God’s Beloved Land 33
warm approbation. On this occasion he was speaking more from con-
viction than from a desire to simply sharpen his forensic skills. The
minutes of the society recorded that the speaker “supported Idealistic
Monism of the Hegelian type but differed from Hegel and Schopen-
hauer in conceiving the absolute not as Pure Reason or Pure Will but as
Spirit in all his fullness, striving through all the pro cesses of the world
to rise into the bliss of Self- consciousness in the life of man.”^46
Subhas chose to match his mental exercises with some solid military
training. In the final year of the war, the British set up a university unit
of the India Defence Force, and Subhas joined it with great enthusiasm.
“What a change it was,” he wrote. “From sitting at the feet of anchorites
to obtain knowledge about God, to standing with a rifle on my shoul-
ders taking orders from a British army of fi cer!” He liked Captain Gray,
a Scotsman, who despite his gruff voice and brusque manners had “a
heart of gold.” The young men under his command were prepared
to “do anything” for him. Subhas took “positive plea sure” in the pa-
rades and musketry training. He recalled that the first day the trainees
marched into the otherwise out- of- bounds Fort William to fetch their
rifles, they felt “a queer feeling of satisfaction” of “taking possession of
something” to which they had “an inherent right” but of which they
had been “unjustly deprived.”^47 Civilian Indians, as colonial subjects,
had been deprived of the right to bear arms ever since the failure of the
great rebellion of 1857. The forcible disarming of the populace still
rankled.
As the B.A. examinations drew closer, Subhas turned his attention
from soldiering to study. He received first- class honors in philosophy
and placed second in the university’s order of merit. He was awarded
various medals and prizes for his accomplishments, though he felt his
performance was not up to his own high standards. For his master’s
degree, Subhas decided to switch from philosophy to experimental psy-
chology. He had barely started his researches in psychology when, one
evening, his father sent for him. Subhas found Janakinath closeted with
Sarat. The father asked whether Subhas would like to go to En gland to
study for the Indian Civil Service and requested a reply within twenty-
four hours. The ICS formed the steel frame of Britain’s bureaucratic
administration of India. It was mostly British in composition. Indian