110 HIS MAJESTY’S OPPONENT
cess,” he declared, “we cannot brook any insult from any other nation
or any attack on our race or culture.”^65 He was even more blunt during
an interaction with the press in Geneva. He had been “greatly dis-
turbed” by the insulting remarks of the German Führer, designed to
curry favor with Britain. “I can have no ob jec tion if the Germans desire
to lick the boots of the Britishers,” he said sarcastically, “but if they
think that in the year 1936 an insult hurled at India will be quietly
pocketed by us, they are sadly mistaken.”^66
For his European friends who ran the risk of falling foul of the
Nazi regime, Bose had deep concern. “I often wonder why you stay in
Berlin,” he had written to Kitty Kurti in December 1935. “ Don’t you
find the atmosphere suffocating?”^67 The Kurti couple suf fered a double
jeopardy: they were Czech and Jewish. Bose called on Kitty Kurti dur-
ing his January 1936 visit to Berlin, and advised her to leave Germany.
On being assured they planned to return soon to their home country,
Bose said that Czechoslovakia was “far too close and far too weak.” He
had just come from Prague, and wanted the Kurtis to leave for the
United States as soon as they could obtain a visa. “All this was said with
great reticence,” Kitty Kurti remembered after she had emigrated to the
United States, “in the extraordinary way that was his. But beneath it all,
I felt his concern and I was grateful for it. I was also glad to note his
deep contempt for the Nazis, a feeling which he did not attempt to hide
from me.”^68
As Bose prepared to return to India in March 1936, he was given a
stern warning by the British foreign secretary, communicated through
His Majesty’s consul in Vienna: “The Government of India desire to
make it clear to you that should you do so you cannot expect to remain
at liberty.”^69 A new constitution embodied in the Government of India
Act of 1935, granting provincial autonomy, had just been inaugurated
with great fanfare. New elections to the provincial legislatures were
scheduled for 1937. On receiving the warning, Bose could not help
wondering if this was “a foretaste of the expanded liberty which the
new constitution will usher in.”^70 He was inclined to defy the warning
and go home, but wrote to Nehru seeking his advice: “My only excuse
for troubling you on such a matter is that I can think of no one else in
whom I could have greater con fi dence.”^71