66 HIS MAJESTY’S OPPONENT
Milton as effective in his de scrip tions of darkness as Shakespeare is
sweet in his de scrip tions of fairy moonlight?) and to reveal to the more
devoted the terrible beauty of the smile of Kali—the Queen of the Dark
(Chinmoy mukhamandale shobhe attahashi).^40Dry sheets and blankets were obtained from the chief jailer, out of his
own surplus store, before the prisoners yielded to the lockup man for
the night.
By now, Sarat was less impressed by his youn ger brother’s poetry
and philosophy and more concerned about Subhas’s rapidly deteriorat-
ing health. He noted with alarm that Subhas had lost about forty
pounds while in jail.^41 His moral courage could not endlessly compen-
sate for his physical infirmities, which had been aggravated by the re-
sort to the hunger strike. Seeing no legal option for securing the release
of his brother, Sarat now began to explore a po lit i cal solution. New
elections to the Bengal legislative council were due late in 1926. Sarat
began to consider deploying the Sinn Féin tactic of nominating po lit i-
cal prisoners for election based on the principle, “Vote him in, to get
him out.”
At first, Subhas rejected the suggestion that he should stand for elec-
tion. He was getting disgusted with council members who were not
doing any good work for the country, and he thought the time had
come for the pendulum to swing back in the old Gandhian anticouncil
direction. Sarat got him to realize, however, that there was “good rea-
son” behind his advice. Subhas agreed to be nominated in the north
Calcutta con stit u en cy against Jatindra Nath Basu, a stalwart of the Lib-
eral party who had beaten the Swarajist candidate in 1923. “God will-
ing, we shall give him a damned hollow defeat,” wrote Sarat, who was
con fi dent of his youn ger brother’s prospects. Subhas could not even
release his manifesto: po lit i cal prisoners were not permitted to issue
appeals to the public.^42 Throughout the autumn of 1926, Sarat man-
aged Subhas’s election campaign, as well as his own from the university
con stit u en cy, with consummate skill. Both were rewarded in the winter
with thumping victories. The supporters of the Bose brothers cele-
brated with fireworks, and “Victory to Subhas Chandra” in glittering
Bengali letters illuminated the Calcutta sky.^43 The colonial authorities