specifically repudiated Nehru’s claim that after 1937 there were only two
parties in India, namely the Congress and the British government
- thereby refusing even to acknowledge the League – Jinnah wanted more
than that for the League: he wished it to be recognised as the representative
organisation of allMuslims in India. To this Bose could not agree because
this would have amounted to surrendering the Congress’s right to repre-
sent Muslims at all; the initiative collapsed. Once again this highlighted
the problems of a politics that claimed to represent the ‘masses’, but had
to conduct all major negotiations among ‘leaders’ whose mandate as
leaders was rather dubious.
Subhas Bose announced his intention of running for a second term
as Congress president and was re-elected in January 1939. In March 1939,
Nehru wrote a series of articles in a weary tone entitled ‘Where are We?’
for the National Herald, preceding the Tripuri session of the Congress.
Provincial autonomy, he wrote, had created opportunists, provincialising
and narrowing politics and perspectives, and diverting the anti-imperialist
struggle into narrow channels. The major problems of poverty, unemploy-
ment, land reforms and industry were not being addressed. The possibility
of the Congress finally addressing Nehru’s concerns seemed to have arrived
with Bose’s re-election, for in all their public statements there was no
indication that they were not on the same side.
But, in 1939, Subhas Bose had stood for the post without Gandhi’s
backing, and against Gandhi’s candidate; the right wing had tried to
persuade him not to stand, but failed. He won; the left had succeeded
in electing its candidate and, far more importantly, this time against
the explicit opposition of the ‘Gandhian’ right wing, coordinated by
Vallabhbhai Patel. This was a new situation. Nehru’s presidential terms
had been different – he had been supported by Gandhi, and had explicitly
been willing to accept a right-wing-dominated Working Committee and
a token left-wing presence. Bose, on the other hand, was willing to give
Gandhi the respect due to an elder statesman, but not to surrender his
mandate; 1939 showed clearly that the right, acting through Gandhi,
would not tolerate a majority on the left.
The right now opposed Bose and insisted on his appointing
‘Gandhians’ to the Working Committee. Gandhi referred to Bose’s victory
as his defeat, pitting his personal reputation against Bose’s electoral
victory, and even making barbed remarks about ‘bogus’ voters on the
electoral register. Gandhi, in effect using his tactics of non-cooperation on
‘INEFFECTUAL ANGEL’, 1927–39 99