174 HIS MAJESTY’S OPPONENT
inclement weather. The peasant volunteers of Swami Sahajanand Sara-
swati provided the or ga ni za tional backbone of Bose’s conference at this
Bihar venue. “The age of Imperialism,” he declared, “is drawing to a
close and the era of freedom, democracy and socialism looms ahead of
us. India, therefore, stands at one of the crossroads of his tory.” His
Ramgarh address contained a blistering attack on the indecisive nature
of the existing leadership at that fateful moment. He issued a call for a
po lit i cal consolidation of all genuine leftists. “In the present phase of
our movement,” he explained, “Leftists will be all those who will wage
an uncompromising fight with Imperialism. In the next phase of our
movement, Leftism will be synonymous with socialism.”^91
Bose interpreted the Second World War as a con flict between rival
imperialisms. From April 1940 onward—as the “old imperialist power,”
Britain, seemed to be discomfited by the “new imperialist power,” Ger-
many—Bose turned his attention more spe cifi cally to ways of forging
unity among the religious communities.^92 March 1940 had witnessed
not just the rival Ramgarh meetings, but also the momentous Lahore
session of the All- India Muslim League. Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the
leader of the League, claimed the Muslims of India were not just a mi-
nority seeking safeguards, but a nation deserving an equitable sharing
of power with the Hindus. The Muslim League passed a resolution at
Lahore, stating that the Muslim- majority provinces in the northwest
and east of the subcontinent should be grouped to constitute in de-
pendent states. The resolution also spoke of a “constitution” (in the
singular) that would cover all- India arrangements and protect minor-
ity rights. Not quite a secessionist demand, the Lahore resolution men-
tioned neither Pakistan nor partition. It sought to balance the needs
and aspirations of Muslims in both majority provinces and minority
provinces, in the face of Congress majoritarianism and quest for power
in a unitary state.^93
While being sharply critical of “communalism”—a word which by
now had acquired a clear pejorative connotation, that of being a nar-
row, religiously based particularism—Subhas Chandra Bose did not
seem to have been entirely persuaded by the mainstream Congress dis-
course on a singular nationalism exemplified by Jawaharlal Nehru. A
Bengali Muslim leader, Abul Mansur Ahmed, had explained to Bose