90 HIS MAJESTY’S OPPONENT
domination; and the way a Polish legion had bene fited from Japanese
help to enable its homeland to throw off the Russian yoke. Years later,
he would cite these examples—of weaker nations needing help from
stron ger ones to win in de pen dence—when he formed the Indian Na-
tional Army during World War II. On June 29, 1933, Bose arrived
in Prague by plane from Vienna. “Prague,” he wrote, “has a peculiar
charm about it—especially in the old buildings and medieval relics—
but of course Vienna is unsurpassed.” Czechoslovakia, however, was
more relevant as an example for achieving national self- determination.
Bose had an interesting talk with Edouard Benes, Czechoslovakia’s
foreign minister, who along with Thomas Masaryk had led the Czecho-
slovak in de pen dence movement. The mayor of Prague received him
and arranged for him to survey the city’s urban and industrial infra-
structure. The Masaryk Home for Children and Invalids was of special
interest to Bose, as was the Oriental Institute in Prague, where he met
with Professor V. Lesny, a scholar who had spent time at Tagore’s uni-
versity in Santiniketan. He and Lesny discussed the establishment of a
Czechoslovak- Indian Association to promote commercial and cultural
ties. The following year, Bose returned to Prague, where this bilateral
friendship association was inaugurated at the Lobkowitz Palace on
May 4, 1934. A good friend and colleague of both Nehru and Bose,
A. C. N. Nambiar of Kerala, was based in Prague at that time, having
been expelled from Nazi Germany in March 1933. His presence en-
abled Bose to carry forward his work of organizing Indian students
and building ties with politicians and intellectuals in Czechoslovakia.^11
The Polish consul in Prague gave Bose a visa for his country, and the
British consul there innocently endorsed his passport for Poland and
other countries on the Continent. The Briton’s diplomatic superiors in
London were furious when they heard of it, and called him “stupid”
for following normal rules of diplomatic procedure in the case of a
known revolutionary.^12 As Subhas walked through the streets of War-
saw, he could feel “the throb of a new life.” He was warmly received by
the municipal authorities and given a tour of a municipal bakery that
made bread for one third of the city’s population. He was impressed
greatly by Warsaw’s Physical Culture Institute, the largest of its kind in
Europe and or ga nized according to the latest medico- sci en tific prin-