50 HIS MAJESTY’S OPPONENT
in jail, Subhas took care of the father- like fig ure of Chittaranjan Das
with utmost devotion. Jailmates joked that C. R. Das had even acquired
the ser vices of an “ICS cook” in his prison cell. The intimacy of prison
life together gave Subhas an opportunity to observe the Deshbandhu at
close quarters: he found a model of generous and inspiring leadership.
On the eve of the Prince of Wales’s scheduled visit to Calcutta on De-
cember 24, 1921, the viceroy of India, Lord Reading, made an overture
to C. R. Das through an emissary. In return for a lifting of the boycott,
he offered the release of po lit i cal prisoners and an invitation to a
round- table conference to discuss the future constitution of India. The
young firebrands, including Subhas, initially opposed a truce on these
terms. C. R. Das explained, however, that the swaraj Gandhi had prom-
ised by the end of the year was nowhere on the horizon. A readiness to
negotiate at this stage could be interpreted by the Congress as tangible
prog ress toward the goal of self- rule. Das, from his prison cell, sent a
message to Gandhi urging him to accept the viceroy’s proposal, but the
Mahatma demurred.^6 The year drew to a close with spectacular success
in bringing the masses into politics, but freedom was still a distant
dream.
Early in 1922, Gandhi announced that in late February he would
begin the climactic phase of the protest: nonpayment of taxes to the
government in the Bardoli district of his home province, Gujarat. But
on February 5, 1922, news came from Chauri Chaura, a remote village
in the United Provinces of north India, that insurgent peasants had
set fire to a police station and twenty- one policemen had died. Citing
this act of violence, Gandhi unilaterally called off the noncooperation
movement. The other leaders, who were in prison, were dismayed. Das
was furious and believed Gandhi had bungled badly in pulling the plug
on the campaign without getting anything in return. So far, the British
had not dared to arrest the Mahatma. Now, on March 10, 1922, they
took him into custody in Ahmedabad and charged him with sedition
for essays he had published in his journal Young India—“the finest he
has ever written and which will rank for all time among his inspired
writings,” in Subhas’s opinion.^7
In the articles that so impressed Subhas and so offended the colo-
nial masters, Gandhi had defended his compa tri ots Mohamed Ali and