114 HIS MAJESTY’S OPPONENT
Emilie on May 22, “and the villa commands a nice view of the plains.”^85
He was left there to lead a mostly solitary existence until December.
Subhas was back in Bengal after more than four years, but he was
being kept out of action so far as Bengal politics was concerned. His
years of exile had con trib uted much to the development of his person-
ality and qualities of leadership. His forced absence from Bengal and
India, however, was much to the detriment of nationalist politics—all
the more so, since his elder brother and closest po lit i cal comrade, Sarat,
had likewise been in prison from 1932 to 1935. Sarat assumed the lead-
ership of the Congress in Bengal from 1936 on, but Subhas was not
permitted by the British to play any active role in the run- up to the
elections of 1937.
Not only had the brothers’ boldness of vision been sorely missed
during the second phase of the civil disobedience and revolutionary
movements, from 1932 to 1934, but no other leader had the generosity
and foresight to stem the deterioration in Hindu- Muslim relations
during these critical years. Several setbacks in this regard had already
been suf fered by the time they returned to the center stage of Indian
politics and tried to turn things around. “Can you tell me what is
wrong with Bengal?” Subhas had asked the mayor of Calcutta from
Vienna in January 1936. “We shall have to begin again at the very be-
ginning.”^86 The 1935 constitution had given Muslims 119 seats in the
Bengal legislative assembly, under a system of separate electorates, and
had given 80 to Hindus, of which 50 were in general constituencies
and 30 were reserved for the scheduled castes. In addition, another 39
seats had been given to Europeans, Anglo- Indians, and special- interest
groups. Muslim support was drifting away from the Congress to a
peasants’ and tenants’ or ga ni za tion called the Krishak Praja party and
to the Muslim League. “The future of the Bengal Congress,” Subhas
wrote in 1937, “lies in converting it into the one organ of the Bengal
peasantry.”^87 He had the theory right, but was not around to translate
theory into practice.
In early June, Subhas was delighted to be permitted a two- day visit
by Sarat and an opportunity, after a long interval, to catch up on family
and po lit i cal news. Later that month, two of his nephews, Sarat’s sons
Amiya and Sisir, were allowed to come for a fortnight. Subhas enjoyed