Two puppets and a marionette

In Nehru and Bose, Rudrangshu Mukherjee points out that both were manipulated by Gandhiji who preferred Nehru. The difference, he says, is that while Nehru (always) gave in, Bose did not

NEHRU AND BOSE: PARALLEL LIVES
Rudrangshu Mukherjee
Penguin Viking
265 pages; Rs 600

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose got along splendidly with each other until 1938-39. Then, thanks to the obstinacy of Gandhiji, who pulled the rug from under Bose, the Congress party turned against Netaji.

After that, the Left-leaning friendship between Nehru and Bose suddenly fizzled out. In 1945, Bose died in mysterious circumstances somewhere outside India. No one still knows exactly where. Rumours had a field day.

Many Bengalis believed, for nearly 40 years after that, he was still alive. Some believed that he had been murdered. But now, sadly, there is hardly anyone left alive outside Bengal who remembers him for what he was.

It was rather different with Nehru. He went on to become prime minister in 1947 and stayed in that post till his death in 1964. His daughter then built a political dynasty from the political capital he bequeathed her. As a result, Nehru is a household word in India.

Overall, Indians were led to believe in the contrasts between Nehru and Bose. While the former was the very epitome of modernity and reason who listened to Gandhji, Bose was a hothead who rebelled against him and stomped out of the Congress to eventually form the Indian National Army to fight the British.

Depending on where their bias lies, historians have emphasised either their personalities or their differences over what policy to follow against the British. All, however, are agreed that Gandhiji was responsible for the ending of the Bose-Nehru friendship.

This happened when Bose defeated his candidate for the post of Congress president. Gandhiji dumped him unceremoniously. No one dared to oppose him and Bose was left ploughing a lonely furrow.

Sugata Bose, Subhas Chandra Bose's grand-nephew and professor at Harvard, in his biography of Bose three years ago had suggested that Gandhiji and Sardar Patel were political schemers fronting for big money and that Bose was the victim of their machinations.

But it is doubtful if Bose, who unlike Nehru was never one to doubt himself, saw himself as one.

Gandhiji's fault?
Rudrangshu Mukherjee, whose erudite books are always a delight to read, concurs with the view that Gandhiji and his backroom boys plotted to ensure that Nehru and Bose did not gain control of the party. They were, in a sense, the bad guys who needed the younger men to mobilise the masses but where policy was concerned, it had to be their view that prevailed.

Bose challenged them while Nehru did not. Ergo, Bose went and Nehru stayed. The rest, as they say, is history.

In this meticulously footnoted book comparing the two men, Mukherjee points out that Bose and Nehru were very alike in their approach to purna swaraj, even if not in their personal attributes and affinities.

They were both manipulated by Gandhiji who preferred Nehru. The difference, he says, is that while Nehru (always) gave in, Bose did not. He respected Gandhiji but not to the extent that he would accept anything he said. So he left the Congress rather than accept Gandhiji's dominance.

And, although there was no sense of rivalry between them, he says the Bose-Nehru friendship, since it was based only on common political aims, suddenly collapsed.

Mr Mukherjee, in spite of his heroic effort to stay neutral, reveals his preferences once or twice as when he describes Gandhiji as petty and compares his actions to a Tamanny Hall politician. This may well have been so but a discussion of whether Gandhiji's misgivings vis-à-vis Bose were well-founded would have enriched the book.

Likewise, he is very critical of Patel also. He suggests (though not quite outright because in the end Bose lost the case) that Vallabhbhai did not like Bose because his elder brother, Vitthalbhai, left two-thirds of his estate to Bose to further the nationalist cause. Patel went to court and won.

There is also the suggestion that both Gandhiji and Patel were unduly influenced by G D Birla who tended to look askance at both Nehru and Bose because of their Left-leaning tendencies. There may be some truth in this but the evidence adduced is thin.

Did, and does, it matter?
Mr Mukherjee says he had originally intended only to write an essay on the Bose-Nehru relationship but that a couple of friends persuaded him to write a full book on it. This proves that sometimes we should ignore what our friends say.

It is a very nice book, readable and well authenticated. But when one reaches the end it is impossible not to wonder if the subject was of any great historical importance and whether an essay would have done just as well.