The Warrior and the Saint 173
of new converts.” From the perspective of India and Indians, both
- isms had “wreaked havoc.” “If we hate totalitarianism,” he proclaimed,
“we hate imperialism more.” Adding a Shakespearean touch, he de-
clared his refusal to beg “with bated breath and whispering humble-
ness” to subsist in his own homeland. “If to demand our birthright is to
be a rebel in act and deed,” he concluded, “quoting the words of a great
Irishman I shall say ‘I am proud to be a rebel and shall cling to my re-
bellion with the last drop of my blood.’”^88
Subhas, for his part, held up the examples of the Sinn Féin rejec-
tion of Lloyd George’s Irish Convention, and the Bolshevik withdrawal
from the Russian Constituent Assembly in 1917, for Indian nationalists
to emulate.^89 One obstacle in the path of compromise, Bose noted, was
the British penchant for using the minorities “as a le ver against the
Congress.” But he felt that if a compromise with the Congress High
Command could be worked out, the British “would be prepared to
let down the Muslim League.” Although Bose glimpsed what was to
transpire in 1947, when the British would forsake their Muslim and
princely allies, it was premature on his part to anticipate splits in both
the Congress and the Muslim League in the event of a compromise
with the British by the Congress right wing. In such an eventuality, he
expected the loyalist elements in the Muslim League to side with the
compromisers and break away “from Mr. Jinnah and the pro gres sive
sections who are in flu en tial in the League Council today.” In the event
the Congress High Command struck a deal with British imperialism,
Bose hoped for “the voluntary withdrawal or expulsion from the Con-
gress of the compromise- wallahs.” “Why should we secede from the
Congress,” he asked, “and allow the backsliders to inherit the name and
the traditions of that body?”^90
No compromise with British imperialism: this was Bose’s theme and
motto during 1940. When the Indian National Congress met for its an-
nual session under the presidency of Abul Kalam Azad at Ramgarh in
March, Bose held his own mammoth Anti- Compromise Conference
close to the site of that meeting. His parallel conference compared fa-
vorably with the of fi cial gathering in size and enthusiasm, despite some