His Majesty\'s Opponent. Subhas Chandra Bose and India\'s Struggle Against Empire

Dreams of Youth 73

queer mixture of po lit i cal democrats and social conservatives.” He de-
clared in unequivocal terms:

If we want to make India really great, we must build up a po lit i cal de-

mocracy on the pedestal of a democratic society. Privileges based on

birth, caste or creed should go, and equal opportunities should be

thrown open to all irrespective of caste, creed or religion. The sta tus of

women should also be raised, and women should be trained to take a

larger and a more intelligent interest in public affairs.

While not opposed to “any patch- up work” needed for “healing com-
munal sores,” he sought a “deeper remedy” through “cultural rap-
prochement.” He regretted that the various communities inhabiting
India were “too exclusive.” “Fanaticism is the greatest thorn in the
path of cultural intimacy,” he told his audience, “and there is no better
remedy for fanaticism than secular and sci en tific education.” This was
the first occasion on which Bose used the term “secular.” For him, secu-
larism was not hostile to religiously informed cultural identities, but
could help to foster “cultural intimacy” among India’s diverse religious
communities. He was staking out a middle ground between Nehru’s
secularism, with its distaste for expressions of religious difference, and
Gandhi’s harnessing of various religious faiths in energizing mass poli-
tics. He underscored three cardinal principles for the framers of India’s
constitution: popular sovereignty, equal citizenship rights, and a sys-
tem of joint electorates rather than separate ones for different religious
communities.^57
In July 1928, Subhas had warmly endorsed the candidacy of Motilal
Nehru for the presidency of the Indian National Congress.^58 He could
not, however, bring himself to support the majority view on the Moti-
lal Nehru Committee: that dominion sta tus within the empire should
be India’s po lit i cal objective. He joined Motilal’s son Jawaharlal and
other young radicals at an August meeting in Lucknow and decided to
form an “Inde pen dence for India League” to advocate the goal of com-
plete in de pen dence. In November the league was inaugurated in Delhi,
and branches were set up in many parts of the country to pressure the