Clash of the ideologists

NEHRU AND BOSE

Author: Rudrangshu Mukherjee

Publisher: Penguin, Rs599

Mukherjee seeks to place Subhas Chandra Bose on a high pedestal without denying Nehru the position he deserves. This in itself is revolutionary, says RAJESH SINGH

Their political careers ran contemporaneously and on occasions seemed to converge. Yet for one reason or the other, that didn’t happen, and the two went their separate ways but with a common goal: The freedom of India from British rule. Both etched their names in history, but one went on to become independent India’s first Prime Minister and the other ended up as a sort of well-meaning renegade. It is for contemporary academics to judge whether the descriptions that the generations since then were (and are) fed about the two giants of the freedom movement were appropriate or were they laced with deliberate or intended biases. That exercise has made a small but significant beginning with Rudrangshu Mukherjee book, Nehru & Bose: Parallel Lives, as indeed, the two men in discussion are Jawaharlal Nehru and Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.

Mukherjee takes a refreshingly different line from the historians whose works have seeped into our mindsets since school days, when history books spilled over with the exploits of the great Nehru while Netaji Bose was condescendingly referred ton in passages when it became impossible to ignore him. There was never any scope of doubt about the authors’ preference. In the process, some would argue that Nehru became the hero and Netaji Bose the anti-hero — the angry young man much before the advent of Amitabh Bachchan in the Indian consciousness. Mukherjee seeks to place Netaji Bose on a high pedestal without denying Nehru the position he deserves. This in itself is revolutionary, and would be seen as sacrilegious in the eyes of Nehru-bhakts. But one supposes it is not possible to forever shut the doors on reality.

It is tantalising to wonder if Nehru and Netaji Bose would have been more comrades-in-arm (both had Leftist orientations of some sort) had not Mahatma Gandhi’s influence been so pervasive. As the author points out on more than one occasion through the book, Nehru deferred to the Mahatma’s wishes even when he did not agree with them. On those occasions, he found support from Netaji Bose. Yet, Nehru could not go through with his dissent beyond verbosity, while Bose charted his own course. Nehru not just respected Mahatma Gandhi but also considered him a father figure, Bapu. On the contrary, as Mukherjee points out, while Netaji had profound respect for “Mahatmaji”, he did not, unlike Nehru, surrender himself to the Father of the Nation. Inevitably, therefore, the two charismatic leaders of the freedom movement, ended up on opposite sides of the political development, both within the Congress and in the country. The idea remained the same; the ideology differed. The Mahatma’s preference for Nehru and his reservations about Netaji sealed whatever little chance there was of Nehru and Netaji working together.

The author identifies key events which led to the rift. When Mahatma Gandhi did not take kindly to Netaji’s Congress candidature in 1939 and suggested that the existing Congress Working Committee be dissolved, Netaji was left with no choice but to step down from a well-deserved victory. He was becoming the president without having a team to work with. Thanks to the Mahatma’s intervention, few Congress leaders of any importance were willing to be part of his team. Nehru did not come to his rescue and, as always, bowed to the Mahatma’s wishes. The democrat in Nehru did not assert itself — after all, Netaji Bose had won the support of an overwhelming majority of the party units. The fiery Bengal leader wrote to Nehru on the matter: “I find that for some time past you have developed tremendous dislike for me. I say this because I find that you take up enthusiastically every possible point against me; what could be said in my favour you ignore.” Even assuming that this was the rant of a disillusioned leader, it indicates how much the relationship had deteriorated.

It is possible that Nehru was uncomfortable with the extremist ideological positions that Netaji had begun to display. He wrote to Netaji, “The association of vague Leftist slogans with no clear Left ideology or principles has in recent years been much in evidence in Europe. It has led to a Fascist development… The possibility of such a thing happening in India possessed my mind and disturbed me… I did not at all fancy the direction in which you apparently wanted us to go.” It is, thus, clear as daylight that Nehru and Netaji Bose had decided to part ways as their fundamental outlooks were a mismatch.

When Netaji finally split and established the Forward Bloc, Nehru had by then become irrevocably and openly aligned himself to the opposite end. According to the author, “On the formation of the Forward Bloc, he (Nehru) said he did not approve of it and did not attach much importance to it.” In an article to the National Herald, Nehru expounded that the Bloc was nothing more than “a negative grouping, an anti-bloc, whose sole binding cement is dislike of, or opposition to, the individuals or groups that control the Congress today.”

It was inevitable that relations between the two greats would plummet after this verbal onslaught, and it did. A furious Netaji hit back, “I would ask Panditji in the first place wherein he finds opportunism or fascism in the programme of the Forward Bloc… I should rather label as opportunists those who would run with the hare and hunt with the hound — those who pose as leftists and act as rightists — those who talk in one way when are inside a room and in quite a different way when are outside…”

It is amazing that Netaji Bose, whom Rabindranath Tagore admired so much and even called “Deshnayak” (leader of the nation), eventually came to be seen by many Congressmen as something of an anomaly within the party, and a has-been after he quit. But then history is what historians choose to tell us. Rudrangshu Mukherjee has wisely refrained from becoming both woolly-eyed narrator and partisan interpreter. He puts the facts as recorded in historical accounts, both by the principal characters and academics, and then weaves an analysis that seeks to do justice to the two men of character and resolve. As for a judgement, let the readers decide.