months’ rigorous imprisonment for each offence, the sentences to run con-
secutively – making four years in all. The trial lasted three days, although
Nehru had pleaded guilty and refused to defend himself, insisting instead
that the Defence of India Rules were ‘the greatest insult that can be
inflicted on the country’.^11 The trial, Nehru’s sister Vijayalakshmi
observed at the time, had an ‘Alice in Wonderland’ element about it;
Nehru agreed that ‘but for the prison sentence at the end, one could not
take it seriously’.^12 This was his eighth conviction; he settled quickly into
his jail routine of spinning, reading and yogasupplemented by cooking
for and playing badminton with his brother-in-law Ranjit Pandit, who
joined him in prison. He also formed a strong attachment to the prison
dog. This time he found it difficult to avoid being depressed both by his
personal circumstances and by news of world affairs that filtered through
to him. Soon he was mourning the death of Rabindranath Tagore (who
died in August 1941). ‘Perhaps it is as well,’ he noted, ‘that he died now
and did not see the many horrors that are likely to descend in increasing
measure on the world and on India. He had seen enough and he was
infinitely sad and unhappy.’^13 To keep himself occupied, Nehru decided
to work on a second instalment of his autobiography, the first volume of
which had just been published in America and had been acclaimed as a
masterpiece; events overtook the draft and it was never published.
Among the more romantic incidents of the war was the escape of
Subhas Chandra Bose from house arrest in Calcutta in January 1941.
Travelling via Afghanistan and the Soviet Union (where he had hoped
for but failed to obtain support), Bose reappeared in Berlin in April, asking
for German guarantees of Indian independence after the war in the event
of an Axis victory. The Nazi leadership were not averse to allowing him
to make propaganda broadcasts to India, but stopped short of providing
him with any guarantees or concrete assistance. (Having spent nearly
two years in this frustrating situation, Bose made his way to Japan by
submarine to take command of an Indian National Army organised
from among Indian prisoners of war in Japan. He arrived too late: the
moment for an invasion had passed with the loss of momentum of the
Japanese advance, and his having missed the opportunity of the Quit India
Movement.)
The viceroy, meanwhile, sought to work around the Congress if they
would not cooperate. In July 1941, the Viceroy’s Executive Council was
expanded, to include eight Indians out of a total of twelve members.110 THE END OF THE RAJ