The Warrior and the Saint 161his pen and used it like a sword against his leftist comrade Jawaharlal
Nehru. On March 28, 1939, Subhas wrote a “brutally frank” letter that
strongly reproached his friend and that ran to twenty- seven closely
typed pages. Ever since being released from internment, he had treated
Nehru “with the utmost regard and consideration, in private life and
in public,” and looked upon him “as po lit i cally an elder brother and
leader” whose advice he often sought. But the “elder brother” had taken
up the cudgels on behalf of his po lit i cal opponents when the election
result was not seen in a sporting light, and “the spirit of vendetta set to
work.” Throughout the crisis Nehru had sought to play a mediating
role, keeping at least a slight distance from the joint machinations
of members of the Working Committee led by Patel. “When a crisis
comes,” Bose wrote to Nehru in a sharp rebuke, “you often do not suc-
ceed in making up your mind one way or the other—with the result
that to the public you appear as if you are riding two horses.” The
“devil” who had been reelected president—despite the opposition of
the biggest leaders, including Gandhi, and of several provincial gov-
ernments—must have some “saving grace” and must have served the
country well as president “to be able to draw so many votes.” Nehru
had accused him of using the po lit i cal language of left versus right in
the Congress, but had used the same terminology throughout his years
as president. Bose had a clear policy to “force the issue of Swaraj with
the British Government,” while Nehru had none. Nehru had said that
autocracy in Rajkot and Jaipur would cast ev ery other issue into the
shade. In Bose’s view, if the Congress pursued a “piecemeal, tinkering
and nibbling policy” in relation to the princely states, it would take
250 years to win civil liberty and responsible government for them. If
Nehru was vague about internal policy, Bose described Nehru’s views
on international affairs as “nebulous.” “Frothy sentiments and pious
platitudes,” Subhas told Jawahar with disdain, “do not make foreign
policy.” He charged the “elder brother” with holding a doctrinaire
view on coalition governments and advised him to tour Assam before
pronouncing on that question again. “Regarding Bengal,” Bose com-
mented, “I am afraid you know practically nothing.” In the upper ech-
elons of the Congress, Patel and others had a technique of dealing with
Nehru: “They would let you talk and talk,” Bose charged, “and they