80 HIS MAJESTY’S OPPONENT
rebellious tendency in Bengal, not just against the British but against
the all- India leadership of the Congress as well. During the brief period
that he was able to serve as mayor upon his release from prison, Subhas
tried to keep alive his mentor’s legacy in municipal affairs. On January
26, 1931, as he was leading a peaceful in de pen dence day pro ces sion, he
was brutally attacked by mounted police and hauled away to Calcutta’s
police headquarters at Lalbazaar. The next day, Calcutta’s mayor was
presented in his blood- soaked clothes at a local court. He was charged
with rioting and sent once more to prison. The colonial government
recognized the threat to their rule that Bose represented, and was de-
termined to stifle him.
All sig nifi cant Indian po lit i cal parties had rejected the Simon Com-
mission’s report, published in July 1930, and the first round- table con-
ference in London boycotted by the Congress had made no headway. In
early 1931, therefore, the viceroy, Lord Irwin, invited Mahatma Gandhi
for talks. Winston Churchill may have found it “nauseating” to see “the
half- naked fakir” striding up the steps of the viceregal palace to parley
on equal terms with the representative of the king- emperor. But Gan-
dhi was the king- emperor for India’s peasant masses, and the identity
of appearance and aspiration between the leader and his followers
seemed absolute. In return for the release of po lit i cal prisoners, the
restoration of some of the con fis cated land, and the freedom of coastal
people to make salt free of duty, Gandhi agreed to suspend the civil
disobedience movement and take part in the second round- table con-
ference, to be held in London.
It appeared once more to those who were in jail that their leader had
conceded too much for too little, through the Gandhi- Irwin pact of
March 1931. Subhas was disappointed by the terms of the truce, but
decided to hold his fire until he had a chance to meet the Mahatma and
hear his point of view. Upon his release, he rushed to Bombay to meet
Gandhi and was sat is fied that the leader had not diluted his stand on
in de pen dence. Subhas continued his talks as he traveled by train with
the Mahatma from Bombay to Delhi, and saw for himself from the
ovation at wayside stations that Gandhi was at the zenith of his popu-
larity. Upon their arrival in Delhi, Subhas was shocked to hear that the
government had decided to execute the Punjabi revolutionary Bhagat