40 HIS MAJESTY’S OPPONENT
to be “more noble, more inspiring, more lofty, more unselfish, though
more thorny” than that of the moderate Romesh Dutt. If the el-
derly Chittaranjan Das—popularly known in India as “Deshbandhu”
(“Friend of the Country”)—could “give up ev ery thing and face the
uncertainties of life,” so could young Subhas.^59 C. R. Das, who would
become Subhas’s father fig ure in politics, had been Aurobindo Ghose’s
defense lawyer in the Alipore bomb trial of 1909. By now he had
emerged as the preeminent leader of the Indian National Congress in
Bengal. Addressing C. R. Das as “the high priest of the festival of na-
tional ser vice in Bengal,” Subhas wanted to know what work the leader
might assign him once he resigned from the ser vice. He believed that
he had the skills to teach in the National College and write for the
Deshbandhu’s nationalist newspaper. While seeking advice from C. R.
Das, the young Subhas did not hesitate to forcefully communicate his
own ideas about the Congress. The premier nationalist party had “no
defi nite policy” regarding Indian currency and exchange, relations with
the princely states, or the franchise for men and women. Because of the
party’s “lack of effort” in relation to the “Depressed Classes,” India’s
hapless untouchable castes, the non- Brahmins of Madras had “become
pro- Government and anti- nationalist.” The Congress needed perma-
nent quarters and a permanent staff of researchers to work on national
prob lems and devise policies.^60
Subhas displayed amazing self- con fi dence in pointing out the short-
comings of the Congress to C. R. Das, a redoubtable leader of the party.
He lamented the Congress’s lack of a clear- cut policy on labor and fac-
tory legislation, as well as on vagrancy and on relief for the poor. Worst
of all, the Congress had “no determined policy as to the type of the
Constitution” that should be adopted. The scheme worked out by the
Congress and the Muslim League in 1916 seemed to him to be out of
date. “We must now frame the Constitution of India,” he urged C. R.
Das, “on the basis of swaraj [self- rule].” The work of creation had to
begin, even as the Congress went about dismantling the established
order.^61
By late February of 1921, Subhas had made up his mind to turn his
back on the ICS. He had written to Sarat on February 23 that the “il-
lustrious example” of Aurobindo Ghose loomed before him and “he