The Warrior and the Saint 171a month before, Subhas Chandra Bose was specially invited to attend a
three- day meeting of the Congress Working Committee at Wardha,
beginning on September 9. He urged the Congress to launch a mass
movement to wrest India’s freedom from Britain.^82 But the Congress
leadership was not quite ready to do this, and instead asked the British
to clarify their war aims. Its resolution expressed sympathy for Poland,
stated that it had no quarrel with Germany, and asked the British how
the principles of freedom and democracy would apply to India.
As a preeminent po lit i cal leader, Bose was invited to an audience
with Viceroy Linlithgow on October 10. After the meeting, Bose made
it plain that he did not speak with two voices, one in public and an-
other in private. He had communicated India’s national demand to His
Majesty’s representative. Linlithgow’s response to the call to de fine
Britain’s war aims came as a huge disappointment to the Congress. The
viceroy was authorized to convey His Majesty’s government’s willing-
ness to consult representatives of parties and communities in British
India and the princely states, to bring about appropriate constitu-
tional mod i fi ca tions—but such consultations should take place only at
the war’s end. The reply deeply embarrassed the Congress leadership,
which had been saying it did not want to embarrass the British during
their dif fi culty. In frustration and anger, the Congress High Command
directed all of its provincial ministries to resign of fice. These eight
provinces would be administered by British governors and their civil
servants for the duration of the Second World War.^83
During the war crisis of 1939, the rest of the Congress leadership
behaved like His Majesty’s Opposition; having shed all the inhibitions
of colonial subjecthood, Bose alone stood forth as His Majesty’s Op-
ponent.^84 In December 1939, Tagore urged Gandhi to withdraw the
disciplinary action against Bose and cordially invite his cooperation in
the “supreme interest of national unity.” Gandhi would not be per-
suaded. He had C. F. Andrews convey the message that the matter was
“too com pli cated for Gurudev to handle.” Tagore was offended by the
tenor of the response, even though Gandhi added: “Let him trust that
no one in the Committee has anything personal against Subhas. For
me, he is as my son.” Subhas could only console himself that Bapu’s
treatment of him came nowhere close to the harshness of the discipline