182 HIS MAJESTY’S OPPONENT
Mahatma Gandhi—and he mentioned his own fast of 1926. In a sepa-
rate letter, he appealed to the chief minister to refrain from force-
feeding and warned that his was no ordinary fast, but one resorted
to after “several months’ mature deliberation, fi nally sealed by a vow
prayerfully taken by me on the sacred day of Kali Puja”—a day devoted
to worship of the mother goddess Kali.^3
The government of Bengal did not wish to have Bose’s death on its
hands. Since July 1940, Viceroy Linlithgow had been instructing the
governor, John Herbert, to keep Bose in prison at any cost. A coalition
government of the Krishak Praja (Peasants and Tenants) party and the
Muslim League was ruling the province at that time. In August, Sarat
Chandra Bose had written to the premier, Fazlul Huq, demanding the
release of po lit i cal prisoners, including his brother. Herbert “had ad-
vised Huq to send a very guarded acknowledgement (if he sends one at
all) as he is capable of making the wildest statements when he puts pen
to paper.”^4 If such was his opinion of Bengal’s redoubtable peasant
leader, he was even more derisive of Khwaja Nazimuddin of the Mus-
lim League, who was the province’s home minister in charge of law and
order. Nazimuddin, Herbert reported to Linlithgow, was “frightened to
face facts” regarding the prosecution of Bose. The viceroy likewise
found Nazimuddin, who had gone to see him in Simla, “in a very wob-
bly condition and afraid of ev ery thing,” including the handling of Bose.
The viceroy and the governor agreed that Bose must be kept in deten-
tion. While in prison, Bose had been elected to the Central Legisla-
tive Assembly from a Dacca con stit u en cy, though the government had
done its best to have him disquali fied. On September 20, 1940, Herbert
sent a bizarre report that Subhas Bose had “lost 24 pounds since he was
admitted into jail, in spite of the fact that he continues to eat gargan-
tuan meals.” Once Bose stopped taking food on November 29, Her-
bert’s con fi dence and resolve faltered.
On December 5, 1940, exactly a week after Bose had begun his fast
unto death, Herbert decided to send him home in an ambulance to
preclude his death in prison. The governor intended to rearrest Bose as
soon as he had recovered his health. Herbert had acted with the great-
est reluctance, but “there seemed to be no other alternative in view of
the report of the Jail Superintendent,” who refused to take responsibil-