Exile in Europe 107he came face to face with Colonel J. H. Smith, whom he had known
as a superintendent in Mandalay Jail. Before departing for Cork, he
gave a reception at the Shelbourne for all of his Irish friends, includ-
ing Maud Gonne McBride. The days he spent in Dublin were, he said,
“like a dream” because he was able to vent his deepest passions and
concerns about in de pen dence among people who understood them.
He was especially grateful to Mrs. Woods, of the Indian Irish Inde pen-
dence League, whose entire family had been splendid hosts. “I do not
know when we shall meet again,” he wrote to her. “Bhavabhuti, one of
our ancient poets, once wrote, ‘Time is eternal and the earth is a vast
expanse,’ so may be we shall meet again—but perhaps not so unexpect-
edly as when I knocked against my prison- superintendent in Shel-
bourne Hotel.”^57
On February 12, 1936, Bose sailed for France on the American liner
President Harding. In Paris, he once more engaged intellectuals like An-
dré Gide and André Malraux, and found the minister of education,
M. Guernut, “kind but slightly of fi cial.”^58 It is hardly surprising that
India was not uppermost in the mind of French of fi cialdom. On Feb-
ruary 17, addressing a conference in Paris under the auspices of the
League against Imperialism, Bose analyzed two aspects of the Indian
movement: the struggle for national liberation and the endeavor to
create a new social order. Since India occupied a crucial place in the
British empire, the anti- imperialist movement in India concerned the
“whole of humanity.” He noted that many were concerned about Japa-
nese imperialism in Asia. “If tomorrow China could be strong and uni-
fied, if tomorrow India could be free,” he argued, “I am sure it would
in flu ence the balance of power in Asia and serve to check the spread of
Japanese imperialism.” On the question of “social freedom,” he noted
that there was popular pressure on the Indian National Congress to
“declare itself more explicitly on the side of the masses.”^59
On February 26, 1936, Bose set off from Paris to see Nehru in Lau-
sanne and Romain Rolland in Villeneuve, on his way to Badgastein.
He was held up in Lausanne, where Kamala Nehru was very ill; she
breathed her last on February 28. Subhas was present at the end, along
with Jawaharlal and his daughter Indira, and he helped with arrange-
ments for the funeral.^60 Bose and Nehru’s personal bond deepened dur-