Born in Calcutta five years after India’s independence, I was brought up in the shadow of Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose. One was the first prime minister of India, and during my childhood the most important public figure in the country. The other was the most revered icon in Bengal’s political pantheon.
In public discourse and in informal conversations the two figures were often seen as rivals, and many Bengalis were convinced that Subhas, by far the greater man as many Bengalis believed, was deliberately eclipsed in national politics by Jawaharlal who always acted at the behest of Gandhi. But it was Subhas, his admirers averred, who ultimately brought freedom to India.
As a child and as an adolescent, I was taught to disregard these views that glorified Subhas at the expense of Jawaharlal and Gandhi. I use the word ‘taught’ advisedly since this was an important component of the non-formal history lessons that my father imparted to me.
My father ‒ the most important intellectual influence on my life till I went to college ‒ was not an admirer of Subhas. He recognized the latter’s patriotism but saw him as being misguided because he had sought an alliance with Hitler and the Axis powers in the 1940s. My father had pronounced anti-fascist and anti-Stalinist views and saw himself as an unabashed Nehruvian. Jawaharlal, according to him, had the right ideas and attitudes. My ‘history lessons’ at home were thus slanted in favour of Jawaharlal; Subhas was rather neglected.
As a student of history in college and in university, this indifference towards Subhas was fortified by the manner in which the Indian national movement was taught. He was not seen as belonging to the mainstream. By this time, my own understanding of fascism and European history of the 1930s and 1940s had also evolved and this had strengthened the anti-fascist and anti-totalitarian sentiments embedded in my mind by my father.
Strange followers
Inevitably, this understanding did not enhance my appreciation of Subhas. On the contrary, they confirmed the opinion that his attempt to free India with Japanese help was erroneous and short-sighted. To be honest, my growing discomfiture about Subhas’s role in the Indian national movement was aggravated by the attitude of his followers: their worshipfulness, their refusal to accept his marriage and that he had a daughter, and, above all, their bizarre conviction that Subhas was still alive, hiding in a cave in the Himalayas or in Siberian exile from where he would soon emerge to deliver India from the woeful state into which it had fallen under Jawaharlal and the Congress.
My rational self could see that Subhas should not be visited by the odd views and credulity of his followers but I will be dishonest if I do not confess that the views of his followers did colour my own assessment of Subhas.
This, then, was not an easy book for me to write. I was conscious all the time that in the process of reading the historical documentation and writing, I was struggling against the grain of some of my own prejudices, assumptions and intellectual baggage.
This was true not only for Subhas but also for Jawaharlal. My views about the latter had been formed not only by my father’s affinity and admiration for the man but also by those of Sarvepalli Gopal, my teacher, later a friend, and, of course, the biographer of Jawaharlal. It was Gopal who convinced me through the innumerable conversations that we had that it was important to think critically about Jawaharlal since that was what he wanted posterity to do.
Nuanced about Nehru
By the time I was nearing middle age my views on Nehru had become more nuanced and complex than they had been when I was in my teens or even in my early twenties. This book in many ways is my coming to terms with these two remarkable individuals whose presence I could not escape because of when and where I was born.
This book is also an exploration of a friendship that did not quite blossom. It withered only to have a brief afterlife. It is remarkable how closely, on parallel lines, the lives of Jawaharlal and Subhas moved: less than ten years separated them chronologically; both were born to relative affluence; both went to Cambridge; both gave up what could have been lucrative careers and joined the Indian national movement under the leadership of Gandhi; both were aware of what was happening in Europe and in Asia, and their exposure to these developments radicalized their own ideas; both saw themselves as men of the left and were attracted to socialism.
Given this background, it was not surprising that they were drawn to each other. For a few years in the 1930s, they were close enough to be called friends ‒ sharing views, reading similar books, and championing the same causes within the national movement. But by the late 1930s, the growing political distance between the two men was obvious. Their disagreements grew from their differing understanding of the course of the national movement, their attitudes towards Gandhi, their views on fascism and from the very different mental landscapes they inhabited.
By the early 1940s, the friendship and the affection were things of the past. But after Subhas’s sudden and untimely death, Jawaharlal could not forget the bonds they had shared and he revised his views about Subhas and the Indian National Army. Subhas, alas, was not there to experience this afterglow which is obvious from what Jawaharlal had to say and write immediately after Subhas’s death.
The Jawaharlal–Subhas relationship was not smooth but it was a poignant one. This relationship, however, has not received the attention it deserves from historians. The perception of this lack made me think about reconstructing their friendship and its unravelling. The focus of the book is their relationship and there is no attempt to tell the full story of their rich lives. The book is expressly not a biography of the two men.
The backdrop
The backdrop to the relationship was, of course, the national movement. It shaped the thoughts and the deeds of the two men from the early 1920s to the years just preceding Independence. This was a period of tumult as Gandhi transformed and galvanized the Congress by bringing it closer to the masses who responded to his call first of non-cooperation and then of civil disobedience.
