A Flaming Sword Forever Unsheathed 11the peasants and workers into the anticolonial movement, willing to
accept a mea sure (though not a surfeit) of class con flict—in contrast
with Gandhi’s absolute commitment to class conciliation. He described
himself as a samyavadi, a believer in equality, preferring the ancient
Indian term for an egalitarian aspiration not inconsistent with balance
and harmony. His ideological predilection was toward a form of so-
cialism imbued with an Indian spirit and suited to Indian conditions,
rather than the doctrinaire va ri e ties imported without appropriate
mod i fi ca tions. Yet his po lit i cal career, traversing complex international
itineraries, required a constant negotiation of the global forces of im-
perialism and nationalism, fascism and communism. His life, in that
sense, encapsulated all of the dramatic contradictions of world his tory
in the first half of the twentieth century.
Bose was an uncompromising anti- imperialist, but by no means an
uncritical nationalist. He recognized the Janus- faced character of na-
tionalism, favoring its benign aspect that inspired creativity and in-
stilled an ethic of ser vice, and condemning the malignant obverse that
transmuted into imperialistic arrogance, aggression, and hubris. He
denounced the racism of Nazi Germany and the militarism of 1930s
Japan, but allied with them in the 1940s in his single- minded pursuit
of Indian freedom from British colonial rule. Always keen to articulate
an ethical conception of human affairs, he could put on blinkers to ig-
nore horrific outrages committed by the enemies of Britain if these did
not directly affect his own people. His pragmatic analyses of interna-
tional relations sat uneasily with the fiery idealism that inspired the
mission of his life. He believed in his ability to lead India to freedom,
and therefore set in motion the pro cesses of planning for its social and
economic reconstruction. He envisioned free India as a modern indus-
trial power breaking the shackles of poverty and illiteracy to be able to
make creative contributions, material and spiritual, to the world.
A brave man, he was prone to taking enormous risks, such as his
daring escape from India in 1941, his submarine voyage from Europe
and Asia in 1943, and his final decision to board a Japanese bomber to
try to reach a new battlefield in 1945. His complete disregard for his
safety meant that he was lost to India when his country perhaps needed
him most. He was sorely missed when the calamity of partition over-