Table Of ContentRudrangshu Mukherjee
&
NEHRU BOSE
Parallel Lives
Contents
Introduction
1 Growing Up
2 Baptism in Politics
3 Immersion in the Congress
4 Two Women and Two Books
5 Party Presidents
6 The End of the Friendship
7 Friendship Regained?
Footnote
Bibliography
Acknowledgements
Follow Penguin
Copyright
For Rebati and Tara Bhushan Mukherjee and Reyhan and S.B. (Mantu) Datta
parallel affections, parallel influences
Introduction
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. 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.
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 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 and 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.
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.