Both Jawaharlal and Subhas experienced and participated in this excitement and placed the goal of complete independence from British rule firmly on the agenda of the Indian national movement. Their emphasis on this goal was important since in the late 1920s and the 1930s, the British, to maintain their dominance in India, were making constitutional concessions to seek the collaboration of influential sections of the Indian population. Neither Jawaharlal nor Subhas were quite taken in by such gestures and remained unswerving in their commitment to purna swaraj. This often made the two of them battle against those within the Congress who were lured by the prospect of holding office in the provincial governments. They did not always win in this struggle and their responses to the failure were very different: it made one of them more assertive, and the other more resigned and introspective.
There were other sources of disappointment. Gandhi’s withdrawal of both the non-cooperation and the civil disobedience movements exasperated the two radical young men. They were bewildered by his emphasis, at this critical phase of the national movement, on social uplift and spinning. They yearned to go forth into battle to confront British rule while Gandhi throughout the 1930s was reluctant to call a mass movement on the grounds that neither the Congress nor the people were prepared for it.
Those close to Gandhi within the Congress worked, often as backroom politicians, to keep off young leaders who could challenge their and Gandhi’s control over the Congress. Both Jawaharlal and Subhas were at different times victims of these machinations. Again, they reacted differently to such manoeuvres. Jawaharlal yielded, Subhas rebelled.
Bose's reluctance
These differing reactions were determined by their contrasting attitudes to Gandhi and his role in India’s freedom movement. Both admired and respected Gandhi but Subhas was reluctant to surrender completely to Gandhi’s influence and control. Jawaharlal was critical of Gandhi but dependent on him. Gandhi, in his turn, saw Jawaharlal as his chosen heir, and Subhas more as a somewhat rebellious and prodigal son. The friendship of Jawaharlal and Subhas could not escape all these influences ‒ they made and unmade their relationship.
The book looks at these factors and also at the contrasting personalities and intellectual orientations of the two men. They were friends but never soulmates and confidants. Their friendship was moulded less by personal affinities and affections and more by politics. It fell apart because of politics. It was not a relationship that could transcend and override political differences.
Yet, as far as one can tell from the existing documentation, there was no sense of rivalry between the two of them. This book tries to tell this complicated story of two men caught in turbulent times, testing their convictions sometimes against each other but always for India and its freedom.
Excerpted with permission from Nehru & Bose: Parallel Lives, by Rudrangshu Mukherjee, Penguin Books India
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In public discourse and in informal conversations the two figures were often seen as rivals, and many Bengalis were convinced that Subhas, by far the greater man as many Bengalis believed, was deliberately eclipsed in national politics by Jawaharlal who always acted at the behest of Gandhi. But it was Subhas, his admirers averred, who ultimately brought freedom to India.
As a child and as an adolescent, I was taught to disregard these views that glorified Subhas at the expense of Jawaharlal and Gandhi. I use the word ‘taught’ advisedly since this was an important component of the non-formal history lessons that my father imparted to me.
My father ‒ the most important intellectual influence on my life till I went to college ‒ was not an admirer of Subhas. He recognized the latter’s patriotism but saw him as being misguided because he had sought an alliance with Hitler and the Axis powers in the 1940s. My father had pronounced anti-fascist and anti-Stalinist views and saw himself as an unabashed Nehruvian. Jawaharlal, according to him, had the right ideas and attitudes. My ‘history lessons’ at home were thus slanted in favour of Jawaharlal; Subhas was rather neglected.
As a student of history in college and in university, this indifference towards Subhas was fortified by the manner in which the Indian national movement was taught. He was not seen as belonging to the mainstream. By this time, my own understanding of fascism and European history of the 1930s and 1940s had also evolved and this had strengthened the anti-fascist and anti-totalitarian sentiments embedded in my mind by my father.
Strange followers
Inevitably, this understanding did not enhance my appreciation of Subhas. On the contrary, they confirmed the opinion that his attempt to free India with Japanese help was erroneous and short-sighted. To be honest, my growing discomfiture about Subhas’s role in the Indian national movement was aggravated by the attitude of his followers: their worshipfulness, their refusal to accept his marriage and that he had a daughter, and, above all, their bizarre conviction that Subhas was still alive, hiding in a cave in the Himalayas or in Siberian exile from where he would soon emerge to deliver India from the woeful state into which it had fallen under Jawaharlal and the Congress.
My rational self could see that Subhas should not be visited by the odd views and credulity of his followers but I will be dishonest if I do not confess that the views of his followers did colour my own assessment of Subhas.
This, then, was not an easy book for me to write. I was conscious all the time that in the process of reading the historical documentation and writing, I was struggling against the grain of some of my own prejudices, assumptions and intellectual baggage.
