in the INA trial-the "misguided pattiots"-and announced the formation of a Defence Committee, consisting of some legal luminaries of the day, like , , , and also Jawaharlal Nehru, donning the 's gown after about a quarter of a century. • In the subsequent days, as the election campaign set in, Nehru and other Congress leaders addressed numerous public meetings with large gatherings.

• And there two issues figured prominently: 1. One was the government excesses 2. The martyrs of 1942 and the other was INA trial • The first trial opened on 5 November and continued for two months, and in course of that time India erupted into "a mass upheaval", as Nehru later described it. "Never before in Indian history", he admitted, "had such unified sentiments been manifested by various divergent sections of the population. "There were many factors that led to this mass upsurge.

• The trial took place at Red Fort, which appeared to be the most authentic symbol of British imperial domination,

• Furthermore, as trial progressed, its reports appeared in the press, leading to more awareness and to some extent more emotionalisation of the sacrifices made by the INA soldiers. • All political parties, like the Congress Socialists, Akali Dal, Unionist Party, Justice Party, Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh, and even the Muslim League wanted the trials to b discontinued.

• Individual communists enthusiastically participated in the demonstrations, although their party vacillated in its response.

• And by a strange coincidence, the three accused belonged to three different religions: one Hindu, one Sikh and one Muslim! The demonstrations, therefore, showed signs of remarkable communal harmony.

• An INA week was celebrated between 5 and 11 November, while the INA Day was observed on 12 November in cities across the country.

• People from all walks of life participated in the campaign, attended protest meetings • People from all walks of life participated in the campaign, attended protest meetings, donated money to the lNA relief fund, closed shops and other commercial institutions and in some places refrained from celebrating diwali

• And the movement touched even the remotest places like Coorg, Baluchistan and Assam

• Violence erupted first on 7 November when the police opened fire on the crowd at a protest demonstration in Madura

• Then between 21 and 24 November, rioting broke out in various parts of the country, starting from Bose's own Calcutta

• Here, first of all, American and British military establishments were attacked; but then the rioting took a general anti-British tone, with students clashing with the police and being joined later by the striking taxi drivers and tramway labourers

• They exhibited unprecedented communal harmony, with the demonstrators flying simultaneously the Congress, League and Communist flags.

• Order could be restored after three days, with 33 people dead and 200 injured. The Calcutta riot was soon followed by similar demonstrations in Bombay, , , , Banaras, Rawalpindi and other places, or in other words, all over the country • The government's determination now wavered.

• In the trial, the defence tried to argue that people fighting for freedom of their country could not be tried for treason.

• But despite that, they were found guilty as charged; but the commander-in-chief remitted their sentence and set them free on 3 January 1946.

• The three officers came out of the Red Fort to a hero's welcome at public meetings in Delhi and , that celebrated a moral victory against the British.

• But it was not all over yet. On 4 February, in another trial, Captain Abdur Rashid-who preferred to be defended by a Muslim League Defence Committee, rather than by the Congress was sentenced to seven years rigorous imprisonment.

• It sparked off another explosion in Calcutta between 11 and 13 February, this time called initially by the student wing of the Muslim League, but later joined by the members of the communist-led Student Federation and industrial workers.

• Once again demonstrations followed, with Congress, League and red flags flying simultaneously, and large meetings were organised, where League, Communist and Congress leaders addressed the crowd.

• A general anti-British sentiment pervaded the city, which was paralysed by transport strikes, industrial action and pitched street battles with British troops.

• Order was again restored after three days of brutal repression that had eighty-four people killed and three hundred injured.

• To a historian who participated in the demonstrations as a student leader, the situation looked like an "Almost Revolution".

• The fire soon spread to east Bengal and the spirit of revolt affected other parts of the country as well, as sympathetic protest demonstrations and strikes took place in practically all major cities of India.