God’s Beloved Land 431921, from his lodgings at 16 Herbert Street, Cambridge, Subhas Chan-
dra Bose dispatched his letter of resignation from the Indian Civil Ser-
vice to E. S. Montagu, Secretary of State for India.^66
“The die is cast,” Subhas wrote to Sarat the day after, “and I earnestly
hope that nothing but good will come out of it.” Even though Sarat had
sent “warmest felicitations on whatever course” he chose, Subhas knew
he had disobeyed his father and acted against his brother’s advice. He
felt that he needed to justify his stand once more. He had come to be-
lieve that “compromise is a bad thing—it degrades the man and injures
his cause.” He was not enamored of the course followed by the moder-
ate Congress leader Surendranath Banerjee, whose philosophy of expe-
diency, learned from Edmund Burke, was bringing him a knighthood
at the end of his career. “We have got to make a nation,” he insisted,
“and a nation can be made only by the uncompromising idealism of
Hampden and Cromwell.” The time had come to “wash our hands
clean of any connection with the British Government.” The best way to
undermine that regime was to withdraw from it. This was not merely
Tolstoy’s doctrine as preached by Gandhi, but a matter of his own in-
ner conviction. He had been happy to receive a recent letter from his
mother saying whatever might be the views of his father and others,
she preferred “the ideal for which Mahatma Gandhi stands.” C. R. Das
had replied to him pointing out the shortage of sincere workers at
home. Mr. Reddaway, the head of Fitzwilliam Hall who had granted
Subhas admission into Cambridge, had “heartily approved” of his fu-
ture course of action.^67
Subhas’s resignation caused consternation in the corridors of power.
During the next month or so, various attempts were made to persuade
him to reconsider his decision. Sir William Duke, Permanent Under-
Secretary of State for India, tried to intervene using old family con-
nections from his days spent in Orissa, and wrote to Subhas’s eldest
brother Satish. Subhas was also approached by lecturers in Cambridge
to change his mind. The most intriguing overture came from Mr. Rob-
erts, Secretary of the Civil Service Board in Cambridge, with whom
Subhas had clashed not so long before over some instructions for ICS
probationers on the “Care of Horses in India.” These instructions con-
tained gratuitous statements about Indian grooms eating the same