This was true not only for Subhas but also for Jawaharlal. My views about the latter had been formed not only by my father’s affinity and admiration for the man but also by those of Sarvepalli Gopal, my teacher, later a friend, and, of course, the biographer of Jawaharlal. It was Gopal who convinced me through the innumerable conversations that we had that it was important to think critically about Jawaharlal since that was what he wanted posterity to do.
Nuanced about Nehru
By the time I was nearing middle age my views on Nehru had become more nuanced and complex than they had been when I was in my teens or even in my early twenties. This book in many ways is my coming to terms with these two remarkable individuals whose presence I could not escape because of when and where I was born.
This book is also an exploration of a friendship that did not quite blossom. It withered only to have a brief afterlife. It is remarkable how closely, on parallel lines, the lives of Jawaharlal and Subhas moved: less than ten years separated them chronologically; both were born to relative affluence; both went to Cambridge; both gave up what could have been lucrative careers and joined the Indian national movement under the leadership of Gandhi; both were aware of what was happening in Europe and in Asia, and their exposure to these developments radicalized their own ideas; both saw themselves as men of the left and were attracted to socialism.
Given this background, it was not surprising that they were drawn to each other. For a few years in the 1930s, they were close enough to be called friends ‒ sharing views, reading similar books, and championing the same causes within the national movement. But by the late 1930s, the growing political distance between the two men was obvious. Their disagreements grew from their differing understanding of the course of the national movement, their attitudes towards Gandhi, their views on fascism and from the very different mental landscapes they inhabited.
By the early 1940s, the friendship and the affection were things of the past. But after Subhas’s sudden and untimely death, Jawaharlal could not forget the bonds they had shared and he revised his views about Subhas and the Indian National Army. Subhas, alas, was not there to experience this afterglow which is obvious from what Jawaharlal had to say and write immediately after Subhas’s death.
The Jawaharlal–Subhas relationship was not smooth but it was a poignant one. This relationship, however, has not received the attention it deserves from historians. The perception of this lack made me think about reconstructing their friendship and its unravelling. The focus of the book is their relationship and there is no attempt to tell the full story of their rich lives. The book is expressly not a biography of the two men.
The backdrop
The backdrop to the relationship was, of course, the national movement. It shaped the thoughts and the deeds of the two men from the early 1920s to the years just preceding Independence. This was a period of tumult as Gandhi transformed and galvanized the Congress by bringing it closer to the masses who responded to his call first of non-cooperation and then of civil disobedience.
Both Jawaharlal and Subhas experienced and participated in this excitement and placed the goal of complete independence from British rule firmly on the agenda of the Indian national movement. Their emphasis on this goal was important since in the late 1920s and the 1930s, the British, to maintain their dominance in India, were making constitutional concessions to seek the collaboration of influential sections of the Indian population. Neither Jawaharlal nor Subhas were quite taken in by such gestures and remained unswerving in their commitment to purna swaraj. This often made the two of them battle against those within the Congress who were lured by the prospect of holding office in the provincial governments. They did not always win in this struggle and their responses to the failure were very different: it made one of them more assertive, and the other more resigned and introspective.
There were other sources of disappointment. Gandhi’s withdrawal of both the non-cooperation and the civil disobedience movements exasperated the two radical young men. They were bewildered by his emphasis, at this critical phase of the national movement, on social uplift and spinning. They yearned to go forth into battle to confront British rule while Gandhi throughout the 1930s was reluctant to call a mass movement on the grounds that neither the Congress nor the people were prepared for it.
Those close to Gandhi within the Congress worked, often as backroom politicians, to keep off young leaders who could challenge their and Gandhi’s control over the Congress. Both Jawaharlal and Subhas were at different times victims of these machinations. Again, they reacted differently to such manoeuvres. Jawaharlal yielded, Subhas rebelled.
Bose's reluctance
These differing reactions were determined by their contrasting attitudes to Gandhi and his role in India’s freedom movement. Both admired and respected Gandhi but Subhas was reluctant to surrender completely to Gandhi’s influence and control. Jawaharlal was critical of Gandhi but dependent on him. Gandhi, in his turn, saw Jawaharlal as his chosen heir, and Subhas more as a somewhat rebellious and prodigal son. The friendship of Jawaharlal and Subhas could not escape all these influences ‒ they made and unmade their relationship.
The book looks at these factors and also at the contrasting personalities and intellectual orientations of the two men. They were friends but never soulmates and confidants. Their friendship was moulded less by personal affinities and affections and more by politics. It fell apart because of politics. It was not a relationship that could transcend and override political differences.
Yet, as far as one can tell from the existing documentation, there was no sense of rivalry between the two of them. This book tries to tell this complicated story of two men caught in turbulent times, testing their convictions sometimes against each other but always for India and its freedom.
Excerpted with permission from Nehru & Bose: Parallel Lives, by Rudrangshu Mukherjee, Penguin Books India